The Complete Guide to Using AI in the Government Industry in Denmark in 2025

Denmark's public sector stands at a practical inflection point in 2025: roughly one-quarter of authorities now use AI in case processing and 28% of Danish companies adopted AI in 2024 - nearly double the year before - so this guide focuses on turning pilots into safe, scalable services while navigating the EU AI Act, skills gaps and citizen trust.

It explains why national moves like the AI Kompetence Pagten and Denmark's public‑private playbook matter, how homegrown stacks such as the GRACE platform support data sovereignty, and what real-world tools (from the Børge editor assistant to fleet‑optimization pilots) teach about governance and upskilling; see the Decoding AI briefing for the policy context and the SiliconCanals piece on GRACE for technical practice.

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“It is well known that the UK has a globally competitive AI talent pool and is ambitious with initiatives like the AI incubator, which drives AI solutions for public departments. Those initiatives have been an inspiration also to Denmark.”

Denmark's AI case in 2025 is pragmatic: decades of coordinated digital policy have built a trusted backbone - complete with MitID as the personal eID gateway to public and banking services - that makes the public sector unusually ready to pilot and scale AI, and the country again tops global e‑government rankings while seeing 28% of firms adopt AI in 2024, nearly double the EU average, which together make Denmark a rare testbed for production‑grade public AI; at the same time, national efforts such as the AI Kompetence Pagten and the National Uptake Fund are pushing practical upskilling and pilots (from editor assistants to transport optimisation) but gaps remain - Denmark lags some Nordic peers on generative AI uptake, faces ICT recruitment pressures and persistent cyber and identity‑theft risks - so success now depends on pairing Denmark's strong infrastructure and public trust with clear governance, AI literacy, data sovereignty and human oversight as non‑negotiable design constraints (see the Ministry's briefing and Invest in Denmark for the adoption numbers and national initiatives).

“a good, helping hand during a busy workday,”

For Danish public agencies the EU Artificial Intelligence Act is the legal spine they must design around: it sorts AI into four risk buckets - unacceptable (prohibited), high, limited (transparency) and minimal - and treats high‑risk systems (including those named in Annex III) with strict lifecycle duties for providers and deployers such as risk‑management, data governance, logging, human oversight and technical documentation (see a concise EU summary EU Artificial Intelligence Act high-level summary); crucially, the law also puts general‑purpose AI under new transparency and, for systemic models, incident‑reporting and adversarial testing obligations.

Practical implementation is a mix of EU and national action: the Commission has published non‑binding guidance on the AI system definition (available in Danish) to help organisations decide whether software qualifies as AI, and the EU's Article 6 rules spell out how Annex III use‑cases (from biometrics to access to public services) become “high‑risk” unless they truly pose no material threat to health, safety or rights - so a vivid takeaway for Denmark is that real‑time biometric ID in public spaces is largely banned, with only narrow, judicially‑backed law‑enforcement exceptions.

Oversight will combine the new EU AI Office (for GPAI) with member‑state competent authorities, so Danish agencies should inventory systems now, map which obligations apply, and build compliance into procurement and vendor contracts rather than retrofitting it later.

Milestone	Deadline after Entry into Force
Prohibited practices take effect	6 months
GPAI obligations begin	12 months
High‑risk (Annex III) obligations apply	24 months
High‑risk under product safety (Annex I)	36 months

Regulation in Denmark is now a practical mix of EU rules and clear national designations: the Agency for Digital Government (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen) has been positioned as the national coordinating supervisory and single point of contact, with the Danish Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet) playing a central market‑surveillance role for biometric and data‑protection risks and the Danish Court Administration overseeing courts' administrative AI use; these appointments were signalled in an April 2024 designation and reinforced when Parliament adopted implementing legislation in May 2025 that comes into force on 2 August 2025, so public teams should treat the Agency as their operational entry point for conformity and cross‑border queries (see the Chambers practice guide for the legal context and the Agency's own guides for hands‑on advice).

Practical support is also available via Denmark's regulatory sandbox and non‑binding templates and lifecycle guidance from the DDPA and Digitaliseringsstyrelsen, which emphasise phased risk assessments from design to operation - a useful, concrete lifeline when procurement timelines meet legal uncertainty; note too the active working group that meets several times a year to coordinate practice across agencies.

Authority	Primary role
Agency for Digital Government (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen)	Notifying authority / coordinating market surveillance / single point of contact
Danish Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet)	Market surveillance for data‑protection and biometric AI; DPIA templates and guidance
Danish Court Administration (Domsstolsstyrelsen)	Oversight of AI use in courts and judicial administration

Denmark's national playbook for AI in 2025 mixes clear strategy, pilots and real money: multi‑year roadmaps and collaborative public‑private strategies aim to push AI from experiments to everyday services while addressing skill gaps, and regulatory sandboxes and lifecycle templates give public teams a safer place to test systems before full roll‑out.

