Against the backdrop of high-profile outages disrupting global infrastructure, only 16% of businesses think their current testing practices are efficient.
Research from Leapwork shows that the surge in AI adoption may be exacerbating this issue, as they surveyed 401 senior/technical professionals in the US and the UK.
Although 85% of total respondents have integrated AI apps into tech stacks in the past year, over two thirds (68%) have experienced issues with their performance, accuracy, and reliability.
The lack of sufficient testing processes is having a detrimental impact on the usability of AI apps, which are becoming more and more widespread.
For C-suites, which accounted for half of the overall survey, this perception is even higher – nearly three quarters (73%) of executives have experienced issues with AI apps, compared to 62% for software engineering or technical leads, which made up the other half of the sample.
The need for software testing should therefore be even more apparent, especially considering the global catastrophe that follows major outages, as seen in the Crowdstrike outage this August.
“For all its advancements, AI has limitations, and I think people are coming around to that fact pretty quickly,” says Robert Salesas, CTO at Leapwork.
“The rapid automation enabled by AI can dramatically increase output, but without thorough testing, this could also lead to more software vulnerabilities, especially in untested applications. It makes sense that C-Suite executives would be especially sensitive to this because of the implications for customer experience and negative publicity.
“There’s an opportunity here for cross-industry collaboration to ensure more testing tools are up to scratch for the challenges of the modern world where AI apps are more and more widespread.”
The rapid advancement of AI apps has presented challenges when it comes to onboarding them into enterprises’ workflow.
Specifically, the most common bugs in AI apps identified by respondents were integration failures (21%), and security vulnerabilities (23%).
These were followed by resistance to change in the organisation (20%), inconsistent performance and reliability of AI applications (19%), and managing the rapid pace of AI advancements and updates (19%).
Consequently, most organisations (77%) now see testing of AI as essential, but notable gaps exist in testing resources and practices.
Nearly a quarter of organisations (24%) do not hae a dedicated team or individual responsible for testing AI apps and over a quarter (26%) do not have a commercial testing platform. Further, nearly a third (30%) believe their current testing processes cannot ensure reliable AI apps.
“There have been too many outages this year alone, many of which affected millions of customers for big brands. We’ve been given a wake-up call no one can ignore,” says Christian Brink Frederiksen, CEO of Leapwork.
“What makes digital infrastructure today so tricky to test is the copious amount of complex, interconnected applications. A tiny error in one application could have a monumental cascading effect and shut down businesses. Whether big or small, all updates need appropriate testing, but many businesses have outdated, siloed approaches. It shouldn’t be about testing one individual app – it should be about testing the entire user journey.”
As the UK workforce struggles to harness digital skills, and the tech sector strives to be more inclusive, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT has created a platform to help more people enter the tech sector.
Made in partnership with The Institute of Coding and TheTalentPeople, the new GetMyFirstDigitalJob platform is a candidate marketplace designed to help people harness necessary skills and acquire a job in tech.
With the digital skills gap estimated to cost the government £62 billion per year, the need for easily accessible courses to upskill young people is paramount to the UK’s economic and technological standings.
GetMyFirstDigitalJob couples innovative technology with human advice to drive insights that partner employers with prospective employees.
The launch comes as recent polling from the Institute of Coding indicates only half of the population has confidence in their digital skills and more than a quarter believe they need a university degree to embark on a digital-led career.
Research has also found that almost 60% of the UK’s workforce does not possess the required skills needed for the modern day workforce, which risks digital transformation efforts as well as the government’s ambition to become a tech superpower.
The new partnership will also support learners on the Institute of Coding’s Click Start programmes, which are designed to help them find employment.
“We’re delighted to welcome BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and TheTalentPeople on board to pool together their extensive connections, to bring this GetMyFirstDigitalJob collaboration to learners,” Rachid Hourizi, director of the Institute of Coding said.
“The Institute of Coding is committed to ensuring that as many people as possible have the skills needed to thrive in their career. Our work helps industry to plug the ongoing digital skills gap, by easing the process of recruitment for employers and candidates and through this collaboration our learners will have access to some of the biggest employers in the country.”
Click Start, a learning programme developed by the Institute of Coding and funded by Nominet engages thousands of learners from diverse backgrounds and 94% have reported leaving the programme feeling prepared for a career in digital skills.
Learners will receive one-on-one support when applying for jobs, with the partnership giving access to an extensive network of employers, and a new marketplace of candidates which will help participants enter sustainable careers in technology.
BCS also hopes that the partnership will contribute to the hiring of a more diverse workforce into entry-level roles.
“At BCS we want to make IT good for society, and build a profession that’s competent, ethical, accountable, and inclusive,” Julia Adamson MBE, managing director of education and public benefit at BCS.
“Through reaching a range of learners through the Institute of Coding’s Click Start programmes, we will be able to give employers a diverse range of talent and ensure learners can gain employment in jobs where they’ll be able to kick start a new career.”
David Allison, CEO of TheTalentPeople also said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to unite with the Institute of Coding and BCS to achieve our shared mission that people from every background can engage with employers that are right for them.
“There is a strong demand for digital skills from the UK economy, but there are many barriers to people getting into the tech sector. This is an exciting project that will unite learners and employers to combat both the digital skills shortage among the population and help businesses ensure they have the skilled employees needed to thrive.”
A fully autonomous robot has been used to inspect the inside of a fusion energy facility, in what is being called a ‘world-first.”
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), University of Oxford, have achieved a “first-ever” autonomous robot deployment in a fusion facility.
The 35-day trial took place in UKAEA’s Joint Europeans Torus (JET) facility, which until its recent scientific operational shutdown, was one of the largest and most powerful fusion research machines in the world.
In a step towards the commercial viability of fusion energy, a robotics alliance has successfully demonstrated that part of a fusion facility’s maintenance can be carried out by an autonomous robot, thus making such work safer for humans and more cost efficient for its operator.
Fusion powerplants will need regular maintenance. Traditionally, robotic inspections required humans to make decisions and to operate.
“The project aimed to validate the reliability of autonomous robotic technology and instil trust and confidence in their use for safe and efficient inspections in fusion facilities over extended periods,” said Dr Robert Skilton, head of research, at UKAEA’s Remote Applications in Challenging Environments division.
Such advancements pave the way for autonomous maintenance and decommissioning in future fusion facilities where human access may be limited owning to challenging conditions posed by radiation, vacuum-level pressure and extreme temperatures.
JET provided the opportunity to test ORI’s autonomy platform “AutoInspect” controlling a Bostom Dynamics Spot quadruped robot in an environment still hazardous after two high-powered deuterium-tritium experiments in the space of three years.
“This deployment demonstrates that autonomous robots can enhance safety and cut costs,” Dr Skilton continued.
“These ‘next generation’ solutions are becoming ready to be used in other industrial facilities such as nuclear decommissioning, environmental clean-up, and disaster relief.”
The inspection tasks within JET involved mapping the entire facility, taking sensor readings of its environment, and avoiding obstacles and personnel involved in the decommissioning process.
To address these challenges, UKAEA’s inspection payload was integrated with ORI’s localisation and mission autonomy solutions, developed through a collaboration between Professors Hawes’ and Fallon’s teams. This setup was combined with Boston Dynamics’ hardware and collision avoidance technology to enhance the robot’s capabilities.
This integrated robotic system collected essential data on JET’s environment and overall status twice a day. This allowed the team to assess the feasibility of replacing human inspections with fully autonomous processes.
Prof. Nick Hawes, Professor of AI & Robotics, University of Oxford, said of ORI’s aims in the project, “Projects like this demonstrate the value of autonomous robots – robots that can do things themselves without direct control of humans. They also ground our science in real use cases, and provide requirements and constraints that drive us to invent new AI and robotics algorithms.”
ORI’s work in this project was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through the Embodied Intelligence: From Sensing to Collaboration programme grant which aims to create autonomous systems that enhance human capability and potential.
The results will assist planning for the next stages of the JET decommissioning and repurposing (JDR) programme.
A virtual reality project curated by Abertay University will explore the connections between people, technology, and nature in a new art exhibition at the University of Dundee’s Dundee Botanic Garden.
‘Rhizoma’ was created by academic Hadi Mehrpouya at Abertay University, and uses video games technology, sound engineering, and AI to explore how people connect with one another, the devices they use, and with the natural environment.
The Botanic Garden’s Green Gallery will be transformed into a sensory black box zone for the immersive experience, blending bespoke audio, visuals, and virtual reality curated by Mehrpouya alongside composer Shiori Usui, filmmaker Duncan Nicoll, Abertay academic and VR designer Naman Merchant, designer Jeremie Bretin and Abertay lecturer Jagdeep Ahluwalia.
Visitors will enter a gallery of digital screens, LED lighting and VR headsets bound in nature, interacting with compositions and exploring a world of beautiful and intense transitions.
Underpinned by the theory of interconnectivity, the event will feature sights and sounds from nature recorded at the Botanic Garden and explore how artificial intelligence is changing the ways in which we connect with our surroundings and one another.
“Rhizoma is a collaborative project designed to engage the public with technology and nature and to provoke visitors to think a little more deeply about how we connect with the world around us and the people we interact with,” Mehrpouya, a lecturer and researcher with Abertay’s Faculty of Design, Informatics and Business, said.
“In a world where human and natural connections are increasingly dominated by the technology that we use, there’s a need to pause for thought and better understand the value of those links and how we might improve them.”
Kevin Frediani, the Botanic Garden Curator, said “The role of botanic gardens has moved beyond the provision of a space of exotic plants that can be explored through a nice day’s walk, towards the provision of a canvas that helps explore and prototype solutions that address the ecological challenges of our time.
“Rhizoma is a welcome collaboration for the Garden, at the interface of all the creative potential that technology, art and science embody, helping us all explore concepts of being human and becoming ecological in an increasingly urban world.”
The UK will host a new AI Safety conference in San Francisco, California, following the summit in Bletchley Park and the subsequent event in Seoul last May.
Held across the 21st and 22nd November, the event will feature a number of workshops and discussions focused on AI safety ahead of France hosting the AI Action Summit in February 2025.
The event will follow the fist meeting of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes, which will take place on the 20th to the 22nd of November, also in San Francisco, hosted by the US government.
Members of the network include the UK, the EU, the US, France, Japan, Kenya, Australia, Canada, South Korea, and Singapore.
The UK-run event aims to provide a moment for AI companies to take stock and share ideas and insights to support the development of their AI safety frameworks through a targeted day of talks between signatory companies and researchers.
“The conference is a clear sign of the UK’s ambition to further the shared global mission to design practical and effective approaches to AI safety,” science, innovation, and technology secretary Peter Kyle, said.
“We’re just months away from the AI Action Summit, and the discussions in San Francisco will give companies a clear focus on where and how they can bolster their AI safety plans building on the commitments they made in Seoul.”
From today, attendees are also urged to share thoughts on potential areas of discussion at November’s conference, including existing and current proposals for developer safety plans, the future of AI model safety evaluations, transparency and methods for setting out different risk thresholds.
The event will be co-hosted by the Centre for the Governance of AI and led by the UK’s AI Safety Institute, aiming to help building a deeper understanding of how Frontier AI Safety Commitments are being put into practice.
The conference has been designed as a forum for attendees to exchange ideas on best practice in implementing the commitments, ensuring a transparent and collaborative approach for developers as they refine their AI safety frameworks ahead of the AI Action Summit.
The UK competition watchdog has decided to delay its deadline for its cloud market report, citing the need for a more thorough probe into the sector.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has extended its own deadline by four months, from April 2025 to August 2025.
In their extension announcement, the CMA cited the “nature an complexity of the issues” that were raised in the initial inquiry, including the various theories of harm investigated.
Particularly, the CMA said the licensing practices theory of harm was mentioned, “which was not examined in depth in Ofcom’s market study.”
According to the CMA, some of the papers they required from main party hearings were received after the deadline for submission of evidence, which could contribute to the need for a an extension.
The news follows Google firing shots a Microsoft, one of its main cloud rivals, for impeding customer choice in the UK cloud market.
There are three main contenders in the UK market, and they are all part of some of the biggest tech companies in the world.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) makes up 40 to 50% of the UK cloud market share, as of 2022, followed by Microsoft Azure at 30 to 40%. Google Cloud trailed this, with only around 5 to 10% of UK cloud market share.
Google’s claims, which were echoed by Amazon, said that Microsoft’s software licencing practices were anti-competitive and restrictive.
The allegations were voiced as part of the CMA’s call for evidence in its probe of the cloud market.
Both AWS and Microsoft contested much of the CMA’s concerns in the call for evidence, saying that the market is “highly dynamic and rapidly evolving,” even though the pair make up over two thirds of the UK cloud market.
The companies did band together against several concerns the UK watchdog raised – this included minimum spend charges, exit charges, and licence fees.
While the cloud market faces scrutiny, the importance of cloud infrastructure is becoming more apparent as the UK government considers data centres critical infrastructure, and the UK has announced a £8 billion investment from AWS to build new data centres.
A significant majority (72%) of the UK public believe that cyber warfare is likely to be the next step in modern combat, a new report reveals.
The survey, which questioned 2,000 nationally representative UK respondents above the age of 16, was conducted by Nineteen Group, and delved into the British public’s views on cyber warfare.
Following the devastating explosions in Lebanon which targeted pagers and walkie talkies, and with new details about the attack emerging, the world is reeling from this new avenue in modern warfare as communication devices were employed as a receptible for terror.
Cyber warfare has been on the rise as nation states battle for power over the cyber sphere; the Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked a new era in cyber warfare as state-backed threat actors emerged as top risks to national security.
Despite the UK government’s substantial investment in physical warfare, spending £54.2 billion on defence in the 2023/24 financial year, according to the UK Defence Spending report 2024, the majority of the public believes the next frontline will be in cyberspace.
In fact, over half of people (52%) said they believe cyber warfare may be the next step in warfare combined with physical tactics and a further 20% of people say that cyber warfare will outpace physical warfare entirely.
Only 5% of the public believe that cyber warfare will never replace physical warfare.
Amid escalating geopolitical tensions worldwide, nearly a third (31%) of the British public admitted to feeling “scared” about the prospect of cyber warfare.
Furthermore, the research found that 6% of Britons believe we are already in the midst of a “cyber war.”
“Cyberspace is the perfect grey zone between war and peace. State and non-state actors can operate in this ambiguous and frequently anonymised domain more aggressively and with greater risk appetite than they would in the physical world. The danger of miscalculation is consequently far more heightened,” said Tarquin Folliss, Vice Chairman of SASIG.
“So, the public is right to worry about conflict in cyberspace and where it could lead. Cyberwarfare, however, is unlikely to develop as an independent capability or effect. The weaponisation of cyber-space will continue to evolve as one component of the armoury that governments can call on to prosecute war,” Folliss continues.
