The UK is a European leader in corporate-startup collaboration
The UK has emerged as Europe’s leader in corporate-startup collaboration with regards to artificial intelligence adoption. A new study by Sopra Steria Next finds more than eight-in-ten organisations see collaboration as crucial to their AI strategies.
After more than two years of excitement around the potential of artificial intelligence, the jury is still out on the results it actually yields for businesses. But a new report from Sopra Steria argues that firms may be struggling to make AI work for them, because of a lack of collaboration.
According to the researchers, the rapid evolution of AI has already outpaced the adaptability of many firms – thanks to a “shortage of specialised talent”, as well as a “lack of strategy and alignment over technological exploration”. To address this growing gap between ambition and execution, a rising number of organisations are turning to the concept of open innovation.
By collaborating with agile, tech-driven startups, Sopra Steria Next – the consultancy division of the Sopra Steria Group – suggests that large businesses can “accelerate their AI strategies, bypassing traditional barriers and unlocking new value faster”. And having polled 1,643 public and private organisations, spanning 12 European countries, and including 181 corporations and 78 startups in the UK, it seems the majority of entities agree.
The Open Innovation Report 2025, developed with academics from the INSEAD business school, found that an average of 70% of European leaders believed partnering with startups could give them an important boost, when adopting AI processes. And the UK is leading the way – with 81% of companies there describing startups as “crucial” to executing their AI strategy – ahead of nearest equivalents Spain and Denmark by more than 10 points.
Tom Staley, technology advisory and innovation lead, Sopra Steria Next UK, commented, “In a challenging economic environment, where rapid technological advancements are redefining entire industries, the UK has recognised the need to collaborate; engaging with hyper-scalers, industry, academia and startups to understand and pursue new opportunities. With the current emphasis on AI, and the need to ensure well-informed solutions, it’s reassuring to see the UK leading Europe in terms of AI collaborations.”
Looking at the overall, European results, while success rates vary, the researchers found that the majority of AI collaborations were meeting expectations. A 68% majority of corporates said they achieved their objectives always or most of the time – leading to 25% of corporates seeing startups as integral to their AI development, while 45% viewed them as key partners for driving innovation.
Sopra Steria asserts that this gives a clear message: “startups are no longer peripheral to AI strategies – they are at the core of them”. But the message seems to be louder in certain segments, than in others. Corporate engagement in open innovation was highest in the aerospace industry. Despite safety concerns about terrestrial vehicles running on AI, 92% of organisations in the sector were looking to engage. This was followed by 89% of telecommunications organisations, and 82% in the insurance sector.
But despite the hype, defence and homeland security operators seem unmoved by the technology. Only 42% said they were engaged in open innovation. Quite why a majority of leading military figures are reluctant to trust the world’s glut of imploding tech-startups with matters of national security is anyone’s guess. But it is a hesitancy mirrors across the public sector and government, which only just cleared 51%. It might seem that mission critical public projects still don’t trust AI fully then – even as private sector counterparts clamour to leverage the technology to lower their costs.
