Red.es €40 million AI funding: who can apply and how SMEs can benefit

Red.es has opened an invitation to fund the development of artificial intelligence models and platforms as a service for SMEs and start-ups, with a budget of up to €40 million. However, your business cannot apply directly as an SME under this procedure. Eligible applicants include business or professional associations and technology centres, either individually or in groups of up to five organisations.

The call opened on 9 September 2026, and the stated deadline is 10 November 2026. For a business interested in adopting AI, the practical route is to contact its sector association, propose a business problem worth solving and explore how it could be included in one of the projects.

Who can apply for the funding?

The Red.es invitation, identified as procedure C012/26-IA, targets organisations capable of developing shared solutions for groups of businesses. It is not an individual grant for buying software, hiring a consultancy or developing a bespoke agent.

The distinction matters: the €40 million is not a pot that each SME can apply to directly. Funding is channelled through agreements with the organisations that submit proposals and develop the solutions.

Before assuming an organisation can participate, it should check the eligibility requirements and specific conditions in the official procedure documents.

How can your business benefit if it cannot apply directly?

The aim is to develop AI solutions that can be used by multiple businesses. Rather than funding only isolated projects, the programme proposes creating models and platforms that address business needs and allow parts of the work to be reused.

An SME could be involved through the following process:

1. The association identifies shared needs. It gathers recurring problems among its member businesses and determines which could be addressed using AI.

2. Businesses contribute use cases. They describe their processes, available data and the operational outcome they need.

3. The applicant organisation leads the project. It submits the proposal and organises the work required to develop the solutions.

4. Technical teams build and validate the tools. They turn selected use cases into AI models, platforms or services.

5. Businesses explore how to use the results. Practical value will depend on the solution developed and the access conditions established.

This approach may interest industrial associations, professional groups and organisations representing sectors with repetitive processes. An SME does not need to design an entire platform itself to help define a shared solution.

Which use cases should you propose?

The most useful contribution is not simply asking for “AI for my business”. Identify a specific task, explain how it is currently performed and describe what needs to change.

Prepare an internal proposal covering:

• Process: which task takes time or causes difficulties.
• Frequency: how often it is performed.
• Available information: which documents, records or data are involved.
• Expected outcome: what work the tool should handle or support.
• Oversight: which decisions require human review.
• Reusability: whether other businesses in the sector could benefit from a similar solution.

For example, an association could investigate document workflows, queries involving technical information or administrative tasks repeated across its members. These are potential areas to assess, not solutions that the call guarantees will be funded.

It is also important to distinguish between automating a well-defined task and delegating decisions that require professional judgement. Our guide to AI agent capability and reliability explains why this distinction needs to be part of the design.

What role can a technical partner play?

Associations understand their members' needs, but turning those needs into tools requires analysis, integration, development and validation. A technical partner can help translate business requirements into specifications that make each use case easier to assess.

This work may include defining data flows, selecting tasks for automation, designing integrations and validating results. Before proposing a solution, you need to establish what information exists, who can access it and how its usefulness will be measured.

If your organisation is preparing an initiative, it helps to distinguish an initial demonstration from a product that must remain usable over time. Read our guide to turning an AI demo into a real project.

If you need to estimate the work before presenting a use case to your association, our analysis of AI agent costs and how to interpret published prices offers a starting point for that discussion.

What decision should you make this week?

This week, identify a repetitive task affecting your business and ask your sector association whether it is preparing a proposal for this call. Share a documented use case and check whether it could benefit other businesses in the sector. If you represent an association or work with a technology centre, review the C012/26-IA requirements and confirm the current deadline directly on the Red.es portal before taking action.

If you need technical support to define use cases, design agents or develop automation for a business initiative, tell us which process you want to improve and what data you have available.