The research also revealed what the British public are most scared about when it comes to cyber-criminal activity.
Cyber-attacks targeting critical infrastructure (54%), nation state activities (43%), and the use of AI in online scams (33%) were the top three.
Disinformation swaying global politics (31%), cyber warfare (31%), and deepfakes (21%) also concerned large percentage of Britons.
Surprisingly, some of the most common cyber-crimes, phishing (15%), social engineering (12%), and fake ads and giveaways (12%) were much lower on the list.
Notably, over half of the public stated they are scared of the impact of cyber-attacks targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI).
This includes attacks on critical services like utility providers, healthcare, government, and policing. The June 2024 cyber-attack on Synnovis, for example, affected NHS facilities across the UK, causing more than 200 ‘life saving’ operations to be cancelled.
The United Nations has released seven recommendations to address and govern AI-related risks in a new report, Governing AI for Humanity.
Authored by members of the UN Secretary General’s High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence which was set up in October 2023, the recommendations follow an interim report published in December 2023.
The report outlines a blueprint for addressing AI-related risks, as well as sharing the transformative technology globally.
The paper urges the UN to lay the foundations for the first globally inclusive and distributed architecture for AI governance based on international cooperation, and calls on governments and stakeholders to work together in governing AI to foster development and protection of all human rights.
The advisory group noted the lack of a global framework to govern AI, as well as the gaps between nations on regulating the emerging technology.
The EU has arguably emerged as a front-runner in AI regulation, with the AI Act coming into effect earlier this year. However, many other countries are still scrambling to put guardrails in place for the technology. The UN report could serve as a tangible step for creating a global framework for AI.
The United Kingdom recently did sign a legally-binding international AI treaty agreed by the Council of Europe, which commits parties to collective action on managing AI products and protecting the public from misuse and risks
Key Recommendations
The UN therefore made seven recommendations urging global cooperation to govern AI, including light institutional mechanisms to compliment existing efforts.
Establishing an international scientific panel on AI: This panel will aim to provide impartial, reliable scientific knowledge about AI. The panel would address knowledge gaps, and produce annual reports on AI trends, capabilities, and risks.
New policy dialogue on AI governance: Taking place at the UN, the new dialogue will feature intergovernmental and multi stakeholder meetings, to foster common ground and regulatory interoperability rooted in human rights.
AI standards exchange: Representatives from standards organisations, tech companies, and civil society to ensure technical interoperability of AI systems across borders.
Global AI capacity development network: These will boost AI governance capacities, offering training, compute resources, and AI datasets to researchers and social entrepreneurs.
Global AI fund: This aims to address gaps in capacity and collaboration, empowering local efforts to further the sustainable development goals.
Global AI data framework: These aim to standardise data-related definitions, principles, and stewardship, ensuring transparency, and accountability in AI systems.
Small AI Office: The report also proposes setting up a small AI office within the UN Secretariat to support and coordinate the implementation of these proposals.
By 2026, 30% of enterprises will automate more than half of their network activities, an increase from under 10% in mid-2023, according to Gartner, Inc.
“Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders are increasingly looking to AI-based analytics and augmented decision making, including intelligent automation (IA), to improve operational resilience and responsiveness, address complexity and process increasingly large amounts of data through automation,” said Chris Saunderson, senior director analyst at Gartner.
IA for I&O is the application of AI techniques, including generative AI (GenAI) to automate decision making and execute actions for I&O initiatives. It is increasingly being used to empower business agility and is driving more advanced I&O service enablement.
Intelligent automation is an emerging technology that Gartner expects will reach mainstream adoption in the next five to ten years.
The addition of GenAI capabilities has increased demand in the market for IA platforms. Through the use of analysis and automation, IA enables capabilities that deliver improved operations, efficiency and insight generation.
“Technology providers that offer best-of-breed tools for AI for IT operations (AIOps), application performance monitoring and GenAI will influence IA,” said Saunderson. “AIOps and stand-alone automation technology providers may expand their offerings to IA, through acquisitions or organic development.”
Hyperautomation Continues to Be a Staple Discipline for 90% of Large Enterprises
“Along with IA, hyperautomation has seen a resurgence in interest and demand since the fervour of GenAI that launched in November 2022,” said Frances Karamouzis, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.
“Hyperautomation involves the use of multiple technologies and tools including AI, machine learning, event-driven software architecture and robotic process automation, among others.”
Less than 20% of organisations have mastered the measurement of hyperautomation initiatives. “Hyperautomation initiatives are often an integral part of a larger technology roadmap that includes systems of record on one end of the spectrum, and AI and GenAI on the other,” said Karamouzis.
The demand for hyperautomation is driven by the mandate for operational excellence across processes and functions to support resilience. This demand only continues to increase the growth of offerings provided by hyperautomation.
One in five general practitioners (GPs) in the UK have already incorporated AI into their clinical practice, despite a lack of any formal policies or guidance on how to use these tools.
This has been revealed in a new UK-wide survey, published by the British Medical Journey, with a sample size of 1,000 GPs taken in an online survey in February 2024.
Of the one in five respondents that reported using generative AI in their clinical practice, more than one in four (29%) reported using these tools for document generation after a patient appointment.
A similar proportion (28%) said they used the tools to suggest a differential diagnosis, and one in four (25%) said they used the tools to suggest treatment options.
While researchers did say that the survey may not be representative of UK GPs as a whole, as those who responded may been keenly interested in AI, it does raise some alarm bells as the use of AI by medical professionals is currently not regulated.
“These findings signal that GPs may derive value from these tools, particularly with administrative tasks and to support clinical reasoning. However, we caution that these tools have limitations since they can embed subtle errors and biases,” researchers say.
“[These tools] may also risk harm and undermine patient privacy since it is not clear how the internet companies behind generative AI use the information they gather.
“While these chatbots are increasingly the target of regulatory efforts, it remains unclear how the legislation will intersect in a practical way with these tools in clinical practice.”
AI tools like ChatGPT are connected to the internet, so are often capable of producing updated information. However, generative AI often have their own issues, like hallucinating false claims as facts.
Privacy risks can also not be understated, particularly in the medical field, as many AI models use their users prompts and conversations for training. This may inadvertently give patient data over to the AI system, which should remain private.
However, the use of AI by doctors for document generation and other means may point to the heightened pressures of a squeezed NHS system, as patients and staff grapple with increased waittimes and shortened appointment times.
Teenage users of Instagram will have new restrictions, and parents will have greater control over their children’s accounts, as Meta rolls out its new ‘teen accounts’.
The new rules will apply to new accounts, and will be rolled out across existing teen accounts over time.
The teen accounts will have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and will allow parents to restrict the apps, including restricting the times their children can access Instagram.
The rules come following several lawsuits levied against the tech giant, and follows the passing of the Online Safety Act which puts greater responsibility for the safety of vulnerable people, especially children, online.
Many of the controls seem to be directly in relation to global complaints.
In a US court case filed against Meta, the social media parent company was found to be purposefully engineering its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, to addict young people. They were also found to “knowingly” allow underage users.
The new accounts include a number of protections meant to safeguard those under the age of 18, and give more confidence to parents.
All teen accounts will be private by default, meaning that teens must accept new followers and people who do not follow them cannot see their content, or interact with them.
Similarly, teens will only be able to be messaged, tagged, or mentioned by those they are already connected to or follow.
Teen accounts will also be automatically defaulted to the most restrictive sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content they can see on the platform.
For comments and direct messages, Meta will employ the most restrictive version of their “anti-bullying” feature, which will hide offensive words and phrases.
Teen accounts will also feature a timer, that will alert teens when they have spent 60 minutes on the app, telling them to leave Instagram.
Sleep mode, which mutes notifications, will also be employed between 10 pm and 7 am.
Those under 16 years of age will only be allowed to change their settings with a parents’ permission.
Meta is also adding a supervision feature, allowing parents to add more controls to their children’s accounts.
Parents will be able to see who their teens have messaged in the past week, set total daily time limits for their teen’s Instagram usage, and block teens from using the app at specific time periods.
Parents can even view the topics their teens have chosen to see content from.
Enforcing Teen Accounts
While the restrictions will be rolled out across teen accounts, Meta recognises that teens can lie about their age to access accounts.
The company says they are putting in more areas where teens will have to verify their age. Meta is also working on building technology to proactively find accounts belonging to teens.
“Given that parents today are grappling with the benefits and challenges of the internet and digital media for their teens, our association applauds Meta for launching Instagram Teen Accounts,” Yvonne Johnson, president of the National Parent Teacher Association in the US.
“With teens automatically placed in Teen Accounts and certain privacy settings turned on by default, this update demonstrates that Meta is taking steps to empower parents and deliver safer, more age-appropriate experiences on the platform.”
New research on UK customer service finds that 16-24-year-olds prefer to be met on their native channels, like WhatsApp and Instagram.
This intel could prove essential for retailers targeting Gen Z, as the research also reveals that Gen Z will publicly voice whether they have had positive or negative customer experiences, which could influence potential future customers.
Commissioned by CommBox, an AI-powered customer engagement platform company, the survey of over 1,000 consumers and 250 managers in customer-facing organisations spotlights core consumer frustrations.
They survey found that most customer service is simply missing the mark, with less than half (43%) of UK consumers saying they have been ‘satisfied’ with the service received online over the past year, which is consistent across multiple age groups.
Just 37% of 16-24-year-olds cited they were satisfied with the service they have received online, which only rises to 42% amongst those over 55.
Amongst all generations, issues such as long wait times, the inability to speak directly to a human agent, and using chatbots that cannot solve queries consistently came out on top for the most frustrating issues.
However, generational divides emerge when asked how brands could improve the experience. This is particularly the case when asked about channel preferences, with younger consumers preferring brands to be available across multiple touchpoints.
Just around a third (34%) of Gen Z prefer to call, where as nearly two thirds (61%) of over 55s prefer calling.
As far as priorities, 69% of those over 55 prioritise speaking to someone with the proper knowledge to solve their query, priorities for Gen Z are more split, across 24/7 availability (31%), multichannel access (25%), and speaking to someone with the proper knowledge (25%).
Brands tend to echo these priorities. In alignment with 35-44 and over 55-year-olds, brands identified speaking to a knowledgeable agent as the most important factor for customers (44%). Brands also recognise that access to multiple channels (37%) and 24/7 resolution (35%) as vital customer service provisions.
Gen Z Are Not Afraid to Throw Shade
Negative reviews can be devastating to retailers, and Gen Z is not afraid to dish them out.
After a bad customer experience, 90% of Gen Z (16-24 year olds) say they will take action.
This includes avoiding spending with that brand again (44%) and seeking a competitor (33%).
18% will leave a negative review, and nearly one in four (24%) will tarnish the brand on social media.
But it doesn’t stop there; a bad review can dissuade potential customers with significant effects in the age of online shopping.
As the high street faces closures and eCommerce booms, consumers face hundreds of choices online, and online reviews become one of the few ways customers can distinguish between them.
As a result, reviews have become a pillar of business that brands can’t afford to neglect.
Upon seeing a negative review, 80% of potential consumers are deterred and shop elsewhere.
However, Gen Z is also vocal about good experiences, presenting a massive opportunity for retailers as good reviews increase sale conversion rates as much as 270%.
After a positive experience, a third of Gen Z will go on to recommend to a friend, 31% will leave a positive review, and 18% will post on social media.
Moreover, 37% would go on to prioritise that brand over competitors.
“The results of our survey show that the needs and demands of different generations vary considerably, and brands need to adapt to that,” Dvir Hoffman, CEO at CommBox, commented.
“It’s no longer enough just being available on the phone or email – new tech-savvy generations are demanding brands be available across multiple digital touchpoints. Likewise, brands mustn’t risk alienating consumers who prefer to receive service via other, more traditional methods.
“For businesses, these preferences should be seen as two sides of the same coin – where a unified knowledge base can support both. Centralising organisational knowledge enables all agents, regardless of experience levels, to tackle those demanding, complex customer calls – as well as empowering customers to self-resolve and find quick answers through automated channels.
“It’s about striking the right balance, knowing when to use technology and more digital channels, and when to make agents available for high-value interactions. Only then can brands say they are truly delivering a personalised service. ”
Meta has announced it will ban several Russian state-backed media networks from its platforms, claiming that the networks are covertly influencing social media users.
The ban will affect RT, Rossiya Segodnya, and other Russian-affiliated media outlets “for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a statement on Monday.
“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets,” the company said.
Meta had already restricted activity from the accounts across its social platforms, which includes Facebook and Instagram.
Previously, Russian state-controlled media sites were prevented from running advertisements across Meta’s platforms, and the reach of their content was limited.
Some Russian state media was also blocked in the EU, UK, and Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, after requests from the concerned countries’ on the potential affect of the state’s media on coverage of the war.
The Kremlin already released a response, saying that the social media giant was “discrediting itself” by the ban.
So far, Rossiya Segodnya, which runs the news brands Sputnik and RIA Novosti, has yet to release a statement in relation to the ban.
Spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, however, said that the ban was “unacceptable.”
Russian-state-backed media have recently come under fire in the US as well, as the US accused RT of paying a firm in Tennessee £7.5m to spread Russian propaganda to US audiences.
The US claimed that the content, which included conservative, right-wing rhetoric on issues surrounding gender, immigration, and the economy, was partially created by RT employees.
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, went so far as to call RT a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence.”
In response, RT said that this claim was a “conspiracy theory.”
Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are on the rise across the globe as 134 countries and currency unions explore the financial technology innovation. This is a rise from just 35 countries in 2020.
The figure, which represents 98% of the global GDP, is from new findings from US-based Atlantic Council, which tracked the growth of these regulated, state-backed digital currencies and the progress in its adoption.
CBDCs are digital currencies that are issued to central banks. Like cryptocurrencies, the currency is entirely digital, but unlike the more volatile crypto, the value of CBDCs are tied to the central banks of a country and are equivalent to that country’s local currency.
Countries are turning to CBDC as cash is continually dethroned, and the threat of unregulated cryptocurrencies looms.
Currently, 66 countries are in the advanced phase of the CBDC exploration, which includes the development, pilot, or launch of a digital currency.
Every country that has an advanced retail CBDC project intermediates their currency, meaning that they are distributed through banks, financial institutions, and payment service providers.
According to the research, every G20 country is exploring a CBDC, with 19 of them in advanced stages. Of those, 13 countries are already in the pilot stage of their journey, including Brazil, Japan, India, Australia, Russia, and Turkey.
Just three countries – the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria, have fully launched a CBDC, with Nigeria and the Bahamas seeing issuance increase substantially.
Right now, 44 pilots exploring the rollout of the cash alternative are currently ongoing, including the digital euro being rolled out in the EU.
