Good Week, Bad Week, Genuinely Complicated Week

The Future of Work; The Present of Fake Science

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...

DeepMind Startups Soar, Agentic Ads Boom, UK Banks Face Mythos Snub

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?

Legal Hallucinations, Productivity Misses and Spooks Go Agentic

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 security agency says we aren’t ready for agentic AI, while another announces plans to deploy it. It's more sensible than it sounds...

UK Datacentre Use Surges; Two UK AI Firms Secure Huge Funding Rounds

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 success story or another loss to global giants?

Keith Swain of Solveway on Whether the UK's AI Leadership Upskilling is Built to Last

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 already using tools their employers haven't sanctioned * What SME leaders are really asking for, and whether the programme delivers it * Why the people already inside your business may be your best AI resource