The European Digital Decade country report lays out a €1.07 billion digital roadmap (with €832 million from public budgets) and shows high public trust - 81% of Danes say digitalisation makes life easier - while connectivity and sectoral plans back this with practical targets and investment; the government's digitisation strategies (2022–2026 and 2024–2027) also include a ~DKK 800 million package for 2024–27 to boost AI, digital education and the green transition.

Together these measures - summarised in the national strategy and the digital connectivity plan - signal that funding, infrastructure and institutional support exist to scale responsible AI in government, but they also underline the need for targeted upskilling and SME outreach so benefits reach beyond a few hubs (see the full Denmark 2025 Digital Decade country report (EU Digital Decade) and the Denmark digital connectivity strategy 2024–2027 (EU digital connectivity) for details).

Measure	Amount / Note
Denmark 2025 Digital Decade country report (EU Digital Decade)	€1.07 billion total (€832 million public)
Recovery & Resilience contribution	€382 million
Cohesion funds for digital transformation	€63 million
Denmark digital connectivity strategy 2024–2027 (EU digital connectivity)	Approx. DKK 800 million
Public sentiment	81% say digitalisation makes life easier (Eurobarometer)

Denmark's most visible homegrown AI project in 2025 is the editor assistant Børge - launched in February to help editors rewrite and standardise content across borger.dk and lifeindenmark.borger.dk - supporting roughly 40 authorities and some 1,200 pages so that generative text aids readability without replacing human judgement; the case shows how GenAI can be positioned as a good, helping hand during a busy workday while practical pilots elsewhere test more specialised uses.

Other notable public‑sector projects include healthcare documentation pilots and a municipal documentation tool developed with Systematic, Tryg Forsikring's injury‑documentation assistant from the regulatory sandbox, automated property‑valuation systems and profiling tools like STAR for unemployment risk - each illustrating different risk profiles and governance needs described in the Chambers Denmark AI guide - and these operational tests sit alongside a national compliance playbook for assistants (the “Responsible Use of AI Assistants” initiative backed by industry players such as Microsoft and Netcompany) that aims to scale safe, auditable deployments; for practitioners wanting the full brief, see the Decoding AI briefing on Børge and the Chambers practice guide on Danish government AI projects and regulation.

Project	Purpose	Source
Børge	Editor assistant for borger.dk / lifeindenmark.borger.dk (rewrite & style suggestions)	Decoding AI briefing on Børge (Digital Hub Denmark)
Tryg Forsikring pilot	AI assistant to streamline injury documentation (regulatory sandbox)	Chambers practice guide on artificial intelligence in Denmark (2025)
Systematic healthcare tool	Municipal healthcare documentation support	Chambers practice guide on artificial intelligence in Denmark (2025)
Responsible Use framework	National compliance blueprint for AI assistants (public/private partnership)	OpenTools summary of Denmark's AI compliance blueprint (Responsible Use of AI Assistants)

“a good, helping hand during a busy workday,”

Effective governance in Denmark now ties strategy to concrete operational controls: agencies are expected to map systems, run formal risk assessments, document training data and logging, and bake human oversight into deployment so AI supports decisions rather than replacing them; this approach is reinforced by a citizen‑centric national strategy and targeted funding that prioritises ethics, skills and public‑data use (see the OECD overview of Denmark's AI initiatives).

A practical linchpin is the public‑private

“Responsible Use”

blueprint - adopted by ministries, major banks, ATP and Microsoft - which gives hands‑on directions for compliant, auditable assistant deployments and helps organisations turn high‑level duties into procurement clauses and staff training (read Netcompany's summary of the framework).

Underpinning all of this is Denmark's long‑standing push for a common public‑sector digital architecture to ensure secure cross‑organisational processes and traceable data flows, a vital piece of infrastructure when audits, liability claims and insurance questions follow a malfunction (see the Agency for Digital Government white paper).

The takeaway: marry clear roles, concrete lifecycle checks and shared technical foundations so pilots scale into trustworthy, insurable services for citizens.

Governance element	Why it matters / Source
National strategy & funding	OECD Denmark AI initiatives overview
Responsible Use framework (public‑private)	Netcompany Responsible Use blueprint for AI implementation in Denmark
Common digital architecture	Agency for Digital Government white paper on common public sector digital architecture

Procurement in Denmark now has to treat AI as more than a feature: public buyers should build contracts that explicitly pin down intellectual‑property ownership and licences for models, training data, prompts and outputs, because Danish practice warns that AI‑created works may fall outside traditional copyright and providers' terms can quietly shift rights away from contracting authorities (see the Chambers practice guide on AI in Denmark).

Equally important is data governance - Danish law already includes text‑and‑data‑mining exceptions (Sections 11b–11c of the Copyright Act) but rights‑holders can bar commercial TDM, and the DDPA's guidance stresses transparency, purpose limitation and deletion rights for personal data embedded in models.