In the UK, CBDC is currently in the development stage, with the newly elected Labour Party expressing its support of the Bank of England’s work on developing a CBDC.
There are also a number of cross-border wholesale CBDC projects, which often aim to create a unified, programmable infrastructure for the trading of different nation’s digital currencies.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the number of cross-boarder projects have doubled, with more than 13 of them currently in existence.
All original BRICS member states – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are piloting a CBDC, as they continue to promote alternative payment systems to the dollar.
The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) has bolstered its senior management team with a a new chief strategy and commercial officer (CSCO) and chief technology officer (CTO).
Siobhan Campbell and Coreen McCubbin join as CSCO and CTO, respectively, bringing a combined 50-plus years of manufacturing, engineering and scientific industry experience to the organisation.
Campbell joins from the UK arm of global engineering consultancy WSP and has previously held senior scientific roles at the UK and the Department of Energy and Climate Change and Department of Transport where she was the deputy Chief Scientific Advisor.
“I’m excited to join NMIS and support the drive towards next generation manufacturing excellence,” Campbell said.
“Close connections between the industry and research experts are central to this, and my focus will be on developing strong partnerships to ensure sustained growth and deliver impact. I look forward to working with the team and our stakeholders to achieve these goals.”
In her new role, Campbell will lead the commercial activities across the NMIS group, engaging extensively with our industrial partners and members to help accelerate productivity across manufacturing to grow the economy.
McCubbin has previously held senior leadership roles at Spirit AeroSystems and BAE systems and was most recently consulting globally at Leading Edge Strategy Consulting. She has worked on a range of high-profile technology development and implementation projects for the aerospace sector.
“Joining NMIS presents a fantastic opportunity to lead on initiatives that will keep the UK at the forefront of manufacturing innovation,” McCubbin said.
“My background in technology development for key manufacturing sectors perfectly aligns with NMIS’s vision and I look forward to getting to know the talented team.”
As CTO, McCubbin will direct the development and delivery of NMIS’s strategic research programmes, ensuring its centres are at the forefront of manufacturing innovation nationally and internationally. NMIS is operated by the University of Strathclyde and is part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult.
“I’m delighted to have appointed Siobhan and Coreen to the NMIS leadership team. They both have a wealth of leadership experience across industry, academia and government and a track record of driving innovation in their previous roles,” Chris Courtney, CEO of NMIS, added.
“They will play a critical role in delivering our mission to have impact through accelerating innovation in advanced manufacturing, for our members, partners, and across industry.”
Professor Sir Jim McDonald, principal & vice-chancellor of Strathclyde, said: “I warmly welcome the appointments of Siobhan and Coreen to NMIS. These strong additions to the leadership team will ensure NMIS continues to go from strength to strength as it seeks to transform the advanced manufacturing sector and economy in Scotland.”
Investment in digital transformation has yet to be translated into improved productivity or digital maturity, Docusign’s Digital Maturity Report 2024 shows.
The research amongst 600 decision makers in the UK and Irelands, now in its second year, reveals a stark productivity and efficiency paradox for employers, but also a Catch-22 for workers.
Technology investment is increasing, but workers are wasting more time on manual processes than this time last year – and more are considering leaving their roles due to a desire to abandon legacy ways of working.
Furthermore, the disparity between worker and organisation digital maturity is widening: fewer than half of organisations (47%) see themselves as digitally mature vs 84% of workers.
According to the data, this is compounding to create a £275m productivity black hole.
Nearly two working days a week are wasted on low or no-value tasks, an increase from last year’s data, despite an increase in digital investments in an effort to find efficiencies.
This translates not only into a high cost for UK businesses – reaching £271,574m, but lower worker satisfaction as well.
Repetitive tasks and a desire to abandon legacy ways of working is a major factor causing 41% (up from 33% in 2023) of UK respondents to consider leaving their companies.
In reaction to this, improving efficiencies in day-to-day work is a top priority for companies, expected to have the biggest impact on company performance and productivity in the next year.
Silent Hiring
72% of business decision-makers report having a skills gap when it comes to technology – up from 69% in 2023.
Skills gaps in AI (6%), data analytics (62%), and security (61%) are the most common issues.
Talent shortages are impacting 53% of businesses which claim they are not able to deliver against operational imperatives because of a lack of talent.
“Workers today are in a catch 22” explains Ronan Copeland, group VP and general manager at Docusign EMEA.
“42% want to allocate more time to training on and experimenting with digital tools with AI and other new digital tools that could improve their day-to-day work and save them time, but they can’t find that time while they are still being held back by manual tasks.”
To address these issues, companies are increasingly focussing on ‘quite hiring’ and AI technology, with 44% allowing staff to upskill, and a third (34%) offering workers the chance to retrain.
Businesses have also increased their use of AI tools like ChatGPT since last year by 10% to 34%.
In the next year, 35% of companies plan to invest more in AI and machine learning.
But while organisations recognise the potential for AI to improve cost efficiencies (33%) and employee productivity (29%), only 43% of organisations actually feel a high level of AI readiness.
Only around one in ten (11%) have appointed a specific person to be in charge of AI, with the responsibility often falling on CTOs/CIOs (32%) or CEOs (29%).
Only around one in five (19%) of companies are constantly experimenting with new disruptive technology innovations, with many concerned about their AI risks, such as security (35%) and data protection (34%).
However, 46% of respondents state they want to dedicate more time to training on and experimenting with digital tools.
Companies in the UK and Ireland are in a paradoxical situation: they expect AI to provide relief but are still plagued by inefficient manual processes and lack sufficient resources to build expertise.
Sellers who effectively partner with AI tools are 3.7 times more likely to meet quota than those who do not, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc.
Gartner surveyed 1,026 B2B sellers in January through March 2024 to understand what skills are needed to excel in a changing B2B environment.
In addition to AI partnership, other top competencies include tactical flexibility and mentalising, which increase the likelihood of quota attainment by 3.4 times and 2.9 times respectively.
Tactical flexibility is the ability to adjust, adapt, and innovate on sales approaches.
Mentalising, according to Gartner, is the seller’s ability to infer unspoken beliefs, feelings, and intentions to predict and influence buyer behaviour.
“Chief sales officers (CSOs) must prepare their sellers for the shifting landscape in B2B buying,” said Antra Sharma, principal, research in the Gartner Sales Practice.
“By prioritizing the competencies and skills that drive commercial results in the current buying environment, CSOs can refine their talent strategy to augment these skills and drive long-term skill adoption through targeted training, compensation, and career pathing.”
Skills and Technology Overwhelm
The survey also revealed 72% of sellers feel overwhelmed by the number of skills required for their job, and 50% are overwhelmed by the amount of technology needed.
Overwhelmed sellers are 45% less likely to attain quota, leading to worsened commercial outcomes for their organisations.
“Sellers are overwhelmed by the number of skills they perceive as necessary for success,” said Michael Katz, senior director, research, in the Gartner Sales Practice.
“Sales leaders must support their sellers in developing key competencies, or risk undermining productivity and potentially leading to burnout and disengagement.”
To foster competencies for high-performing sellers within their sales teams, Gartner provided advice to CSOs.
This includes prioritising upskilling initiatives that align with the shifting B2B environment, as well as driving long-term skills adopting by embedding it in key aspects of seller’s jobs.
Transport trackers have gone live in the city of Edinburgh across hundreds of travel stops in the capital city.
The new on-street bus tracking system will display real-time travel information – there are 3222 across the city, as well as 42 signs in Midlothian and six in West Lothian.
The travel stops will integrate open access to Edinburgh Travel Tracker API, allowing developers and third parties to use data from the displays for their own apps and services, with Edinburgh City Council monitoring and fine-tuning the service to keep it accurate and up to date.
The displays will offer live departure information and will soon offer details of diverted routes and service disruptions for multiple transport operators, including train and air travel at key locations.
A further 100 signs will be installed at new locations across Edinburgh and screens will continue to be connected across South East Scotland, combining efforts to make travel throughout the region consistent.
“We’ve been planning to roll out our new travel trackers for some time so I’m really pleased to have the displays up and running,” councillor Stephen Jenkinson, Edinburgh’s transport and environment convener, said.
“It has been a complex exercise to integrate all our systems, and we have needed to go through a process of testing and developing fixes, but we’re confident we now have a strong system in place. This is real-time data that will make journeys easier to plan for all passengers.”
The screens, as well as their open API element, hope to make travel easier and travel information more accurate for commuters.
Meta has announced it will be training its AI models using public content shared across its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, by UK adults, after it had paused training in the UK and the EU following data protection concerns.
Public posts across its main social media platforms will be used to train its upcoming and current AI models, including photos, captions, and comments.
Training content will not include private messages or information from accounts of users that are under 18 years of age.
Meta has said that, since then, they have engaged with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and has welcomed the watchdog’s “constructive approach.”
“This clarity and certainty will help us bring AI at Meta products to the UK much sooner,” Meta said in their announcement.
According to the ICO, Meta has made changes to its Ai training policy, which includes making it easier for users to object to the processing of their data for AI training, as well as widening the window to do so.
The ICO says it will continue to monitor the situation as Meta presses forward with their plan.
“We have been clear that any organisation using its users’ information to train generative AI models needs to be transparent about how people’s data is being used,” Stephen Almond, executive director of regulatory risk at the ICO, said.
“Organisations should put effective safeguards in place before they start using personal data for model training, including providing a clear and simple route for users to object to the processing.”
He also warned that the ICO has not approved the processing outright, and that Meta must continue to ensure and demonstrate it is compliant with UK privacy laws.
From this week, UK-based adult users of Facebook and Instagram will begin to receive in-app notifications explaining Meta’s new AI training scheme, including how users can object to their data being used to train the company’s generative AI models.
For those that have already objected to their data being used fro AI training, Meta will not contact and their choice will be honoured, the company said.
The objection form is said to be simpler than previously, due to feedback from the ICO.
Back in June, Meta’s AI training policy came under fire from privacy watchdogs across Europe and data privacy advocacy group NOYB. Currently, Meta has made no announcement saying it will resume AI training in the EU.
And this regulatory landscape has teeth: the EU is opening an investigation into Google’s AI training methods, saying that the tech giant may not have acquired prior consent to the processing of user data to train its generative AI models.
While different companies developing AI may have taken disjointed methods to train their models, the EU is staying steadfast in its protection of data privacy.
It remains to be seen if the ICO will find Meta’s updated training policy compliant with UK data protection law as the company steams ahead.
The global cybersecurity workforce gap has reached a new high, according to research from non-profit cyber professional organisation ISC2. However, despite the increase, there’s still an estimated shortfall of 4.8 million professionals.
The shift represents a 19% year-on-year increase in the amount of workers needed to effectively secure organisations across the globe.
Despite the growing need for professionals, global workforce growth has slowed for the first time since ISC2 began estimating the workforce size six years ago, holding at an estimated 5.5 million people (a 0.1% year-on-year increase).
This contrasts with last year, when the workforce grew 8.7% year-on-year despite declining economic conditions.
For the first time, participants cited “lack of budget” as the top cause of their staffing shortages, replacing “lack of qualified talent” as the top cause in all previous years.
As organisations continue to face economic instability, the profession is under unprecedented pressure with increasingly limited resources.
While about three quarters (74%) of professionals agree that the 2024 threat landscape is the most challenging it has been in the last five years, budget pressures on the cybersecurity workforce have mounted.
Over a third (37%) have experienced budget cuts, up from 7% in 2023. A quarter reported experiencing layoffs in their cybersecurity team, up by 3% from last year.
Companies appear to be stalling to fix the shortage, with 38% experiencing hiring freezes (up 6% from 2023), and a third (32%) seeing fewer promotions (up 6% from 2023).
The Impact of the Skills Gap
This year, a record 15,852 cybersecurity practitioners and decision-makers participated in the study.
In addition to the workforce gap, 90% of respondents indicated that they face skills shortages at their organizations.
More than half of those surveyed (58%) believe a shortage of skills puts their organisation at significant risk, and 64% say skills gaps present a greater challenge to securing their organisations than staffing shortages.
Professionals said the following are the top five skills gaps at their organisations include AI (34%), cloud computing security (30%), zero-trust implementation (27%), digital forensics and incident response (25%), and application security (24%).
“The ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study highlights a concerning perception among cybersecurity professionals,” said ISC2 executive vice president of corporate affairs Andy Woolnough.
“After two years of declining investment in hiring and professional development opportunities, organizations are now facing significant skills and staffing shortages – an issue that professionals warn is heightening overall risk.
“At a time when global instability and emerging technologies like AI are rapidly increasing the threat landscape, investment in skills development and the next generation of the cyber workforce is more crucial than ever. This will enable cybersecurity professionals to meet these challenges and keep our critical assets secure.”
Nearly one-third (31%) of participants said their security teams had no entry-level professionals on their teams, and 15% said they had no junior-level (1-3 years of experience) professionals.
Moreover, hiring managers – 62% of which currently had open roles on their teams – are focusing on hiring mid to advanced level roles rather than a broad mix of experience and abilities.
This represents a high proportion of organisations that do not have a pipeline of professionals who can develop their foundational skillset in-house to bolster existing teams and instead are relying solely on hiring pre-qualified talent.
Providing on-the-job training and professional development opportunities for entry-level talent is essential for developing a skilled cybersecurity workforce for the future, as well as offering advancement opportunities for the existing workforce.
Challenges Impacting Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction among cybersecurity professionals has remained high over the last several years despite prevailing staffing challenges and escalating threats.
However, this year – characterized by mounting security challenges, slow job growth and budget constraints – our study found a 66% favorable job satisfaction rate among professionals, down 4% from 2023.
With mounting pressure on cybersecurity teams, declining job satisfaction can lead to professionals leaving the field and increased burnout, further exacerbating the workforce shortage.
This year’s research reveals three areas of action for organizations to address the global shortage of cybersecurity jobs growth, to encourage new individuals into the profession and to address the skills gap.
This includes addressing job creation and hiring priorities, prioritizing in-house professional development and setting realistic and clear job role expectations.
Following a cybersecurity incident which affected Transport for London (TfL), the National Crime Agency has arrested a 17-year-old boy.
Around 5,000 customer’s banking details, including account numbers and sort codes, could have been accessed as a result of the attack, with names, emails, and home addresses accessed.
The teenage boy was arrested in Walsall, England, on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences in relation to the attack which took place on 1 September.
Following questions from NCA officers, the teenager was bailed.
TfL, which runs London’s transport network from buses to the Tube, said the attack could have lead to some disrupted services, but now, the TfL’s chief technology officer, Shashi Verma, said the incident lead to “very little impact” on customers thus far.
In an update, Verma said that refund data from Oyster cards – passes for London transport – may have been accessed as part of the account.
