Advertise on podcast: AI in the UK

On this week's pod, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: A UK-based payment platform demos its first, heavily supervised agentic live payment. Meanwhile, in Cambridge, regulators competed to create anti-scam agents of their own. Is financial services remotely ready for this?Proposals for AI regulation are coming thick and fast in the UK. But if we can't get access to the frontier models, how meaningful can the rules be?Plus the latest AI news from across the UK...

In a break from the regular schedule, Niels Footman grills co-host Matt Wilkinson about his new book, The Buyer in the Loop. Matt discusses how buyer personas, which could traditionally only offer a snapshot in time, are made into dynamic, responsive personalities with the infusion of AI. How do they work? Do they really improve sales results? And, as elsewhere, are we in danger of offloading our marketing thinking to AI tools? Matt answers all these questions and more. Plus the usual round-up of the week's UK AI stories in Quick Hits.

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The UK government gets serious about domestic AI procurement, just as one of UK AI’s leading lights gets poached by Anthropic. What does this mean for UK AI? While a leading UK think tank notes an increasing loss of control of AI agents, OpenAI reportedly makes it harder to track what AI agents are doing. Just what is going on? Plus all the week's quick UK AI hits...

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Hot on the heels of OpenAI, Anthropic and the AISI, among others, reporting rogue agents, the National Cyber Security Centre has rushed out safety guidance for UK companies looking to use AI agents. Is now the time to get really worried?Developers in the UK are planning to build their own gas-fired generators to power two huge data centres. Could this be the real environmental cost of the rush to build out our data infrastructure?Plus all the latest quick hits for the week...

This week, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: Some of the UK's biggest data centres are taking shape in Scotland with the government providing 80% debt guarantees. Do the sums, and environmental concerns, add up? The Medical Research Council has announced a new AI-backed research facility in Cambridge that promises to help speed up the drug validation process. But the big prizes may have already slipped away. Plus all the week's other UK AI news...

On this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: In a major shake-up, DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis has stepped back from his CEO role at Google DeepMind to become Google's chief scientist. What's really powered this move? And what does it mean for London's fabled "Knowledge Quarter"?Armed with a potentially disruptive technology - but not, yet, any products - UK startup Olix has raised £230m in its latest funding round. What chance does this promising AI chip company have?

This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Hot on the heels of OpenAI and Anthropic revealing major security breaches by their agents, the UK’s AI Security Institute announced a rogue agent of its own. How concerned should we be? NScale, the UK’s aspiring data centre champion, has raided Silicon Valley to acquire a machine-learning software platform. Will it create a full-stack AI behemoth?

In moves that have both confounded and delighted the tech industry, Andy Burnham has made the AI minister a Cabinet role (and kept Kanishka Narayan in place) while abolishing the department tasked with driving the government's AI policies. Just what is going on? And CuspAI, an AI-powered "search engine for materials", has landed a £334m series B funding round. A ringing endorsement of the UK's push towards "applied AI"? Or an inflated bet on an untested business model? Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss these issues and the other big stories in UK AI this week...

This week, Matt and Niels talk to Chris Jeyes, a criminal barrister of more than 20 years standing and now the founder of Lextrapolate, an AI training, governance and strategy consultancy for the legal profession. We discuss: - How AI is changing the legal landscape already - Why lawyers keep using "hallucinated" research - How aspiring lawyers can learn the ropes in the age of AI - How a business built on the billable hour is preparing for the future

On this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: UK tech investment enjoyed its strongest start to the year for four years, with AI accounting for nearly three-quarters of VC funding. How can the UK sustain this level of success?As Rachel Reeves pushes the financial sector to make AI training mandatory, we ask: why is there such a big gap between the UK’s cutting-edge AI development and enterprise adoption?

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 overdue wake-up call? Plus, all the week's latest AI news from the UK...

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 breach. How important is the Anthropic snub?