UK among leading global markets for AI implementation and governance

Companies everywhere have been quick to adopt GenAI, but they’re still struggling to productionise and scale, according to a new study from Economist Impact and Databricks. However, compared to Europe and Asia’s traditional tech-hubs, UK firms are generally punching above their weight, both in terms of getting AI projects to scale, and preparing for governance.

The present trajectory of artificial intelligence – investment, adoption, and results – remains heavily hyped, with thought-leadership still regularly suggesting the technology is going to become an integral part of every business. Winners in each industry will be those who take a holistic approach that encompasses data management, security, governance, culture, and domain-specific expertise.

According to research from consultancy Economist Impact and data and AI firm Databricks, many firms in the UK are putting themselves in a position to be among those winners. The researchers surveyed 1,100 executives and technologists across 19 countries and eight industries, and interviewed another 28 C-level executives – and discovered that two years into the AI hype-cycle, UK firms are among the leaders actually walking the talk.

According to the research, India and France lead the way for expanding and scaling GenAI projects – with 56% and 41% of firms respectively having reached the scaling stage. However, the UK is close behind on 37% – while a further 43% have entered the development and production stage, meaning the UK has the second-most firms to have pushed the technology beyond initial pilots.

This puts the UK ahead of ASEAN markets including Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, as well as traditional technology leaders in the US and South Korea. The rest of Europe is meanwhile well off the pace – with only 11% of GenAI projects in Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands having reached the scaling stage.

Speaking on the benefits of such a head-start, Tamzin Booth, editorial director of Economist Impact, commented, “From classic machine learning to generative AI, the business world’s obsession with AI isn’t letting up. But our findings show that, for many organisations, the real value comes when the technology is unleashed on their own proprietary data to develop data intelligence.”

To that end, Booth added that data intelligence would be even more valuable in the future, as to “drive the algorithm advantage they’re seeking, it’s clear enterprises must address significant challenges with producing high-quality outputs, identify ways to evaluate performance and governance with large AI models, and work out how to effectively connect AI to the workforce.”

On the front of governance, UK businesses also take a leading position. While a global average of 41% of firms are not confident that their AI governance is sufficient, that falls to 33% in the UK. And while the 24% to say they ‘strongly agree’ that their organisation has implemented sufficient safety and compliance measures for AI is behind the US on 29% and India on 35%, both those markets have lower ‘somewhat agree’ scores.

Elsewhere, France and Germany both saw a majority of firms say they were more or less ready, but a higher portion that disagreed on the matter. Meanwhile, Japan was the only country where a majority of firms was not convinced of being ready – despite its heritage as a technology leader.

Adam Beavis, a vice president at Databricks, added, “The potential for AI-driven data intelligence is immense, and organisations that can strategically integrate these capabilities won’t just differentiate themselves from the competition, but lead the transformation of their industries.”