“As a precautionary measure, we will be contacting these customers directly as soon as possible to advise them of the support we can provide and the steps they can take,” he said in a statement.
“We have notified the Information Commissioner’s Office and are working with our partners to progress the investigation. We will provide further updates as soon as possible,” he added.
The CTO has also assured that the TfL will take additional security measures, including an “all-staff IT identity check.”
The NCA has said that it is working to support the TfL following the cyber-attack.
“Attacks on public infrastructure such as this can be hugely disruptive and lead to severe consequences for local communities and national systems,” deputy director Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s national cyber crime unit, said.
“The swift response by TfL following the incident has enabled us to act quickly, and we are grateful for their continued co-operation with our investigation, which remains ongoing.”
OpenAI has launched a new series of AI models – internally referred to as the Strawberry series – which will have improved analytical capabilities to answer harder problems and queries.
The models will be able to take more time processing queries in order to complete complex tasks, including tackling more difficult problems in the realms of science, maths, and coding.
“We trained these models to spend more time thinking through problems before they respond, much like a person would,” OpenAI said in a blog post.
“Through training, they learn to refine their thinking process, try different strategies, and recognize their mistakes.”
The new o1 and o1-mini models were trained to take more time responding to complex problems to mimic the problem-solving process of people, and OpenAI says it shows similar capabilities as PhD students when responding to questions in physics, chemistry, and biology.
In comparison to GPT-4o, the new reasoning model outperformed the last GPT model in maths, with an 83% score on the International Mathematics Olympiad qualifying exam compared to just a 13% score for GPT-4o.
However, the new models are not yet able to browse the internet for answers, or deal with uploaded files or images.
OpenAI says that the new, analytical models are more suited for dealing with complex problems in science, maths, coding, and similar fields.
The company has said that the o1 series excels at generating and debugging complex code, and its o1-mini will offer a faster and cheaper reasoning model that is “particularly effective at coding”, and is 80% cheaper than the o1-preview.
Now, the o1 series has been released as an option on ChatGPT, where prospective users can chose wither o1 or 01-mini manually to answer their queries.
OpenAI has said it is working on solution to have ChatGPT automatically select the appropriate model to answer any query.
Next, OpenAI aims to add web browsing, file and image uploading, and other features to the new models to make them more useful across various work cases.
Following its £54.3bn merger with Activision-Blizzard, Microsoft is announcing more cuts to its gaming division, following a large round of cuts in January and studio closures in May.
Microsoft purchased Activision-Blizzard, the gaming company behind Call of Duty,World of Warcraft, and Overwatch, last October after a lengthy investigation from the UK competition watchdog over concerns it would skew the gaming market.
Since then, Microsoft laid off 1,900 workers in January, and closed four gaming studios it had purchased before its deal with Activision went through.
The new cuts will amount to around 650 workers from the gaming division, with those working in “mostly corporate and supporting functions” being affected across its global workforce.
However, this latest round of cuts will not include any “games, devices or experiences” and “no studios are being closed,” according to a memo shared to workers.
The decision to make this round of layoffs, which amount to around 3% of Microsoft’s current gaming staff, was in order to manage their business for “long-term success” and to align their “post-acquisition team structure,” Xbox, which is owned by Microsoft, owner Phil Spencer said, as reported by the BBC.
While no decisions on the continuation of games had been announced with the layoffs, Spencer did say that the cuts could impact other teams, causing them to shift priorities and “manage the lifecycle and performance of games.”
Microsoft, which also owns King, the maker of Candy Crush, and Zenimax, which owns Bethesda, the creator of Fallout, has spread its influence over the gaming world.
But the video games industry has suffered layouts, much akin to the wider tech industry.
Sony, EA, Riot Games, Unity, Epic, and Amazon’s game division have all laid off workers over the past few months in a volatile year for the industry’s workers.
Despite layoffs at Microsoft, the company’s latest finance report shows that its video games revenues have increased, potentially as a result of its acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.
The Irish data protection watchdog has announced it will be investigating Google for its AI training methods, saying the tech giant may not have gained prior consent to process user data for the training of its AI models as laid out in GDPR.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) will probe if Google complied with its GDPR obligations to undertake an assessment prior to processing EU citizens data for the development it its Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM2).
The impact assessment is thought to be crucial to ensure people’s rights and freedoms are taken into consideration when personal data is processed for new emerging technologies.
As more AI models come into the fore, and companies develop and test these models, the GDPR rule has come into focus.
To avoid similar scrutiny, Meta has delayed the training of some of its AI models in Europe as it figures out how to comply with EU data protection regulations.
In particular, the investigation will look into the cross-border processing of EU data as multiple EU countries are concerned.
Most big tech companies operating place their European headquarters in Ireland, due to the country’s EU status and business-friendly regulation and tax rates.
This is why the Irish DPC spearheads many GDPR investigations into some of the biggest names in tech, though the overriding EU Data Protection Board (EUDPB) has been known to take over cases due to the Irish DPC’s leniency.
By 2026, the vast majority (90%) of finance functions will deploy at least one AI-enabled technology solution, but less than 10% of functions will see headcount reductions, according to Gartner, Inc.
While chief financial officers (CFOs) are already making changes to fully harness AI in finance, a sense of uncertainty, inflated expectations and employee disengagement often quells success rates in AI’s usage.
CFOs who combine the strengths of people and machines increase their chances of AI success through a satisfied and engaged workforce, Gartner analysts argue.
“Despite AI’s ability to emulate human performance, algorithms cannot match the unique capabilities of people in areas that require creativity and complex problem solving,” said Ash Mehta, senior director analyst in the Gartner finance practice.
“By recognizing the respective strengths of people and machines, finance leaders can build processes that boost the abilities of people and machines, while mitigating their weaknesses. This requires a new kind of collaboration between people and machines that will improve business performance and employee satisfaction.”
For example, while AI-driven machines are very adept at automating simple decisions and processes by analysing large amounts of data quickly, they cannot work independently and may fail to form good conclusions when presented with unusual circumstances.
On the other hand, people use creativity and an innate understanding of human behavior to quickly draw conclusions when presented with new and unfamiliar problems but could not hope to outperform a machine when crunching numbers.
“To supercharge the abilities of both AI and people, they must learn to collaborate in a way that harnesses each other’s strengths,” said Mehta.
Gartner experts call this collaboration the human – machine learning loop, which promotes continuous process improvements that encourage finance staff and AI-driven machines to collaborate on processes while dividing labor according to the respective strengths of each. While relying on each other for improvements, both parties can iteratively add greater value
The human – machine learning loop starts with the creation of an algorithm, automated process, machine-driven task or autonomous workflow, respecting what machines are as good or better than people at performing. Then machines carry out these tasks, such as generating a revenue forecast, approving an expense report, or determining optimal payment terms for a specific customer.
Machines can also inform and advise. Such is the case when a forecasting algorithm suggests that a recent policy change will alter the sales outlook, or a machine-driven invoicing process suggests sending invoices on certain days to increase cash collections.
The labour performed by machines in this way then frees humans to take information, advice and recommendations from algorithms, using their creative and strategic strengths to solve complex problems by designing process improvements. Once new processes are in place, people trigger the next iteration of the loop by building new machines that execute the new processes and analyse the respective data.
The cyber-threat landscape is continually transforming with new technologies, shifting geopolitical threats, and undulating economic tides.
The advent of generative AI has exacerbated this transformation – it can do everything faster, more efficiently, and on a greater scale, whether this is creating cyber-threats or detecting and mitigating against them.
It’s impossible to talk about any facet of technology, especially cybersecurity, without talking about how AI has already affected the industry, with regards to its current capabilities, and the threats it’s giving rise to.
With this in mind, Elliot Went, senior systems analyst at SentinelOne took us through the good, the bad, and the ugly of AI in cybersecurity.
The Ugly
Went introduced three menacing threat forms that utilise generative AI technologies, which not only exploit the technology’s advanced efficiency, but more of its innovative and creative capabilities.
Frist, Deep Locker, which uses a generative AI neural network to contextually understand its environment to guide its execution. It is location aware, and can be deployed to multiple environments to then decide how it will penetrate and execute an attack. It can use webcams, facial and voice recognition, generating ‘aware’ malware quietly to avoid detection.
Next, Went explained the tech behind Black Mamba, a polymorphic malware driven by generative AI. The description alone sounds straight out of a horror film, with the artificial intelligence able to ‘slither’ around its environment, “dynamically evolving code on the fly” by feeding the data it collects to generative AI.
It’s capable of picking up on threat detectors, meaning it can circumvent these “static controls” by generating novel workarounds.
MalGAN, which stands for generative adversarial malware, denotes a method of model training using a generator and a discriminator to train an AI model.
A discriminator has access to the target output, let’s say, a picture of a dog, or, alternatively, a line of malware code that is impervious to current detectors.
A generator will start creating pictures of what it thinks a dog will look like, and send it to the discriminator, which will then give it a percentage match, until the generator’s output is as close to a 100% match to the target outcome as possible.
“Applied in a malicious sense,” Went said, “a discriminator is using ML [machine learning] detection rules to create a bunch of code, until that code is not protected by any current ML detection. Essentially, generating content to circumnavigate AI detection.”
This pernicious parade of genAI applications seem straight out of a cybersecurity specialists’ nightmares, and in actuality, that’s where they currently reside.
“They’re not actually affecting the real world right now,” Went assured the audience. “The models were built as proof of concept by research and development organisations.”
The ‘ugly’ side of AI is labelled so because right now, it is just that. These malicious use cases of AI have yet to be employed on the big stage, though Went said that the models and their variations were in development in lots of nation states, “until it eventually seeps out.”
Investigating and inventing the ugliest side of AI is key, however, in defending against it.
Now, however, AI is already being used for the bad.
The Bad
If you’ve paid attention to the current threat landscape (which you can catch up with here), then you know AI has almost instantly been snapped up and used by threat actors and adversaries since it was released into the mainstream.
Advents of AI chatbots, and the seminal release of ChatGPT, put the fast efficiency of AI in the hands of the specialists, the public, and threat actors alike.
But, as Went points it out, the use cases of genAI tend to follow a typical pattern, whether it is used by experts in their field, by the public making searchers, or by adversaries trying to launch a cyber-attack.
“It’s a tool, we use it as a tool,” he said. “We point it at what we want to achieve, and it helps us be more efficient and more effective.”
Common use cases for AI by adversaries is to improve their phishing and social engineering attacks, with high fidelity and increased sophistication that has been noted by many a cyber-threat landscape review.
But AI can also be used in brute force credential attacks, and enlarge distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at scale.
AI can be used to poison data, sifting through vast sets to find and exploit vulnerabilities.
“Threat actors are just leveraging AI to do the same stuff,” Went said, but with devastating results.
Phishing attacks are more difficult to detect by humans, and AI is struggling to identify its own AI-generated social engineering tactics.
Further, the scale at which AI can carry out attacks will only increase their success rate, and the ease with which these tools can be employed has lowered the skills threshold dramatically, opening up cyber-attacks to an entirely new platform of would-be attackers.
Went did mention that we are catching up, at least in terms of classifying the ways AI is being used by threat actors.
The MITRE ATT&CK (adversarial tactics, techniques, and common knowledge) framework has “further built our taxonomy on AI-based threats,” Went said, which cybersecurity defenders can study to aid them in dealing with or detecting those AI-driven attacks.
So, we’ve discussed the ugly of AI haunting cyber specialists’ nightmares (and potentially, our futures) and the very real, very active bad side of AI in cyber. But will Went give us a glimmer of AI’s promised good side?
Just as it can be used as an attack vector, AI can be used in defence – in fact, it has been for years.
“I’m sure you’ve seen just about every security vendor saying they’ve used AI for years,” Went commented.
And they are pretty much right – cybersecurity techniques often employ different forms of AI in their defence and detection capabilities, mainly in the form of machine learning models.
Went says these are front end models, capable of detecting threats and vulnerabilities out of myriad data points.
“In this arena, generative AI is kind of irrelevant,” Went said. Sure, genAI can be used to advance the efficiency of these ML models, but the data landscape is much more complex than that typically dealt with by most mainstream genAI models.
“When we think about all the really sophisticated outputs of things like ChatGPT, they are dealing with mainly three inputs of data – text, images, videos – and its because we have an internet worth of data in a standardised format.
“If you think about what we’re trying to detect across – we’re trying to detect across telemetry, logs, deep sets of data, and data that is probably in the production formats across different vendors,” Went explained.
So training a model on these various data sets and forms is not necessarily where genAI is going to make its mark.
“But really what we’re going to be seeing again is using Ai as a tool, as existing as a format today, to instil AI in every function of security tooling that you do today,” Went said.
Essentially, AI will do the same thing it’s done for threat actors – make everything more effective and efficient.
“It’s going to help do threat hunting, it’s going to help translate data sets, help build configurations, understand tools with a quicker time to get value,” Went said.
Generating value from data sets, which Went has demonstrated are incredibly complex and vast, has been a huge barrier “typically requiring deceased worth of skills,” Went said.
Getting the data into a format AI can understand can be a worthwhile pursuit, also aided by AI, to streamline and clean the data pipeline.
Ensuring that AI can understand the data means that analysis, investigations, and vulnerabilities can be done and detected in a much more efficient manner, leaving experts more time for less monotonous tasks.
Building queries on what to look out for across a system, as far as threats of vulnerabilities, can also be aided by AI.
“That’s real low hanging fruit for AI to translate plain, natural language questions into really complex queries,” that existing systems can then act upon, Went explained.
Through the integration of effective data analysis and query building, AI can be used to find the needle in the haystack, as Went puts it, a lot faster.
Standardising a data set, with AI and for AI to understand, can not only help with cyber-defence but can help with the entire stack’s configuration.
“Having an AI engine that can just tell you that you are starting to drift into a really risky area with your configuration,” can be incredibly useful to avoid problems and keep track of your stack and defence posture, Went explained.
Just as with other work, using AI to filter investigations can “really alleviate the manual overhead” that typically falls on advanced security operatives that can spend their time and expertise on higher level tasks.
Using AI in security is a complicated but essential affair. It is not simply “purchasing a commercial chatbot that sits on top technology,” Went said.
“We’re trying to make this a strategic capability.”
Using AI across cyber-investigations, to improve analysts experiences and summarise and take action quicker, are all part of an AI “roadmap” already being used by many cybersecurity vendors as they try to keep up with emerging AI threats.
“Without leveraging AI, despite all the pushback everyone’s going to get about how we adopt that effectively and how we govern that, if we are not doing AI on the defensive side, we do not stand a chance,” Went said.
“There’s no way we’re going to be able to keep up with the challenge.”
It’s an employer’s market globally, the Workday Inc new global report reveals, with AI transforming hiring practices as applications outpace job openings.
