Digital sovereignty: why your business processes are affected (even if you don't believe it)
In June 2026, Washington restricted access to certain leading American artificial intelligence models, before reversing the decision. A strong signal: a digital tool can become inaccessible on the mere decision of a foreign government.
Yet, according to an OpinionWay poll for Sia Partners published in September 2026, 73% of French business leaders say that this episode has not changed their stance on digital sovereignty.
The same poll reveals a paradox even more interesting. Leaders do not demand sovereignty. They demand what it brings, without calling it by that name.
What French leaders really say
The study was conducted in July 2026 among 1 023 business leaders. When asked about their criteria for choosing a digital AI-enabled solution, here is what emerged:
- Cybersecurity : 38 %
- Data governance : 27 %
- Cost : 24 %
- Regulatory compliance : 15 %
- Sovereignty or a European supplier : 11 %
- Reversibility (the ability to switch provider) : 4 %
In companies with 100 employees or more, data governance rises to 48% and cybersecurity to 62%.
The paradox: wanting to master your data without talking about sovereignty
To master your data is to know three things: who can access it, who can cut off access, and how to recover it. That is exactly the definition of digital sovereignty for a business.
In other words, 27% of leaders request digital sovereignty. They simply do not call it that.
The real alert signal lies elsewhere: only 4% cite reversibility. Yet this is precisely what allows you to take back control the day a provider changes its prices, terms, or access.
Digital sovereignty, business version: 3 simple questions
Forget geopolitics. For a service manager, digital sovereignty boils down to three questions to ask about every tool used by your team.
1. Who can read your data?
A tool hosted in Europe is not necessarily protected. The CLOUD Act, the American law passed in 2018, allows American authorities to require a provider subject to American law to hand over data, including when they are stored outside the United States.
In June 2025, during the Senate's investigative committee hearing, a Microsoft France official acknowledged that they could not guarantee that the data of French customers would never be transmitted to American authorities.
The question to ask is therefore not only "Where are my data hosted?", but also "Under what law is my provider subject?".
2. Who can cut access?
The June 2026 AI episode showed it: a political decision taken abroad can suspend access to a service, even temporarily. If this service runs your invoice validations or your purchase requests, your activity stops.
3. How to leave if needed?
Being able to export your data is not enough. Your business rules (who approves what, starting from what amount, within what timeframe) must also be documented and transferable. Otherwise, changing tool means rebuilding everything from memory.
Your sensitive data are not in the cloud: they are in your processes.
When we talk about sovereignty, we think of servers, email, file storage. We forget business tools, often chosen directly by the teams.
Yet this is where your most sensitive information circulates daily:
- A leave request contains employees' personal data.
- An expense report contains financial and banking data.
- A customer complaint contains contact details and a commercial history.
- An approved supplier invoice contains your purchasing terms and amounts. Since September 1, 2026, with electronic invoicing, this circuit has become central.
Each validation workflow is therefore also a sovereignty question.
Test your business tools in 15 minutes
List the tools used by your service to handle requests, validations or files. For each, answer these five questions:
- In which country are the data hosted?
- In which country is the publisher based, and what law applies to it?
- Do data leave Europe, even for maintenance or support?
- Is exporting your data and your operating rules straightforward?
- Who in your team could rebuild the process if the tool disappeared tomorrow?
Each answer "I don't know" is a point of fragility. Start with processes that handle HR data, financial or customer data.
Airprocess: your business processes under your control
Airprocess is a French no-code software for process management. Business teams build their forms, validation circuits, dashboards and automations there, without a developer.
On sovereignty, the answers are simple :
Hosting in France. Your data are hosted in France and are not transferred to jurisdictions outside Europe.
GDPR compliance. The platform is GDPR-compliant, with encryption, redundant backups and per-user access control.
A French software vendor. Airprocess allows building applications without coding since 2009.
Processes you control. Your teams build and modify their circuits autonomously: your business rules do not depend on a service provider.
Connected to your ecosystem. Airprocess integrates with Make and n8n.
BNP Paribas, Orange, Groupama, Heineken and Bpifrance trust Airprocess for their processes.
Book your demo on the site: www.airprocess.com
FAQs
What does digital sovereignty mean for a company?
It is the ability for a company to keep control of its data and its tools: knowing who can access them, preventing a third party from cutting access, and being able to switch provider without losing everything.
Is GDPR enough to protect my data?
No. GDPR governs the use of personal data. It does not, by itself, prevent a foreign authority from demanding data from a provider subject to its own law, as allowed by the American CLOUD Act.
Does hosting in France guarantee sovereignty?
Not by itself. You must also verify the nationality of the publisher and the host, and the law to which they are subject.
Is a SME affected by digital sovereignty?
Yes. As soon as a company processes employee, customer or financial data in an online tool, the question arises, regardless of its size.
What does reversibility mean?
It is the ability to leave a provider by retrieving your data and its operation in a usable format. Only 4% of leaders cite it as a criterion for selection, yet it conditions all control of your tools.