The Roadmap

Charlie Hawes and Simon McDougall recently attended Europe’s leading AI conference, the IAPP AI Governance Global Europe 2026 in Dublin.  During the event, Simon chaired a panel discussion examining the impact of regulatory shocks on AI alongside fellow industry experts.  In this podcast, Charlie and Simon reflect on the key themes, insights and debates that emerged from the panel, and explore wha...

This episode explores AI content licensing in the media space. Alice Esuola-Grant , Jamie Cox-Deakins and Vik Khurana discuss why content owners and AI developers are increasingly utilising licensing arrangements, the commercial drivers for this and how these types of deals differ from traditional content licensing. Send us Fan Mail Note: All information was correct at the time of recording. Thank...

In this episode, Vik Khurana and William White break down how the rise of generative and agentic AI is reshaping technology contracting. Mapping practice across traditional IT, gen AI and agentic AI, they offer practical guidance on IP ownership, performance risk, liability frameworks and negotiation strategy – cutting through the uncertainty for anyone negotiating AI deals.  In particular: How AI...

In this episode, Vik Khurana and Simon McDougall take time out from our new series on agentic AI risks, to give their “hot takes” on the latest tools causing a stir in AI circles - Claude Code and Cowork, and OpenClaw and Moltbook - in a way that legal people can easily understand and talk to their business teams about with confidence. Note: All information was correct at the time of recording. Se...

In this episode, Vik Khurana and Naomi Foale explain agentic AI – the features that distinguish it from GenAI, the ‘modes of failure’ that mean risks arise differently, and the potential liability and risk issues that could arise and how those are likely to be allocated between the different players and moving parts involved in agentic systems. Note: All information was correct at the time of reco...

In the final episode of our series on AI Governance, Vik Khurana and Simon McDougall set out how organisations can manage and monitor AI risk on an ongoing basis, focusing on turning governance into a BAU process, monitoring the performance of AI systems and the importance of AI literacy and training for your teams.  Send us Fan Mail Note: All information was correct at the time of recording. Than...

In the second episode of our series on AI Governance, Vik Khurana and Simon McDougall set out how organisations can design and implement AI governance into their organisations, covering the gap analysis required, risk classification tools, regulatory mapping and requirements inventory. Send us Fan Mail Note: All information was correct at the time of recording. Thanks for listening! If you have an...

In the first episode in our mini-series on AI Governance, Vik Khurana and Simon McDougall set out how organisations can kick off their programme, starting with the important work of identifying and assessing the use of AI, risk framework maturity, roles and responsibilities and high level risk and regulatory exposure. Send us Fan Mail Note: All information was correct at the time of recording. Tha...

In this episode, Vik Khurana and Simon McDougall (Bristows Senior Adviser and Chief Strategist for AI at ZoomInfo) discuss the emerging discipline of AI governance and risk management. In particular they offer practical tips to those starting out in AI governance on: How to get started with setting up AI governance. The main industry frameworks and standards for useful baselines. Getting to know h...

In this episode, Vik Khurana explains the ‘building blocks’ of an AI system and various legal and commercial trends, risks and issues. In particular: What are the building blocks?  A deep dive on training data, weights and parameters, model code, inference code and computational resources.   Where does value and IP reside within each block?  What is typically accessible and what is not?  What is p...

In this final episode of our three-part mini series on the EU AI Act and its implications for manufacturers of medical devices, Marc Dautlich and Alex Denoon look in detail at Annex V of the Act.  Annex V of the EU AI Act requires, amongst other things, that a manufacturer provide the Notified Body making a conformity assessment with a statement that the high risk AI system that is being assessed...

As rumours swirl of a delay to the date of application of the AI Act, here is part 2 of specialists Marc Dautlich and Alex Denoon's podcast. In this episode, they delve further into Marc’s territory – the principles based GDPR - and note an uncomfortable practical constraint hidden away in Annex V of the EU AI Act. This issue wasn’t addressed in Team-NB’s Position Paper, but is likely to be a...

