AI in the UK

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The UK government's defence review has earmarked £5bn for the development of autonomous drones. Just how big a deal is this? How much water do UK data centres actually use? We dig into a complex and opaque issue feeding an increasingly polarised debate.

In this week's episode, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The UK is set to get its seventh PM in 10 years. Just how is AI policy likely to change under an Andy Burnham government? Demand for AI specialists is surging in the UK, with half of London companies saying they lack the requisite expertise. But even if they can find them, do UK firms know how to deploy AI specialists?

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: New studies show that Brits are fast AI adopters but profound agentic sceptics. Meanwhile, 50% of productivity gains are lost to "botsitting". How can we make sense of it all? The US government's ban of Anthropic's Fable 5 sent shockwaves around the AI world. What does it mean for the UK specifically?

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The government hosted its first AI Adoption Summit on Monday and the future of work was at the top of the agenda. Amid major job cuts and ambitious upskilling schemes, what might the future hold for jobs in the UK? One of the UK’s top science integrity researchers says AI is producing fake science on an industrial scale. Hyperbole? Or a long ove...

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Yet more DeepMind alumni score major funding rounds for AI startups. But what exactly do Inherent and Orbital do? A key advertising body predicts UK spend on agentic advertising will balloon to £18bn by 2030. Do these punchy predictions hold up? And with UK banks denied advance access to Anthropic's Mythos model, OpenAI steps in to the breac...

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Three+ years into the AI revolution and UK law firms are still getting tripped up by hallucinations. Why is this still happening? Sit down for this one: a new report from the Ada Lovelace Institute says that much ballyhooed predictions of AI-driven public sector efficiencies aren’t going to plan. Are the humans or the AI to blame? One UK securit...

In this week's episode, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: The UK blows past its datacentre energy forecasts and the threshold at which resistance and regulation kick in. Trouble ahead? Touting AI as a workforce multiplier, AI literacy giant Multiverse hits a $2.1bn valuation. How convincing is its pitch? DeepMind spin-off Isomorphic Labs raises $2bn in latest funding round. British suc...

On this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman sit down with Keith Swain, Managing Director of Solveway Apprenticeships, one of the first providers authorised to deliver the government's new Level 5 AI Leadership units. We discuss: What the 30-hour levy-funded modules actually cover — and what they leave out The shadow AI problem: why governance training matters when staff are alrea...

On this week's AI in the UK, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Are AIs with warm personalities more prone to peddling misinformation? A leading UK research institute think so... The fallout from Mythos continues to hit the UK, but the NHS and financial services are seeing very different risks Almost 50% of London workers could see some of their tasks automated, according to a new repor...

In this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: A DeepMind cofounder has landed a $1bn seed round for his London start-up. Could Ineffable AI propel the UK to the frontier AI big leagues? Ex-PM Rishi Sunak has seen the AI future — and it doesn't involve National Insurance contributions. Can UK data centres achieve lift-off through NScale and BT?

In this week's AI in the UK, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: Anthropic has produced a model apparently so fearsome, the Bank of England governor cited it as a security risk in a recent speech. How real is the threat to the UK? OpenAI walks away from a multi-billion pound UK data centre, then signs a London office lease (as, incidentally, does Anthropic) just days later. So for fronti...

In this week's episode, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: UK pension funds finally back a British AI company, just as the government quietly cuts the tax relief that funds startups in the first place OpenAI freezes its UK data centre investment. Meanwhile, the government casts come hither eyes at Anthropic. Is that a strategy or a consolation prize? Oxford researchers built an AI that...

In this week's episode, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: In the UK and around the world, a growing number of cases appear to show clear mental health risks associated with the use of AI bots. But is AI actually inducing mental health issues or merely exposing them where they already existed? School teachers in England are voicing growing concern about AI use by pupils – while increasi...

In this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Eight months into a showcase partnership with OpenAI, the government reveals it has undertaken "zero" joint projects so far. Who's to blame? AI disinformation is a central factor in ever more "crisis events". Can our regulators finally get past the consultative stage and implement robust measures? The Financ...

In this week's edition, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The UK government wants to fast-track national grid connections for AI datacentres. Sensible strategic move or misuse of public resources? Can Rachel Reeves’ new sovereign AI fund keep UK AI companies in British hands? (And does it matter?) With online fraud hitting record levels in the UK, do we need an entirely new paradigm in...

On this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Nscale, a fast-growing UK-based AI infrastructure firm, has bagged $2bn in a series C funding round. But are its achievements justifying the hype? The UK is attempting to tackle some of the AI talent gap – are regional hubs and voluntary charters the answer? Backed by the UK’s National Wealth Fund, AI self-driving software firm Oxa...

In this week's episode, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The UK legislative battle over using copyrighted content to train AI models is heating up. But with frontier model research depending so heavily on data mining, how much can the UK really defend copyright? OpenAI has chosen London to be its biggest research centre outside the US. A big leap for British AI or just window dressing...

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: OpenAI and Microsoft are the latest big names to support international research by the UK's AI Safety Institute. But in the grand, multi-billion-dollar scheme of things, how much does their work matter? New research shows that just 16% of UK businesses are using at least one AI technology. Huge wake-up call or a misreading of what's actu...

On this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Significant funding for three UK startups suggests a future where “physical world” AI solves problems that LLMs can’t. But have we been here before? One of the UK’s most brilliant AI minds nears a $1bn funding round for his “superintelligence” startup. Could this catapult the UK into the ranks of the frontier AI nations? Drawing on...

On this week's episode, AI consultants Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Big Brother Watch strikes a blow for civil liberties in the UK, as the campaigning organisation wins a case against the Met’s use of AI facial recognition technology. The UK takes further steps towards cementing its reputation as a global centre of AI safety. But does it have the scale – and the moxie – to solve t...

On this week's show, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: The UK’s AI minister has been very visible on social media this week, talking of "vibe shifts" and extolling a 75% success rate in the government’s AI action plan. With its talk of upskilling 10m UK workers and punchy-sounding investments, we ask: is the AI action plan really all that? A new NHS initiative offers the hope...

In this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Financial regulators are comfortable with AI rules but parliamentarians disagree. Who's right? From restoring speech to faking intimacy, UK innovators are taking very different approaches to AI. As UK leaders present very different visions of the future of work in the age of AI, how prepared are we for what's next?

This week, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: In the latest installment of “what were they thinking?”, an AI hallucinated football match costs a chief constable his job. While Silicon Valley optimises for confidence, Cambridge is engineering doubt — and regulators may prefer it. Forget chatbots — the UK is quietly betting that the real AI money is in mud, microbes and manufacturing.

This week, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: UK AI firm Faculty lands a $1bn exit. Great news for the founders — but how positive is it for UK tech? UK CFOs are suddenly bullish on AI. What’s driving the change in mood? In Cambridge, primary school lessons on training AI models raise concerns about a new digital divide. Facing mounting AI uncertainty, the Law Society calls for clearer regu...

In this, the very first episode of 2026, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: UK tech investment had a solid year, with AI notably buoyant. But is funding now only for the tiny or the huge? NHS trusts are using AI to forecast A&E pressure this winter. Can AI prevail over the NHS's formidable capacity bottlenecks? By a North Korean margin, UK creatives have rejected the government'...