Relying blindly on the EU's model contractual AI clauses is not a panacea: recent updates and expert commentary show the MCC‑AI are a helpful template but deliberately leave acceptance, IP allocation, payment, and detailed technical guarantees to the main contract, so buyers must flesh out audit rights, indemnities and performance baselines rather than assuming the clause pack will do the heavy lifting.

Finally, generative‑AI risk profiles demand specific safeguards - clauses on third‑party rights, vendor obligations to remove copyrighted training content, and clear liability splits - because uncertainty over ownership of outputs (and even OpenAI‑style provider terms) can turn a citizen‑facing chatbot into a costly IP and privacy headache overnight.

Contract element	Why it matters / Source
IP ownership & licences	AI assets (models, prompts, outputs) may lack clear copyright - must be contractually allocated (Chambers)
Data governance & TDM	Text/data‑mining exceptions exist but can be restricted by rights‑holders; privacy rules require deletion and transparency (Chambers)
Model contractual clauses (MCC‑AI)	Useful template but do not by themselves resolve IP, acceptance or payment - detail must be added in the main contract (Commission / Slaughter & May)
Liability, indemnities & audit rights	Essential to allocate risk for IP infringement, data breaches and performance failures; public buyers should secure audit and remediation rights (MCC‑AI / Chambers)

Liability in Denmark is now a live compliance factor for any public AI deployment: national implementing legislation adopted on 8 May 2025 and entering into force on 2 August 2025 gives Danish authorities clear jurisdiction while the EU's twin liability reforms reshape who pays when AI causes harm.

The revised Product Liability Directive has broadened “product” to cover standalone software and AI, imposes strict (no‑fault) liability in many cases and even extends latent‑injury time limits (insurers and providers must plan for exposures that can surface years later), and the proposed AI Liability Directive (AILD) would ease victims' access to redress by introducing evidence‑disclosure tools and rebuttable presumptions of causality for certain AI failures - practical shifts that will push suppliers, deployers and buyers to harden documentation, monitoring and contractual indemnities now rather than after an incident.

For procurement teams that manage citizen‑facing services this means tightening audit and logging rights, insisting on insurance and remedy clauses, and treating model governance (data lineage, testing, human oversight) as an insurable control: one striking consequence is that product‑liability exposure may linger for decades - plans should therefore factor longer “longstop” periods and evolving AILD disclosure duties when negotiating IP, warranty and insurance terms (see the Danish implementation summary and the detailed industry brief on the new PLD/AILD landscape).

Instrument	Key point
Denmark national AI implementation (May–Aug 2025)	Parliament adopted national law 8 May 2025; enters into force 2 Aug 2025; designates supervisory authorities.
Revised Product Liability Directive (PLD)	Strict liability expanded to include software/AI; new damage definitions and extended limitation periods (latent injury up to 25 years).
AI Liability Directive (AILD) – proposal	Proposed fault‑based rules to ease proof (evidence disclosure, rebuttable presumptions); still under review at EU level.

Practical checklist and conclusion: Getting AI right in Denmark in 2025 comes down to a short, concrete playbook that teams can act on today: 1) inventory every AI use and map data flows, then classify systems against the EU AI Act and Denmark's implementing law so high‑risk tools get lifecycle controls and DPIAs; 2) run risk‑based DPIAs and prepare clear logging and human‑in‑the‑loop rules so systems are explainable and auditable when inspectors ask for evidence (Denmark's new enforcement rules made these powers explicit); 3) harden procurement - contractually allocate IP and model rights, add audit and indemnity clauses, insist on remediation SLAs and insurance that account for expanded product‑liability exposures; 4) use sandboxes and national templates to test assistants and generative models before full roll‑out, and follow the Agency for Digital Government and DDPA guidance on transparency and profiling; 5) build staff competence - operational prompts, prompt‑testing and practical governance - so teams can spot bias, minimise personal data use and run patch/monitoring cycles; and 6) watch evolving GDPR revision proposals and national guidance so compliance effort stays proportionate for SMEs but defensible for citizen services.

Checklist item	Why it matters / Source
Classify systems & run DPIAs	Denmark national AI implementation summary - EU AI Act implementation
Prepare for inspections & enforcement	Denmark new enforcement rules on responsible AI (entered into force 2 Aug 2025)
Monitor GDPR/ePrivacy reform & procurement impacts	Coverage of Denmark's GDPR and ePrivacy revision proposals
Upskill teams in practical AI governance	Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - 15-week practical AI training for the workplace

Treat your audit logs like a "black box" for citizen services: if they're complete, traceable and tied to contractual remedies, procurement and insurance suddenly become manageable rather than speculative.

For legal and supervisory details see the Denmark national AI implementation summary on EU AI Act implementation and the new enforcement rules on responsible AI, and for practical upskilling consider applied workplace training like the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work (15-week applied AI at work bootcamp) to turn governance into repeatable practice.