Despite these odds, top performing employees are quitting their jobs to look for better opportunities elsewhere. At the same time, organisations are turning to AI to transform how they find and keep their best people.
The report found that the surge of job applications (31%) far outpaces job growth, which rose 7% in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023.
However, jobs are struggling with retainment, as voluntary turnover of high-potential employees is up in 75% of the industries tracked in the report.
In the UK specifically, job growth since the first half of 2023 was 8%, with job applications increasing 22% in the same period.
Competition on the Rise
While the job market grew, its becoming increasingly competitive for employees, a trend that will become more pronounced if job growth slows and unemployment keeps edging up globally.
While the UK market is not as fiercely competitive in recent years, it still presents challenges. Economic slowdown and forecasts of rising unemployment suggest increased competition for available positions. In fact, the data revealed there were only 458,000 offers/employee agreements – a 1% decrease compared to the first half of 2023.
“The findings from the report show that the market now favours employers rather than employees,” said Daniel Pell, vice president and country manager, UKI, Workday.
“However, with the war for talent ongoing, leaders must still listen to what job seekers are searching for as the data shows they increasingly want to strike the right productivity‑flexibility balance and be offered career development opportunities alongside a fair salary,
“Wage growth in the UK is also expected to moderate in 2024, which may potentially impact negotiation power for job seekers.”
An Employer’s Market
With the flood of applications, employers are becoming more selective, with 72% of leaders raising the bar for qualifications and experience.
This trend shows no signs of slowing down, as 59% of leaders say this is likely to continue for the next year, creating a challenging landscape for job seekers, while employers struggle to find efficient and fair ways to hire the best talent.
Retainment Tensions
As companies start hiring again, their most talented employees may be leaving for better opportunities elsewhere. Even though overall employee turnover has been low, data shows that top performers are most likely to leave.
75% of the industries tracked saw an increase in the loss of high-potential employees, creating a big challenge for the 50% of companies already struggling to keep their best people.
Globally and in the UK, the focus is now on retention with many employers turning to internal mobility programmes to help employees grow and develop within the company. And this seems to be paying off, with two thirds (67%) of leaders reporting a positive impact on their organisation.
AI in Hiring
More and more companies are turning to AI for hiring and are seeing real benefits. Most leaders (70%) say AI will make hiring more fair, and 89% believe it will make their hiring process more efficient.
It’s therefore no wonder that most companies (77%) plan to use AI in hiring even more in the coming year.
The most popular ways they are using AI now include testing candidate’s skills (26%), screening resumes and applications (26%), and automating repetitive tasks (24%).
With the rival companies having a combined turnover of £50m, the deal creates one of the largest electronic manufacturing firms in the UK.
With the acquisition, Elite Electronic Systems hopes to strengthen their reputation by integrating CB Technology’s 25 years of industry expertise, particularly in sectors such as energy and power monitoring.
The combined entity is set to benefit from shared market intelligence, expanded resources, and increased manufacturing capabilities, positioning Elite as a powerhouse in the EMS market with a revenue exceeding £50m.
The acquisition has created an exit for Maven Capital Partners, the private equity firm, with a return on investment of 2.85 times for the investors.
CB Technology, founded in 1999, manufactures electronics intended to operate in some of the harshest environments, from the most extreme temperatures to perilous pressure and vibrations.
“This acquisition is a pivotal step for Elite as we continue to grow and innovate in the EMS industry,” Jonathan Balfour, CEO of Elite Electronic Systems, commented.
“The addition of CB Technology’s specialised expertise and strong market presence will allow us to deliver even greater value to our customers. We are excited to welcome the CB team to the Elite family and look forward to achieving new heights together.”
Elite is set to work closely with CB Technology’s leadership and broader team to ensure a seamless integration process that preserves the strengths and culture of both organisations.
“We are proud of what we have achieved at CB Technology and are excited to join forces with Elite, a company that shares our vision and values,” John Cameron, managing director of CB Technology, said.
“Together, we will be able to offer enhanced solutions to our customers and create new opportunities for our employees.”
With the backing of Lonsdale Capital Partners, this acquisition marks the first step in what Elite hopes to be a buy-and-build journey aimed at driving growth through partnerships and deals.
The rapid adoption of data-hungry technologies, such as GenAI, poses a significant threat to decarbonisation initiatives unless organisations take greater responsibility for their cloud and data practices, experts have warned in a report by global data and AI organisation, SAS.
Senior decision-makers in larger organisations face the dual challenge of leveraging data and AI at an increasing scale while urgently needing to reduce carbon emissions.
This is a conundrum for leaders as they navigate the ethical, commercial, and regulatory imperatives to mitigate climate change. To put the challenge into perspective, Ireland’s energy-hungry data centres consumed more electricity last year than all of its urban homes combined, according to official figures.
“Organisations often think that environmental responsibility is primarily a cloud vendor obligation, but the truth is, it’s a shared responsibility,” said Jerry Williams, chief environmental officer, SAS.
“Greater efficiency in AI model development, made possible by the availability of data and AI platforms that are optimised to run in the cloud, will also help teams to reduce unnecessary duplication and waste, and minimise energy consumption.”
The report, drawing on insights from industry experts, highlights the growing problem of data consumption and its environmental impact.
Cloud computing, while offering operational efficiencies, is a significant contributor to carbon emissions.
Innovations in data centre design and management by cloud hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform are making strides in sustainability, but the responsibility extends to the organisations using these services.
“If you reduce the time needed to run analytical workloads, it will also have the added benefit of significantly reducing your carbon emissions,” explains Spiros Potamitis, senior data scientist, SAS.
“However, what’s really important is that organisations see this as a shared responsibility. If all organisations have accountability for their computation efficiency in the cloud and for employing responsible ‘cloud citizen’ practices, the cumulative effect will be significant.”
The rise of GenAI further complicates the sustainability challenge. Reports indicate that models like ChatGPT-3 consume substantial resources, with ChatGPT-4 requiring even more.
Recent research from Morgan Stanley shows that the rise in data centre usage, driven by the AI boom, is expected to produce about 2.5 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions globally through the end of the decade.
As data centres are resource-intensive both directly, in terms of energy and water consumption, and indirectly, through construction and equipment use, the experts agree that the tech industry must innovate to meet sustainably demands.
Potamitis stressed the need for organisations to use monitoring tools to understand their usage, build holistic ESG dashboards, and partner with sustainable software and cloud vendors. “It’s about making small, incremental changes that collectively have a significant impact. Even small improvements in cloud usage can make a big difference when considering the cumulative impact,” he said.
The report also sheds light on the inefficiencies in cloud proliferation. SAS research found that cloud and analytics sprawl is causing problems for 99% of large organisations, leading to increased infrastructure, storage and processing costs, as well as a hidden environmental impact.
Optimising cloud environments is crucial for reducing both financial costs and carbon emissions.
As the demand for AI and advanced analytics grows, the industry must balance innovation with sustainability.
The tech sector is responding with innovations in data centre management and more efficient algorithms.
“The urgency of climate change, public pressure, and new regulations mean that businesses are increasingly prioritising sustainability when choosing providers,” Luke Davies, managing director of data centers at GlobalConnect said. “Without data centres, there will be no AI, so there’s a structural incentive to make them as efficient as possible.”
Potamitis concluded: “Given the urgency of climate change, organisations must go all in, hosting data with responsible service providers and continuously optimising their resources to reduce their emissions footprint.”
In his first Programme for Government, first minister John Swinney laid out his plans to invigorate the Scottish economy with investments in deep tech, diversifying enterprise investment, and strengthening the effects of government startup support programmes.
As of June, Techscaler supported over 700 businesses, according to the government, and introduced education courses helping people on their startup and scaleup journey.
This, Swinney said, would “create new opportunities for our most promising ‘deep tech’ companies to support promising businesses with prototypes and manufacturing.”
He also affirmed support for Scottish universities and business clusters for research and development, and to give Scotland a competitive advantage in areas like data, digital, AI, health, manufacturing, and the energy transition.
The Scottish government intends to invest more than £315 million over the 2024-25 academic year to help develop early career researchers.
Swinney promised to tackle the critical skills shortage plaguing the Scottish workforce, saying that the government will “lead a new, national approach to skills planning,” including working on regional approaches.
The plan aims to reform the education and skills funding system as well as making efforts to diversify the business landscape by taking recommendations made in the Pathways report authored by Ana Stewart and Mark Logan.
However, no specific plans to address this skills shortage was made, nor did he address specific actions the government intends to take to ensure more women are empowered to start businesses.
Other economic promises that can strengthen the tech ecosystem is the intention to connect more than 20,000 premises to gigabit capable broadband, which can help improve the digital divide.
The government also intends to introduce digital technologies to modernise services, including the first version of personalised digital health and social care service.
The UK has forged ahead on a major crossroads for open banking as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announces it has completed its roadmap of the implementation of the financial technology.
All nine banking providers mandated by the CMA under the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order (the CMA Order) have successfully competed the Roadmap and associated required functionality to offer the full suite of open banking payment and account information services.
“Today’s update is an important milestone,” Dan Turnbull, senior director at the CMA said.
“The completion of the Roadmap cements the move to the future of Open Banking, one that can expand the benefits of Open Banking beyond the scope of the CMA’s Order. OBL’s [Open Banking Limited] work is vital to the ongoing success of Open Banking.
“We look forward to continuing to work closely with the FCA, PSR and HM Treasury to help deliver the future arrangements for Open Banking.
As we move towards this future, we will continue to ensure the Standard is maintained and that the nine banking providers are held to their ongoing obligations under the CMA’s Order.”
Since the announcement of a substantial completion of the Roadmap, the final banking providers, Danske Bank, Bank of Irelands, and Allied Irish Bank, have fully delivered all their Roadmap requirements, including variable recurring payments (VRPs) for sweeping.
Essentially, VRPs for sweeping automatically allows users to transfer money from different accounts even if they are with different providers, as long as both accounts are in their same name.
While the agreement has come later than initially intended, it provides the UK with assurity of its position as a major player in open banking, bringing enhanced financial control and flexibility to UK customers.
Open banking has transformed the payments and data landscape in the UK, enabling customers and small businesses to leverage their current account information securely with TPPs, who use that data to tailor their products and services to peoples’ specific financial circumstances. It also offers a new, secure way to pay for goods and services.
2024 has been a year of rapid adoption and strong growth for open banking, with 11.32 million users in July, a 12 percent uplift from the previous month. In terms of payments, 19.54 million payments were made in July, and of these, VRPs for sweeping accounted for 2.45 million – a growth of 23.9 percent. With an expanding user base the opening banking ecosystem is valued at over £4 billion.
The completion of the Roadmap prepares the UK for the next phase of financial innovation as we move beyond the CMA Order. It is also timely, as the Government prepares to introduce the Digital Information and Smart Data Bill. This is expected to build on the achievements of open banking and deliver the benefits of data sharing to smart data schemes in key economic sectors, including energy, telecoms, transport and retail.
“The CMA’s confirmation of the Roadmap’s full completion is a major achievement for open banking in the UK,” Marion King, trustee and chair of Open Banking Limited, the organisation that works with the CMA to develop its open banking regulations, commented.
“I’d like to pay tribute to the banking providers who have successfully implemented the Roadmap, and the ecosystem and wider stakeholders for their hard work and collaboration that allowed us to reach this major milestone in a relatively short period of time.
“Thanks to their efforts, we are now able to move closer to a smart data economy in which we unlock the full potential of open banking for consumers and businesses alike.”
Henk Van Hulle, CEO of OBL, added: “The rollout of sweeping functionality across all the CMA9 is a crucial step in extending the benefits of open banking to a broader range of customers.
“As we look ahead, the next exciting chapter will involve exploring the potential of commercial VRPs, which have the capacity to revolutionise the way businesses manage payments.
“We are eager to see how third-party providers will harness this new capability to drive further innovation in the financial sector.”
Hybrid work is not going away, despite headlines that major CEOs are pushing for return to office mandates.
Hitting the mainstream after the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid work is now employed at 64% of workplaces, according to a new survey from Zoom.
The report, titled Navigating the Future of Work, surveyed more than 600 IT and C-suite leaders and nearly 1,900 employees across the globe, questioning their views on workplace models, productivity levels, and the impact of generative AI.
While hybrid may reign as the most common form of workplace organisation across Western Europe (60%), North America (75%), and APAC (59%), the survey noted that not all models looked the same.
Scheduled, flexitime, and outcome-based hybrid approaches are all adopted across various industries, noting that the future of work may continue to diversity.
Employees, however, support the most flexible models, with remote work from anywhere (36%) being the top choice, followed by flextime (25%).
In-office work was only preferred by a quarter of respondents when compared to all other types of hybrid and remote working options.
Furthermore, 84% of all employees believe they get more done in a hybrid/remote setting than in the office or onsite. This figure increased for 18-24 year olds (93%), and remained high for 45-54 year olds (78%).
However, despite its current popularity, the workplace is likely to continue to change.
Leaders are most influenced by productivity (84%) when dissecting their workplace models, followed by recruitment ability (62%).
75% of leaders say it is moderately to very likely that they will change their workplace model in the next two years. About four in five (82%) say that work will become more flexible, while only 3% say work will become less flexible to a degree.
The typical arguments for in-office work oft cited by CEOs fall flat when looking at the survey – workers say they are more productive working remotely, and many say they feel more connected working remotely too.
While employers cite the need for human connection, hybrid and remote workers tend to feel more connected to their co-workers and management team than in-person workers.
Employees do miss some aspects of the office, saying that it is easier to connect with coworkers, as well as citing the ability to have spontaneous conversations.
We of course cannot talk about the future of work without discussing generative AI.
As the workplace turns hybrid and remote, companies need to consistently update their current tech stack to stay competitive and secure.
Most (75%) agree that their tools and technology used for remote work needs to be improved, and that new tools and technologies will be required to support remote work (72%).
When asked about the next immediate change to their workplace model, leaders commonly answered with AI integration.
Only 6% of leaders admitted that their organisation did not use generative AI, with the overwhelming majority using the tech for chatbots (56%), content generation (49%), and design assistance (46%).
Further, 84% of leaders have said that AI has improved productivity, and 64% of employees agreeing that AI makes it easier to do their job.
Employees, however, are more cautious about AI, with 64% sharing their concern that the technology will negatively impact their job.
The UK’s competition watchdog has released its provisional decision on Google’s ad tech behaviours, finding them to be using anti-competitive practices which it believes could be harming thousands of UK publishers and advertisers.
The Competition and Markets Authority is concerned that Google is abusingits market dominance in open display ad tech, pushing the vast majority of publishers and advertises to use the company’s ad tech services in order to bid for and sell advertising space.
“Google disadvantages competitors and prevents them competing on a level playing field to provide publishers and advertisers with a better, more competitive service that supports growth in their business,” the CMA’s statement read.