Team-NB, representing the majority of Notified Bodies for EU MDR and IVDR medical devices, has issued a stark warning: the implementation of the EU AI Act carries a significant risk of major disruption to the medical device software sector. Their recently published Position Paper doesn't hold back, highlighting critical shortcomings in the implementation framework and emphasising the dwindlin...

In the second episode of our series exploring Corporate Law and AI, our experts, Partner Iain Redford (Corporate & Tax) and Partner Vik Khurana (Commercial Technology), highlight some of the key risks which are likely to arise in doing deals with the next generation of AI companies with suggestions about ways to mitigate those risks. Note: All information was correct at the time of recording....

In the first episode of our series exploring Corporate Law and AI, our experts, Partner Vik Khurana (Commercial Technology) and Of Counsel Richard Swaine (Corporate & Tax), focused on the current state of AI transactional work and recognising and protecting value. Note: All information was correct at the time of recording. (14.03.25) Send us Fan Mail Note: All information was correct at the ti...

On this episode of The Roadmap, Alice Esuola-Grant and Jamie Cox discuss legislative updates in consumer technology as a result of the EU’s Product Liability Directive and the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. They provide an overview of the new provisions, the timeline for implementing the new legislation and things that businesses should start thinking about now to ensure comp...

In this episode, James Johnston and Anna Ni Uiginn talk about the EU NIS2 Directive which will raise cybersecurity standards across critical sectors in the EU. James and Anna will discuss the sectors that are within the scope of the directive, along with the new risk management measures and reporting requirements the directive introduces. Note: All information was correct at the time of recording....

In this episode, Elisa Lindemann and Vik Khurana discuss our benchmarking of the terms of service of the top 10 GenAI providers. They unpack the latest market practice positions and explain what this means to customers and users, in particular how lawyers can advise on best practice use and adoption of GenAI tools and what this might mean for internal use policies and risk management frameworks. T...

In this episode, Marc Dautlich takes the Roadmap off-road to speak to special guests, Sean Griffin (Partner at US firm, Longman & Van Grack) and Emily Atkinson (of Bristows’ very own Employment and Immigration team) about the use of AI in the workplace here in the UK and in the US.  Marc, Sean and Emily discuss and compare the employment/labour law and data protection issues arising from HR-re...

In this episode, Camille Beckmann speaks to Anneke Pol and Vik Khurana (along with a special guest AI chatbot!) on how to structure contracts to comply with the new EU AI Act. Much of the focus so far has rightly been on compliance with the AI Act, as companies work out whether, and how, it applies to them and what they will need to do to get their AI systems to market. We are now moving to how th...

In this episode of The Roadmap, our technology lawyers, Adrian Sim and Freya Ollerearnshaw distil the key issues and takeaways from the one of the biggest tech disputes to reach the UK courts in recent years. They share perspectives that both customers and suppliers may find useful. In particular, Adrian and Freya will explore: the impact of dependency and relief provisions, and what can happen wh...

Numerous parallels can be drawn between the EU AI Act and product safety legislation - including risk classification for product liability, conformity assessments, CE marking and post-market surveillance – all of which are mirrored in the Act. But are organisations that are well-versed in placing safety-critical products on the market, better prepared to comply with the product safety aspects of t...

In the first episode in this series on the EU AI Act, our tech lawyers Anneke Pol and Vik Khurana introduce some key elements of the Act we think all organisations need to be aware of. In particular: how to know whether your AI product or use is “high risk” – a vital question since so many of the Act’s requirements flow from it; and what “role” you’re playing under the Act – including, importantly...

This bonus episode features Vik Khurana - a partner in our commercial technology team as well as regular guest of this show – in conversation with David Malkinson of Morae, a legal technology company. It’s a recording of a Q&A session which took place at ConnectLive, a major legal tech conference hosted by iManage, in London on 20 June 2024. The discussion explored the impact of GenAI tools wi...

With Alice Esuola-Grant in the host’s seat this week, The Roadmap welcomes Rob Powell to explore the various contractual remedies customers may consider including in their agreements with suppliers when engaging in digital transformation projects.  What remedies are available? Which are best suited to the project in hand? Which have we seen work best in practice when invoked? And crucially, which...