Dear builders,
Happy New Year.
In the final weeks of 2025, the Dify team traveled across Europe. From the packed meetup venues in London and Berlin to the closed-door enterprise sessions in Oslo and Lisbon, and the industry gathering at the Grand Palais in Paris.
We traveled alongside partners like Artefact, AWS, Camel AI, Claranet, NeuroSYS, and VIER. Originally, we set out to share our vision. But it quickly turned into a valuable two-way exchange.
What we observed was striking in its diversity.
We saw Dify deployed on local servers in historic German municipalities, powering independent developers building entirely new tools from their laptops, and scaling within the complex infrastructure of global enterprises.
The contrast in scale was sharp, but the underlying motivation was the same.
Whether it was a solo builder verifying their first idea or the AI department from a global enterprise deploying AI in different countries, the conversation has clearly shifted. It is no longer about the novelty of AI; it is about the practical work of turning technology into tangible impact.
Before we dive into the specific stories from our trip, here are three observations from our team on the ground.
Insights from the Road
The Brutal Truth About Velocity "In our closed-door sessions with European enterprises, the lesson was simple and harsh: You cannot unlock real business value if you’re stuck building the plumbing. We met teams who wasted months trying to build internal platforms—the 'Not Invented Here' trap—only to realize they were fighting the wrong war. The winners in 2025 won't be the ones building infrastructure; they'll be the ones aggressively deploying business logic on top of it." — Xinrui, General Manager EU
The Temperature of Technology "In the municipality of Laer, Germany, we saw what 'AI democratization' looks like in practice. Mayor Kluthe and his team are not just deploying technology; they are actively building tools to improve citizens' daily well-being—from simplifying administrative services to preserving 15th-century local knowledge. His hands-on approach and clear commitment to data sovereignty reminded us that the true value of AI lies in its ability to serve real people and tangible public needs." — Sijia, Operations & Marketing
The Rise of the Super-Individual "At developer gatherings in London and Berlin, we met individuals building solutions that would typically require entire departments. With Dify serving as their 'invisible backend team,' the gap between 'having an idea' and 'shipping a product' has narrowed significantly. It is a uniquely empowering moment for solo builders. You don't necessarily need a large team anymore; rather, you just need curiosity and an API key." — Yi, Global Partnerships
3 Stories from the European Frontlines
If you are looking for inspiration for 2026, look no further than these three builders.
The Mayor Who "Resurrected" History
The Builder: Manfred Kluthe, Mayor of Laer, in the smart region of Münsterland, Germany.
Germany’s digital landscape is often described as a Flickenteppich (patchwork)—decentralized and heavily regulated. For Mayor Kluthe, who studied Mechanical and Design Engineering as well as Informatics, Economics, and Political Science, and who worked for many years as a teacher, navigating this environment required a solution that was agile, user-friendly, and secure.
After testing nearly ten open-source tools, he chose Dify. The primary reasons were its “native and intuitive” visual interface, combined with the ability to host it locally alongside open-source AI models. This ensured compliance with strict data privacy laws. Dify, Ollama, and all processing in his setup operate fully locally, without any connection to external services or APIs.
As he noted, “Trust comes from trustworthy tools… we must keep both German knowledge and the dialogue around it safe, not let them flow away like water.”
He envisions AI as essential infrastructure—“like streets, electricity, or water”—delivered through a single city app. He has already deployed Laera, a service bot that answers citizen queries with 99% accuracy by strictly anchoring the model to the municipal knowledge ecosystem.
His next move is to integrate Dify with BundID (Germany’s digital ID). The goal is to evolve from simply providing information to truly “getting things done”—for example, automating processes such as dog registration or business registration entirely within a chat interface.
Beyond this, he sees strong potential in operating AI agents with Dify across the entire city to support citizens in their everyday interactions with local administration and services. These agents are intended to be developed collaboratively with residents. He views the municipality as a fully developed community in which everyone can actively shape and contribute to AI—whether through community and club offerings or IoT-based solutions that together create a shared smart city experience.
In his role as the city’s first economic development officer, Kluthe also aims to empower local businesses—from skilled crafts and trades to small and medium-sized enterprises. His goal is to demonstrate that every organization can build and operate such a platform independently, using open technologies and local infrastructure.
Yet his vision extends beyond this. He also used the platform to ingest the works of Werner Rolevinck, a 15th-century local historian whose printed world chronicle acted as a knowledge multiplier—transforming the world of his time much like AI is doing today—thereby effectively “resurrecting” him for modern citizens to converse with.
The Lesson: Mayor Kluthe demonstrates that when usability, digital sovereignty, and local empowerment are aligned, governments can modernize rapidly. AI can support public services, strengthen local businesses, and preserve cultural heritage—all while keeping data safely within city limits.
The Logistics Giant: A Masterclass in Speed
The Builder: A Global Shipping and Logistics Leader.
During a private enterprise session, their Director of AI Solutions Engineering shared a timeline that every CTO should see.
Q1 2023 (The Trap): They tried to build their own GenAI platform. 4 engineers × 4 months = 1 App. The verdict? Too complex to scale.
Q2 2023 (The Pivot): They switched to Dify. 1 engineer × 2 weeks = 1 App.
They described Dify as a "timebomb"—in a good way. Once the infrastructure was set, they lit the fuse. Today, they have 90+ apps live across the company, serving 25,000 users, and transforming operations across their global network.
From checking 100% of tariff invoices (stopping revenue leakage) to automating millions of customer emails, they proved that speed is strategy.
The Lesson: Don't reinvent the wheel. The difference between "4 months" and "2 weeks" is the difference between a project that dies in the lab and a portfolio that transforms the enterprise.
Tearing Down the Wall Between Tech and Biz
The Builder: Arik Meyer, Founder of Switchup.de.
Switchup manages electricity and mobile subscriptions for hundreds of thousands of households in Germany. Their challenge? Handling a flood of unstructured data—letters from suppliers about price hikes and complex multi-intent emails from customers (e.g., "I'm moving house AND I need a cheaper plan").
Arik used Dify to build a "Classification & Routing" workflow. But the real breakthrough was organizational.
Traditionally, developers build the AI, and business teams complain about the results. Arik changed the game. He uses "AI Enablers" to build the framework, but lets "Domain Experts" (non-coders) tune the prompts and knowledge bases directly in Dify’s visual interface.
The Lesson: When you give the experts the tools to "teach" the AI themselves, accuracy skyrockets. Dify isn't just a tech stack; it's a common language for your team.
Reflections for the Road Ahead
Whether you are a mayor modernizing public services, a founder like Arik bridging the gap between experts and code, or an engineering director at a global logistics leader transforming operations at scale—you are effectively doing the same thing.
You are moving past the hype to deliver tangible results.
This reaffirms our core belief: Dify for Builders.
To us, empowerment isn't just a buzzword. It means giving you the sovereignty to protect your data, the extensibility to push technical boundaries, and the simplicity to turn business logic into reality.
Dify is universal. It is agile enough to support a solo developer’s curiosity, and robust enough to carry the weight of a municipality or a Fortune 500 enterprise.
As we step into 2026, our commitment to you is straightforward: We will continue to build the most reliable, extensible infrastructure possible, empowering you to solve the problems that truly matter.
We are always looking for fellow travelers. Whether you want to build with us, become local partners, join the team, or simply say hi—we are here. Tell us your story at xinruiliu@dify.ai, yxiao@dify.ai, sijia@dify.ai. We can't wait to hear from you!
Warm regards,
Dify Team