“We’ve provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites,” Juliette Enser, interim executive director of enforcement, said.
“Many businesses are able to keep their digital content free or cheaper by using online advertising to generate revenue. Adverts on these websites and apps reach millions of people across the UK – assisting the buying and selling of goods and services.
“That’s why it’s so important that publishers and advertisers – who enable this free content – can benefit from effective competition and get a fair deal when buying or selling digital advertising space.”
In its 2019 market study into digital advertising, the CMA found that advertisers were spending around £1.8 billion annually on open-display ads, marketing goods, and services via apps and websites to UK consumers.
The CMA’s new investigation, which opened in 2022, looked at Google’s role across the ad tech stack, which consists of various intermediaries that facilitate the sale of online open-display advertising space on websites or mobile apps between ‘sellers’ and ‘buyers’.
Google serves as an intermediary in three key parts of the ad tech stack chain, operating two ad buying tools, as well as a publisher ad server. In the centre of the ad tech stack, Google operates an ad exchange, which typically receives requests for bids from publishers and responding bids from advertisers, and then conduct an auction to match these two sides.
In this ad exchange, called AdX, Google charges its highest fees out of the tech stack, equal to approximately 20% of the bid amount.
The CMA investigation Google’s potential anti-competitive self-preferencing in the ad tech stack.
The watchdog found that since at least 2015, Google has abused its dominant positions through the operation of both its buying tools and publisher ad server in order to strengthen AdX’s market position, and to protect AdX from competition from other exchanges.
Moreover, due to the highly integrated nature of Google’s ad tech business, the CMA has provisionally found that Google’s conduct has also prevented rival publisher ad servers from being able to compete effectively with DFP, harming competition in this market.
The CMA found that Google had provided AdX with preferential access to advertisers using Google Ads, manipulated advertiser bids to have higher values when submitted to AdX than when submitted to rival exchange auctions, and allowed AdX to bid first in auctions run by its publisher ad server.
Now, the CMA is considering what may be required by Google to ensure that these anti-practices are stopped, and that Google does not engage in similar practices in the future.
The launch of the event followed the seminal Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship report, commissioned by the Scottish government and authored by entrepreneurs Ana Stewart and Mark Logan, in 2023.
It spotlighted and critiqued Scotland’s enterprise ecosystem for its lack of diversity and inclusion, and its failing when it comes to gender equality.
The Pathways report did not mince its words, stating: “Our society has a degree of sexism embedded within it, and these prejudices are transferred from generation to generation.”
But, it’s initiatives like the Female Founders Growth Summit, from business community Female Founders Rise and the newly-created Pathways Forward programme, which are working to both bring female founders together and help close today’s female entrepreneurial gap through community-oriented efforts.
The Summit aimed at women at every stage of their startup or scaleup journey, offered a series of engaging talks panels, and workshops, diving into the specific challenges female founders face regarding startups, funding, imposter syndrome, scaling up their business, and dealing with a male-centric business funding system.
Growing Pains and Lessons Gained
Darina Garland, co-founder and CEO of Ooni, chaired a panel which went into the challenges and strengths women founders experienced in their startup cycle, elucidating their key insights on their growth journeys.
Garland asked the panel members—Sasha Evans, founder and creative director of We the Creator; Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, founder of Genius Foods and chair of Scotland Food and Drink; and Margaret Rice-Jones, chair of the Scale Up Institute—what growth meant to them.
For Bruce-Gardyne, growth meant effortlessness, rather than toil: “Growth more me is having a fantastic product where there’s huge demand, that just effortlessly moves into finding people to join your team, and finding people who want your products, because it’s something with a wow factor.”
For the founder of Genius, a food company that’s developed a new way to create gluten-free bread products for celiac sufferers, the wow factor of the product was key.
“If you are struggling, it is important to ask what is the wow factor of your product.” The struggle may come from creating the product, but once it has been developed and prototyped, this is where the growth should come easy, she said.
For Rice-Jones, who regularly works with companies on their scaling efforts, growth is a process that is not necessarily always mapped out.
“When you take step one you don’t necessarily know step two or three or four, but when you get to step three, then you can figure out what your step four is,” Rice-Jones said.
For Evans, who went from creating a startup to helping others on their inclusivity journeys, growth took and does take many forms.
“I think we have a kind of mindset as founders that we may be looking for backing, but that growth is dictated by other people,” Evans said. “Now, my growth is about me, my product, and my customers.”
While the answers were varied on the definition of growth, they bare down into how growth works for startup companies, and how the women’s entrepreneurial movement has grown within this sphere.
Starting out with solution-oriented products that can sell themselves is part of the essential for women entrepreneurs. Throughout the day, speakers highlighted how women-led startups were centred around solutions to often personal problems that are subsequently underrepresented and undervalued by male-dominated sectors and funding bodies.
Growth is also the step-by-step perseverance through different funding stages and trial and error, until eventually, entrepreneurs gain the confidence and experience to determine growth in their own right.
Defining Success
“I think a marker of success is sustainable growth,” said Bruce-Gardyne, tying in the two topics.
For her, success is marked by an engaged and capable team, the ability to understand the consumer, and “a board and executive team that understands and is in tune with the company’s technical and scaling challenges.”
“If they are not in tune with this, the goals the company sets will be unrealistic,” she warned.
Being able to continually grow, and continually rise to challenges and changes, is therefore vital to success.
Meanwhile, explainability is key for Evans.
“We’re often solving complex problems – success criteria for me is when you get to the point when you can explain your business to your aunt or your mum, and they absolutely get it, and you can do that in two sentences.”
“It’s the time when you get to the point of explainability.”
Another point of success Evans noted is when employers are sought after, rather than businesses scrambling to snap up the freshest talent.
“When people say ‘I want to come work for you’ – that’s when you know success comes.”
But Rice-Jones’s experience on helping scaleups also pointed to the challenges women-led businesses face.
“Statistically, we know that it is harder to get funding than men still, startups are challenged by access to markets, both international and domestic, and the ability to get the right connections and find the right market is a struggle,” she said.
Furthermore, new technologies are also bringing in a whole new tide of challenges.
“Many businesses tell us AI will change everything,” Rice-Jones said, “but they don’t know how.”
The emergence of new technologies can be a problem in itself, noted Evans.
“As entrepreneurs, we get excited about new, shiny things, but keeping that goal in mind, keeping that north star in mind, is so important,” she noted.
Challenges and Resilience
Evans has a complicated relationship with the word resilience, which many marginalised people can relate to.
“I have a kind of funny relationship with resilience, maybe because I find it can be used to slightly undermine people, as if it’s saying ‘you aren’t capable,’ when often the barriers we come across are real. It’s our environment, not that we aren’t resilient enough,” she said.
Using that as a framework to discuss the challenges facing women in the startup ecosystem is extremely important – rather than advice coming off as pedantic or condescending, advice on overcoming challenges is necessary because these challenges exist.
As Rice-Jones pointed out, women-led businesses are not receiving as much funding, despite being statistically better performing than men.
In a panel later in the day covering funding, quandary was questioned.
The proportion of women-led startups is so small, is it fair to take an accurate sample to mark success?
Is it simply just a fact that only the truly exceptional women-led startups are going to make it past the first round of funding, whereas less-than-stellar male-led startups will power through?
Danae Shell, founder and CEO of Valla, touched on exactly this: “There is no room for mediocrity for female founders in the ecosystem, which is not fair. It’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
It is important to recognise that the funding and startup ecosystem is unfair towards marginalised genders–the startup ecosystem does not exist in a vacuum, after all.
Provided that the women who found startups were raised in a sexist society, as were the men making up the male-dominated VC sphere, being able to translate yourself to “bro code” was noted as a vital point by the panel discussing funding rounds.
Being able to understand where passion and problem-solving is not commercially viable is also a hard lesson to learn.
“We often solve the problems we face ourselves,” Evans said. “Just because a problem exists, doesn’t mean people will pay to solve it. We can be embroiled in the injustice of something, but that doesn’t mean that there is a commercially viable solution to it.”
Equally, making the argument to a male board of investors can be difficult if they have never experienced the problem before, and are unable to envisage a viable market for the product solution.
“It’s the reason why femtech has been underlooked, as well as people of colour; why so many underrepresented communities do not have products that work for them,” Evans noted. “The people in charge do not relate.”
Learning to speak to investors, to make these arguments, and understand your VC audience rather than just your customer base, is duly important. Being able to flex your positions, ability, and to even switch your mannerisms to match the environment, are skills that can be developed with practice.
“It took me 20 years to change my body language,” Bruce-Gardyne reminisced, speaking about how she had to practise speaking to a board of men to convince them of her product.
It is frustrating hearing that these issues which affected women 20, 30, and 40 years ago are still affecting women trying to break into entrepreneurialism now.
How we have to learn to speak the language of men—bu, again, we do this anyway. The business funding environment is no different than a school, than a bar, than a dark alleyway—except the stakes are indeed different. You play the part you need to for survival.
“As a founder you will do anything to ensure your business succeeds, if you have to flex your behaviours to advocate, to relate, you will do that,” Bruce-Gardyne said.
Rice-Jones boils it down to a superpower – “people able to relate and get the best out of people, that is a superpower we need to use,” she said.
“One colleague said after a meeting once: ‘You manipulated them all!’” Rice-Jones remembered. “I prefer to think of it as influenced.”
Using these traits to one’s advantage can help build resilience, but resiliency is also a practice within itself.
“Resilience is so much easier the second time round,” added Rice-Jones.
“It comes with experience,” noted Bruce-Gardyne, “when you go through ups and downs. It was my passion that got me through the challenges.”
“Everything was uncertain,” Bruce-Gardyne explained about her startup journey, detailing the “serious trial and error, serious waste, serious amount of time lost.”
“The only thing that got me through was my passion and calling.”
But still, internal passion can benefit from a boost of external experience.
“If you find people around you who have been through a challenge, even if you haven’t, you can borrow resilience, giving you confidence that you can survive, and that you can take the next step,” said Rice-Jones.
“Resilience is learned, but also borrowed.”
Being comfortable in uncertainty is also key to resilience, Evans noted.
The panel then ended with a whirlwind of advice for women founders at any stage of their journey.
Evans advocated for finding teams and people who are interested and will understand the product as well as the technical and scaling challenges;people who are curious and hands on.
Further, understanding that “as a founder, where you add value – you can’t be good at everything,” she said, as well as figuring out where you need help, and finding the right people to help, are key.
Evans also noted the need to stay focused on your main goal, your ‘north star’ as she liked to describe it, but to be flexible on your journey to achieve it.
“Recruiting people who are your users, and keeping so close to your customers that they are a part of your team, and are co-designing your product, is really important,” she said.
Being adaptable, and knowing when and where to cut, is essential, according to Rice-Jones.
“What got you here has got you here,” she said, “And you’ll need some of it to get you to the next stage, but you will not need all of it. A huge mistake is not being willing to change enough.”
Progress to Be Made
The afternoon keynote from Sam Smith, co-founder of SuperScalers and founder and chief executive of the corporate advisor and brokerage firm FinnCap, was certainly an inspiring way to round out the day.
Smith, who gave advice on superscaling, made an important point after she realised little had changed in the VC ecosystem.
“The system is just not set up for us, we’re not in the room, we’re just not in the room,” she said.
Initiatives are currently being set up and scaled to get more women and marginalised genders and people into those rooms, to help them secure deserved funding, and to ensure that women can make mistakes and still succeed.
The Pathways report, the creation and launch of Pathways Forward, the Female Founders Growth Summit, are just some of the initiatives that aim to serve as an antidote to the myriad issues at play. But to ensure success, we all need to be part of the solution—though it’s surely a long road ahead.
Nearly a third of UK middle market businesses have not yet invoked a sustainability plan or strategy despite the new government’s clean energy and net zero pledges.
Scotland has some of the most ambitious net zero goals in the world, pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2045. The UK government, on the other hand, has a goal to reach net zero by 2050.
According to new research from RSM UK, nearly a third (30%) of businesses still do not have a sustainability strategy in place, with a quarter planning on creating and implementing one in the next 12 months. However, 5% say they have no intentions to create any formal sustainability strategy.
The report also found that a quarter of businesses (24%) have yet to set net zero targets to reduce their businesses’ emissions, even though they could benefit from efficiencies and cost savings.
While nearly three quarters of businesses (74%) have set net zero goals, about a fifth (21%) have not put a strategy or plan in place to reach these targets.
“Our survey shows that almost a third of businesses lack a sustainability plan or strategy, which highlights the need for clarity from government on the transition to clean energy and the role of businesses in supporting this,” Grant Morrison, partner in Aberdeen and head of oil and gas at RSM, said.
“It’s complex, so embedding the energy mix, infrastructure, skills and investment will be key to its success.
“Aberdeen has cultivated a skilled workforce and infrastructure and using this experience to deliver clean power generation will help support the ambitious aims of the recently-established GB Energy, making it the logical choice for the initiative’s headquarters.
“Retraining, up-skilling and deploying the city’s workforce, while drawing on its strategic location, research institutions and current renewable projects, presents an opportunity for Aberdeen to be a pivotal part of the UK’s energy transition.
“Although the government has established a climate change strategy, what’s missing is a wider industrial strategy which outlines how the key energy sources and investment framework, including R&D and tax incentives, will deliver change in conjunction with GB Energy.”
Rich Hall, partner and head of sustainability at RSM, said conflicting green strategies could be behind the delay in setting net zero plans.
“The delay in formalising a plan for many businesses could be due to sustainability fatigue,” he said.
“Globally, there are different levels of proactivity around the green agenda, and when you combine this with inconsistency in strategy both here in the UK and across the globe, the complexity can be exhausting, and in some cases, lead to paralysis.
“With upcoming legislation that will require businesses to disclose not only climate, but broader sustainability risk, businesses need to create a comprehensive strategy, underpinned with a funding plan, that is embedded at board level, throughout the business and its supply chain.”
The UK, along with international allies, exposed a unit of Russia’s military intelligence service for a campaign of malicious cyber activity targeting government and critical infrastructure organisations around the world.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and agencies in the United States, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Canada, Australia and Ukraine have published a joint advisory revealing the tactics and techniques used by Unit 29155 of the Russian GRU to carry out cyber operations globally.
The unit was part of the main directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), and conducted computer network operations against global targets for espionage, sabotage, or reputational harm since 2020.
The UK and its partners can confirm that Unit 29155 began deploying its destructive malware, WhisperGate, in 2022 against multiple Ukrainian victim organisations.
According to the joint statement, the cyber threat actors associated with this unit are separate from other known, more established Russian-affiliated groups, such as Unit 26165 and Unit 74455.
To mitigate against further malicious cyber activity, the NCSC and its associates are urging organisations to take the actions set out in its joint advisory.
This includes employing routine system updates and remediating known vulnerabilities, segmenting networks to prevent the spread of attacks, and enable phishing-resistant multifactor authentication for account services.
“The exposure of Unit 29155 as a capable cyber actor illustrates the importance that Russian military intelligence places on using cyberspace to pursue its illegal war in Ukraine and other state priorities,” Paul Chichester, NCSC director of operations, said.
“The UK, alongside our partners, is committed to calling out Russian malicious cyber activity and will continue to do so.
“The NCSC strongly encourages organisations to follow the mitigation advice and guidance included in the advisory to help defend their networks.”
The advisory says the Unit, which was found to be made up of junior active-duty GRU officers, also relies on those not associated with the GRU, including known cyber-criminals and enablers.
Following lobbying efforts from the several coalitions in the tech industry, the Labour government has announced today that it will extend tax relief for early-stage startup investment for ten more years.
The previous government had assured the startup community that it would keep its schemes – the Venture Capital Trust (VCT) scheme and the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) – which were set up to inspire investment in startup companies via tax breaks.
Each scheme offers tax relief on capital gains acquired through investments to small, early-stage companies – a scheme startups in the UK argue is vital to their survival.
However, following the general election in July, a shadow of doubt was cast over the security of the scheme.
The new Treasury announced that both schemes would be extended for ten years, until April 2035.
“Our entrepreneurs are a driving force for economic growth, creating jobs and boosting investment,” said exchequer secretary to the Treasury, James Murray.
“Championing schemes with proven success is vital in our mission to support the innovators to help rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off.”
Startups, which will likely be relieved by the news, were also key in advocating for the schemes’ continuation.
“So much of the growth of startups across the UK over the past decade has been down to these schemes,” said Dom Hallas, executive director of the Startup Coalition, as reported by UKTN.
“Now the uncertainty around their future is over and we’ve finally got them extended they’ll be doing the same for the decade to come.”
The UK has been facing a shortage of teachers for several years, with reports indicating a shortfall in meeting recruitment targets for schools and education institutions.
With this in mind, there is often a substantial number of teachers who leave the profession within the first five years of their careers due to high workloads and stress levels.
In 2023 the UK saw a significant number of teacher resignations, with 40,000 leaving the profession in 2022 alone. It is now up to educational leaders and decision-makers to address the issues causing teacher retention to decline, this is where Education Technologies (EdTech) can help tackle the situation.
Teachers once needed to manage all aspects of their students’ learning, dealing with intense workloads, and changing educational standards. EdTech can now provide immense support by easing these workloads, helping to reduce teachers’ working hours, and improving overall job satisfaction.
The high employee turnover rates are resulting in inconsistencies in the quality of education, and consequently, the student’s academic achievements.
Research suggests that effective and stable teaching is crucial for student success, and disruptions in staffing can hinder academic progress.
Many overworked teachers are stressed and burnt out from the large workloads that include student monitoring, lesson planning, resource grading, developing curriculum, and supporting their students.
This workload can have a profound impact on teachers’ overall morale and create a cycle where experienced teachers leave, increasing the pressures and demands on remaining staff and further exacerbating retention issues.
There is no doubt that the vicious circle of increased workloads, high employee turnover, and teacher retention is negatively impacting teachers’ well-being, as well as the students’ learning.
Schools must prioritise investing in their employees and staff, encouraging their professional development, and supporting their workloads by deploying enhanced EdTech within the classroom.
As technology becomes more frequently used in education, there is no doubt that it will have a major impact on schools and teaching in a range of ways, becoming an essential part of teacher recruitment and retention.
The impact of EdTech on teachers’ work-life balance
The integration of EdTech into classrooms has significantly impacted teachers’ work-life balance. EdTech tools, such as learning management systems (LMS), artificial intelligence tools, digital grading platforms, and virtual classrooms streamline administrative tasks, thereby reducing the time teachers spend on administrative activities.
The recent government funding pledge of £4 million to invest in new generative AI tools in the classroom is a step in the right direction.
Vital investment into the education sector is needed to implement secure and safe generative AI tools into the classroom, to benefit both teachers and students.
This funding pledge will allow teachers to use Gen AI technologies to create templates, summaries, and initial drafts of teaching plans and support with student marking to help reduce workloads, allowing teachers to focus more time on their students and their individual needs.
For instance, automated grading systems save hours that would otherwise be dedicated to manually marking papers, allowing teachers to focus more on lesson planning and student engagement.
Additionally, communication tools facilitate better interaction with students and parents, which in turn can help improve transparency and prevent misunderstandings.
However, the constant connectivity also blurs the lines between work and personal life, as teachers might find themselves responding to emails and planning lessons during their off-hours. Balancing these benefits and drawbacks is crucial for maintaining a healthy work-life equilibrium.
How technology is changing the teaching landscape
Technology is reshaping the teaching landscape by introducing new methods of teaching and engagement. Interactive tools like front-of-classroom digital displays and virtual reality provide dynamic and immersive learning experiences for students.
These technologies cater to diverse learning and teaching styles, making education more inclusive and effective for everyone. With tools like these, teachers now have a plethora of apps and clever tools at their fingertips, enabling them to provide more exciting ways of teaching and a more visual and engaging experience, rather than the traditional PowerPoint and note-taking approach that previous generations experienced.
This can ultimately help improve teacher and student engagement and joy around teaching, through creative and exciting teaching methods.
Moreover, the rise of online courses and blended learning models has expanded access to education, enabling students to learn at their own pace and on their schedule.
This shift also transforms the teacher’s role from a traditional knowledge provider to a facilitator and guide, encouraging collaborative and student-centred learning environments.
To adapt to this, teachers must be proficient in digital tools and adaptable to rapid technological advancements, highlighting the importance of ongoing professional development and training.
Using EdTech to address teacher shortages in underserved areas
Teacher shortages in underserved areas pose a significant challenge to educational equity. EdTech offers a promising solution by bridging the gap between students and quality education.
Virtual classrooms and online tutoring services can bring experienced educators to remote or economically disadvantaged regions, providing students with access to a wider range of subjects and expertise.
Additionally, EdTech platforms can support local teachers by offering resources and lesson plans tailored to specific needs, reducing the burden on under-resourced schools.
Through asynchronous learning models, students in underserved areas can access recorded lessons and interactive materials at their convenience, ensuring continuous learning despite local teacher shortages.
The role of professional development in teacher retention
Professional development is crucial for teacher retention, as it enhances job satisfaction and career progression.
Effective professional development programs equip teachers with the latest pedagogical strategies, classroom management techniques, and technological competencies.
Continuous learning opportunities help teachers feel valued and supported, reducing burnout, and increasing retention rates.
Professional development also fosters a collaborative culture among educators, encouraging the sharing of best practices and mutual support.
In the context of EdTech, professional development is essential for helping teachers integrate new technologies into their teaching practices confidently, and effectively.
Ensuring that teachers are able to develop professionally, and have the skills needed to use the latest technology to their full potential is important in order for schools to get the best return on their investments, and to provide the students with the best possible learning experience.
Well-designed professional development programs that address teachers’ evolving needs can significantly improve their motivation and commitment to the profession.
However, teachers must be provided with accessible learning opportunities to improve their skills and understanding of EdTech.
Schools therefore need to ensure that they provide sufficient training, support, and time for their teachers to undergo any necessary courses to encourage their professional development.
How EdTech can improve teacher job satisfaction
EdTech can substantially enhance teacher job satisfaction by simplifying administrative tasks, facilitating personalised learning, unlocking unlimited teaching possibilities and enabling professional growth.
Tools that automate grading and attendance tracking free up valuable time for teachers to focus on teaching and interacting with students.
Personalised learning platforms allow teachers to tailor curriculums to each student’s needs, leading to more effective teaching and improved student outcomes.
Interactive displays can provide new and easier ways to deliver engaging and collaborative lessons with the use of AI apps, visual and interactive tools.
Moreover, EdTech provides opportunities for continuous professional development through online courses and webinars, enabling teachers to stay current with educational trends and innovations.
By reducing administrative burdens enhancing instructional capabilities, and supporting professional growth, EdTech contributes to a more fulfilling and rewarding teacher experience.
The integration of EdTech in education holds the potential to significantly improve teacher retention and recruitment.
By addressing key challenges such as work-life balance, resource limitations in underserved areas, and the need for continuous professional development, EdTech can create a more supportive and satisfying teaching environment.
Great British Energy, the UK Government’s new publicly-owned energy company announced by the Labour party, is set to be headquartered in Aberdeen, following reports from the BBC.
Following victory in the recent general election, the Labour government announced the development of a nationalised energy company, following along plans it had published during its election campaign.
Up until now, the location of GB Energy was not disclosed, though Labour said it would be headquartered in Scotland when it announced plans to create the company.
While its base will be in the north east, it will have smaller satellite offices in other parts of Scotland, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, according to reports from the BBC.
However, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESZT) has come out denying the claims, and claims that no decision on the location of the energy company has been made.
The announcement of GB Energy faced controversy, particularly from Aberdeen as its central industry is oil and gas.
During its campaign, Labour did have to make clear that GB Energy would not be an energy retailer, but would instead invest in renewable and clean energy projects, such as solar and wind, and would generate power in its own right, with funding from a windfall tax on oil and gas farms.
The Labour party also said that it would not issue any new oil and gas licences, but would not revoke any existing permits.
Prior to DESZT countering the claims, the SNP’s lead in UK parliament, Stephen Flynn, supported the announcement.
“Nobody sensible was seriously suggesting that a new energy body should be based outwith Aberdeen so to have this belated certainty is helpful,” he said, as reported by the BBC.
“Now we need to try and understand what this new energy body will actually do, and how it will benefit the people of Scotland given the scale of our resources.
“In that context, it’s only reasonable to expect any wealth created from Scotland’s resources to flow directly back to our communities and it’s important to be clear that this body being in Aberdeen is no mitigation to the damage that is likely to be caused to investment and jobs in our existing energy sector by Labour’s recently implemented tax regime.”
Labour promised that the creation of the company would bring “a huge number” of jobs to the country, but Scottish representatives are concerned about its impact on the north sea’s production.
Still, campaigners for the climate, and for Aberdeen’s economy, are hopeful the creation and potential base of GB Energy will help the oil capital ease its transition to renewable energy and net zero.
“While we await confirmation from the government, and further detail on the functions and focus of a new publicly-owned energy company, we will continue to campaign for a well-managed transition that protects jobs, delivers energy security in the here and now and guarantees a bright future for our energy industry for decades to come,” Russel Borthwick, chief executive of Aberdeen and Grampain Chamber of Commerce said, as reported by the BBC.
Campaigners also hope that the transition to a publicly-owned company will mean residents of Aberdeen will reap the rewards of its energy success.
“If GB Energy enhances the role of public ownership and redirects revenue into the region, that could be a marked departure from how greedy oil giants have extracted profits for decades without much redistributed benefit for communities,” Rosie Hampton, Friends of the Earth Scotland just transition campainger, said.
The UK’s competition watchdog has cleared Microsoft after an investigation into its hiring of former employees and its partnership with US-based Inflection AI.
The Competition and Markets Authority opened a probe in July, concerned that the deal may lead to unfair competition in the AI chatbots arena, as both Microsoft and Inflection AI develop and supply these systems.
In March, Microsoft announced it had hired several former Inflection AI employees, including two of its co-founders, Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan.
Suleyman had previously co-founded Google Deepmind, and was hired as Microsoft’s head of its newly-formed AI unit.
The CMA noted that Microsoft’s hires consisted almost all of Inflection AI’s teams, and in the deal included access to Inflection’s IP and other technologies.
To rationalise their investigation, the CMA noted the ever-evolving nature of AI technology, and that the team of staff responsible for developing the core technology of Inflection AI would be valuable to any company seeking to advance their own foundational models or chatbots.
However, the CMA did note that prior to the ‘transaction’ of employees and resources with Microsoft, Inflection AI had a very small share of UK domain visits for chatbots and conversational AI tools, and had not been able to make a dent in the UK market, unlike many of its competitors.
The CMA actually found that without Microsoft’s intervention, Inflection AI would have likely continued to struggle in the UK market.
Equally, the CMA found that Inflection’s involvement with Microsoft would push their offering to be a competitive constraint on Microsoft or other suppliers of foundational models to customers.
Microsoft reportedly paid $650 million (£495m) for its deal with Inflection, which will not require further investigation by the CMA. The influx of cash allowed the startup to reimburse its high-profile investors, which included Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Microsoft has faced a number of CMA probes concerning its involvement in the AI sector, with its OpenAI partnership coming under specific and continued scrutiny over competition concerns.
Loganair, Scotland’s regional airline, has partnered with Swedish aeroplane manufacturer Heart Aeropsace in an effort to decarbonise their regional air travel.
As part of the exclusive partnership, Logainair and Heart Aeropsace will collaborate on establishing use-cases for hybrid electric aircraft within Loganair’s Scottish and UK network.
Headquartered at Glasgow Airport, Loganair primarily operates domestic flights within the UK as the largest regional airline by passenger numbers and fleet size.
Heart Aeropsace is developing a hybrid-electric aircraft, the ES-30, with the capacity to carry up to 30 passengers. The aircraft has the potential to dramatically reduce carbon emissions, whilst offering cost-effective and accessible air travel.
As well as looking into use-cases for the ES-30, the partnership will see the companies engaging with the Scottish and UK governments and airports to promote and highlight the benefits of this innovative form of propulsion.
Logainair is also set to join Heart Aerospace’s Industry Advisory Board, which consists of airlines, governments, leasing companies, and airports from all over the world, committed to support the electrification of air travel.
“This is a very exciting and significant moment for Loganair and for the future of sustainable UK regional flying,”said Luke Farajallah, CEO of Loganair.
“This exclusive collaboration with Heart Aerospace brings together two organisations who share a passion to see aviation emissions reduce in a realistic and meaningful way, and we definitely see the ES-30 as being a strong contender to emerge as one of the leaders in this space.
“At Loganair we are very proud of our environmental work and achievements to date and we see this as the next logical step along the path to a greener future for UK regional aviation.”
The ES-30 will have a fully electric zero-emissions range of 200km and an extended hybrid range of 400km with 30 passengers on board. With 25 passengers on board, the aircraft has the potential to achieve a range of 800km.
UK domestic flights emit 283 grams of CO2 emissions per passenger per kilometre, according to recent figures.
“Loganair has been a champion of regional aviation for decades, and we’re thrilled to partner with them to bring cleaner air travel to the UK,” president and CCO of Heart Aerospace said.
“This collaboration is an important step in our mission to make air travel more sustainable and we look forward to bringing clean and convenient solutions to Loganair in support of its ambitious goal to achieve net zero emissions across its operations by 2040.”
The boom in data centres – driven by digital transformation, cloud infrastructure, and the continued adoption of AI – is expected to produce about 2.5 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions globally through the end of the decade, according to research from Morgan Stanley.
Equally, the emissions are set to increase investment in decarbonisation initiatives, the research revealed.
Hyperscalers such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon are driving the surge in data centre buildings and emissions.
However, these companies are planning to stick to their word on cutting emissions by 2030, which the report says will galvanise a market expansion in decarbonisation solutions.
According to the analysis, the global data centre industry will contribute about 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions that the US emits in an entire year.
Morgan Stanley claims that the build-out of the giant computer warehouses will increase investments in clean power development, energy efficient equipment, and building materials that have been dubbed as ‘green’.
Carbon capture, utilisation and sequestration (CCUS) technology and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) processes are also expected to get a boost from tech companies trying to keep up with their climate promises, as they continue to invest in carbon-heavy infrastructure and technology.
AI appears to be a double-edged sword as the climate crisis looms, with more data centres and improve semiconductors requiring even more processing power, and therefore more energy.
Still, AI can be employed to better allocate resources, and even decrease the reliance on oil and other carbon-producing fossil fuels, research from Goldman Sachs revealed.
As companies continue to invest in data centres, and carbon capture technology struggled to keep up, it seems like the chances of reaching net zero goals has grown steeper.
Further, the company’s total carbon emissions rose 30% since 2020, largely due to constructing data centres, manufacturing chips, servers, and racks necessary to support AI.
Is the proverbial other shoe dropping for AI, or just its market shares?
After its prolific rise as the most valuable company in the world, Nvidia’s shares fell by 9.5% on the New York Stock Exchange, breaking a record for the biggest single-day decline for a US company.
Optimism appears to be waning for investors waiting to see returns on AI gambles, as the broader markets across Asia and the US tumbled.
The S&P 500 index closed over 2% lower on Tuesday, and Nasdaq, dominated by tech companies, fell by more than 3%.
Alphabet – Google’s parent company – Apple, and Microsoft all saw their shares fall as well, marking a potential stagnation in AI positivity.
Similarly, Intel shared a staggering slide of 7% on Tuesday as it struggles to keep up with its main rival, Nvidia. This fall risks its position in the Dow Jones – a group of 30 prominent shares used to track market success – with analysts saying it may be removed following its near 60% decline in shares this year.
Asian technology firms also suffered, with TSMC, Samsung, Tokyo Electron and SK Hynix falling.
The sharp decline of Nvidia however, should be outshone by its dramatic rise to the top – its shares are still worth nine times more than they were in November 2022, and it beat out Microsoft and Apple as the most valuable company in the world.
However, the tides are changing in the AI race as investors grow impatient and are eager over their returns.
The microchip company lost £279 billion in market capitalisation, indicating that investors are more cautious around AI investments.
Their quarterly forecast which came out a week before failed to meet the inflated expectations of investors. The bar may have been set too high, but Nvidia’s revenue is decelerating.
What may have dealt a major blow to Nvidia’s market share are reports that the US Department of Justice has issued the company a subpoena, potentially over anti-trust allegations, stirring further worries from investors.
The UK is ahead of the rest of the G7 countries in terms of digital connectivity readiness, according to a new report from Edinburgh-based FarrPoint.
The report, International Digital Connectivity Readiness Index, measures performance across both digital infrastructure – such as broadband, gigabit, 4G, and 5G connectivity – and digital adoption, which includes metrics like digital skills, online security, access to public services, affordability, and innovation.
According to FarrPoint’s digital economics team, the UK tops the new index, with the US and Germany sharing second place on the overall readiness score.
Canada, Japan, and France share fourth place, with Italy coming last overall.
The UK had a score of 84, while the US and Germany both had scores of 83, showing a narrow difference in terms of digital readiness.
However, there were many gaps in the UK’s readiness levels. While it excelled at decent fixed connectivity (93)and 4G connectivity (95) and the digital economy (92) and accessible public services (92), it lagged in terms of innovation (79), online security (73), and online wellbeing (72) and 5G connectivity (68).
While the UK showed strong overall performance, with no scores dipping below 68, it was outperformed by Japan in gigabit connectivity (100 vs 76) and their overall infrastructure (94 vs 86).
The UK was unable to achieve a score of 100 in any of the categories, while every country besides Italy was able to achieve this score in at least one category.
Canada, France, and Germany, and the US had a score of 100 in 4G connectivity, while the UK was still 5 points shy.
While certain scores stagnated since the last year, all of the UK’s scores either stayed the same of showed at least small signs of improvement.
“Our International Digital Connectivity Readiness Index report underscores the vital role digital connectivity plays in driving economic growth, social progress, and environmental sustainability”, says Matthew Izatt-Lowry, FarrPoint’s head of economics.
“As the global economy increasingly relies on digital infrastructure, understanding the unique challenges and opportunities of each country is paramount for policymakers to make informed, evidence-based decisions.”
The latest figures suggest Scottish businesses remain attractive to investors, as 23 firms shared funding worth over £85 million in the second quarter of 2024.
This was revealed in the latest KPMG Private Enterprise Venture Pulse report which showed that companies across the region – including in Edinburgh, Striling, Dundee, and Glasgow – enjoyed a boost totalling £85.3 million in the past three months.
This means that, in the first half the year, 42 Scots firms have shared £184 million in the form of venture capital investment.
Standout deals completed during the second quarter include £8.8 million for iGii, based in Stirling, £13 million for Edinburgh-based Prothea Technologies, and £10 million for Dundee outfit Outrun TX, with the last two figures according to KPMG.
“We’re seeing continued investment in firms across Scotland, and I hope that we continue to see investment of a similar or larger size for the remainder of 2024,” Amy Brunett, KPMG private enterprise senior manager in Scotland, said.
“Whilst we are not experiencing a big uptick in VC money deployed, I remain hopeful for a calmer second half to the year now we have a new UK government in place. I’m pleased to see continued investment in exciting technologies in Scotland, that are solving real world problems, and I look forward to watching these business grow.”
Elsewhere in the UK, the survey showed the first signs of recovery in Q2 2024, with the amount raised more than doubling the amount raised in Q1 2024.
After a quiet opening to the year, which saw just £3 billion in VC funding raised by UK businesses – the lowest amount seen in 22 quarters – activity picked up dramatically in Q2 2023 as investor sentiment started to become more positive, according to the data supplied by Pitchbook.
“Scotland’s figures continue to be strong in the second quarter and with more stable market conditions, and hopefully investment levels continue to grow during the final two quarters of the year,” Graeme Williams, head of corporate finance M&A for Scotland at KPMG UK, said.
Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are shifting their spending priorities with generative AI at the forefront, according to a new survey from Bloomberg Intelligence.
According to the survey of 50 US-based CIOs, instead of spending on servers, storage, and networking, investments in large language model deployment are taking priority.
60% of CIOs reported plans to increase spending on AI inferencing workloads, the survey found.
This year, AI investments ranked higher compared to prior surveys, with the growing emphasis suggesting a rising in AI’s importance as competitive leverage.
Infrastructure necessary for building the backbone of AI, including foundation models, GPUs, and cloud all ranked as high priorities for CIOs.
The results also indicate that 70% of corporations are now using OpenAI, up from 41% in December 2023.
The survey also tracked the success of competing companies in the AI race, from chip manufacturers to cloud providers.
While Nvidia was leading the charge in the GPU race, Intel was rising as a preferred CPU choice for AI servers.
Further, as enterprises progress on their AI journeys, many are at the stage where they can deploy their AI copilots.
This has lead to a shift in the scale for hyperscale cloud value for data analysis among CIOs employing AI. Microsoft came out on top, rising 14 points with their Azure cloud offering. Google gained five points since the last survey, but Amazon fell 17 points.
Bloomberg Intelligence predicts that spending on AI models and their associated workload will only increase in the next year as enterprises progress into larger-scale deployments of their AI tech.
“We’re witnessing a significant shift in CIO preferences as enterprise AIs move towards the deployment of their copilots, with 66% of respondents saying they are in the process of deployment compared to December’s 32%,” Mandeep Singh, senior technology analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence said.
“This, coupled with newfound visibility in the need for robust cybersecurity spending in the wake of the CrowdStrike disruption, have significantly shifted the spending needs of CIOs even in the last six months.”
That being said, cybersecurity dominated IT spending in July with 40% of CIO respondents citing it as their top priority, nearly double that amount at the end of last year.
This could be influenced by concurrent events – the survey was taken in the wake of the CrowdStrike outage, which was only set to increase the mainstream importance of cybersecurity.
Since the last survey, servers, storage, and networking were all deprioritised.
Nearly three quarters (73%) of UK enterprises currently using cloud say that cloud security threats are a top concern over the next year.
This is according to a survey commissioned by Auxilion involving 100 IT decision makers in UK enterprises with over 250 employees, which also found that 72% of respondents currently using the cloud described a potential cloud outage as ‘catastrophic’ for their business.
Despite the concern, the shift to the cloud continues to accelerate. The data revealed that 90% of IT decision makers surveyed are now using cloud, and 88% intend to migrate more infrastructure and applications over the next 12 months.
“What the survey data highlights is the delicate balancing act enterprise leaders need to manage,” Donal Sullivan, CTO, Auxilion, commented on the results.
“As they migrate more to the cloud, potential security threats increase and so do the chances of outages, which can cause major disruption to organisations. This means businesses need to be more proactive when it comes to securing their data and responding to incidents.”
“We’ve all read about high profile outages that have damaged organisations in many ways – especially reputationally and financially. The impact can be felt for many years, which is why enterprises require the right technologies and partners to ensure security is a number one priority.”
A recent report from Palo Alto concurred with these recent findings, showing worrying gaps in cloud security as the data technology is rapidly adopted across industries.
The research found that organisations are introducing over 300 new cloud services each month, contributing to about a third of high or critical cloud exposures.
These security failures can be especially damaging: research from Cado Security revealed that nearly nine in ten of surveyed IT security decision makers admitted that their organisation had suffered damage before containing and investigating cloud security incidents.
Innovate UK, the government subsidiary that supports the science and technology sector, has reversed a funding decision amid push back and controversy.
Previously, the organisation had set aside £4 million for its Women in Innovation awards, which was set to go to 50 women founders.
However, last week the group only awarded half the original number, with only 25 of the over 1,400 applications securing funding from Innovate UK.
This sparked outrage across the industry, particularly among women founders who had applied and received ultimately positive feedback.
In a post on LinkedIn, Innovate UK said: “As public funders, we must manage our budgets carefully. The decision to only award this number was a mistake and we prioritised wrongly.
“We recognise the impact this has had on the many applicants and on the community as a whole, and we apologise wholeheartedly.”
The decision to reverse the controversial underfunding was led by pressure from a group of women founders, spearheaded by Becky Lodge, the CEO of Startup Disruptors.
“Women-led businesses are significantly underfunded in comparison to their male counterparts and we rely on a public body to exercise fairness and equity when it comes to distributing public money,” Lodge said in the original release protesting Innovate UK’s initial decision.
Following the reversal from Innovate UK, Lodge did continue to question the organisation: “There’s still a question about how the money ‘magically’ reappeared again only after our PR campaigns across all women’s feeds on LinkedIn; so if we hadn’t highlighted it then 25 women would have been left with no funding this year.
“We should never have had to do this in the first place,” she said.
It is also yet to be seen if the grassroots movement, Let’s Fund More Women, which was galvanised by the funding mishap will have their full list of grievances addressed.
They are asking for a more transparent system for the upcoming year’s grant award scheme to prevent any other discrepancies from arising.
They are also asking for a direct apology for the inconsistent feedback the more than 1,400 applications received for their work.
Edinburgh’s Smart Data Foundry has promoted Linda King to Chief of Strategy and Engagement.
King, who previously worked as head of marketing and communications at Smart Data Foundry, will now be at the forefront of driving the next phase of growth for the University of Edinburgh subsidiary.
Her strategic foresight and industry expertise will be instrumental as Smart Data Foundry continues to leverage financial data, research, and insights to enact positive change across society, the economy, and the environment.
“Linda has been a key member of the Smart Data Foundry team,” Dougie Robb, CFO at Smart Data Foundry, said. “Her vision, combined with her passion for our mission – to unlock the power of financial data for societal good – has been inspiring to all those around her.
“She is a true innovator, and her leadership and expertise will play a crucial role as we move to scale up in size and work to create a centre for excellence for data sharing and research in the UK from our new base in Edinburgh Futures Institute.”
King, originally from Edinburgh, has more than 20 years experience in the industry-leading strategic marketing initiatives in the technology, software, and services industry, with roles at Cloudsoft, Brightsolid, Capita, and Axios Systems.
“I’m thrilled to step into this new role at such a pivotal time for Smart Data Foundry,” King said.
“After contributing to the strategic direction of our Aizle synthetic data product, I’m excited now to be part of the effort to make private sector financial data widely accessible via our Research and Insights based solutions.
“Our work has the potential to transform how data is leveraged for the greater good, and I’m excited to help shape our strategy and deepen our engagement with partners across all sectors. Together, we can drive meaningful change that benefits society, the economy, and the environment.”
Smart Data Foundry has access to de-identified private sector financial data through pioneering partnerships with leading financial institutions, including NatWest, Virgin Money, Sage, Moneyhub, and more.
A two-year project by researchers at the University of Strathclyde is aiming to improve decision-making surrounding household energy usage.
The AI: Justice, Energy, Demand flexibility and AI for Sustainability’ (JED-AI) project will look at how different factors, households, and communities all affect household participation in energy demand flexibility.
The project is also set to investigate household use of Low Carbon Technologies, and how they take part in demand energy flexibility services (DFS), such as shifting time of use of energy-intensive activities when renewable generation is high and energy tariffs are low.
DFS help balance demand and supply in the electricity network and encourage green energy use and limit energy generation from fossil fuels.
LCTs, including solar panels, electric vehicles, heat pumps, smart energy efficient appliances and AI-driven energy management solutions are a key part of the transition to Net Zero.
The slow pace of adoption is due to difficulties in devising LCTs that integrate into day-to-day household routines and households not using the technologies as intended.
The JED-AI project aims to integrate AI and social science analyses to generate more just and sustainable interventions in energy demand flexibility.
Researchers will also monitor and evaluate both interdisciplinary processes and energy, justice and sustainability outcomes. It is hoped it will generate new understandings of and methods for interdisciplinary working alongside insights into the development of AI for the transition to Net Zero.
“Our research will investigate how to empower households, from those already having one or more LCTs, to those struggling to pay energy bills, to change how and when they use energy,” professor Lina Stankovic, co-lead of the project, said.
“A previous UK-wide DFS trial run by the National Grid showed an increasing divide in household smart energy capabilities across income, age, and home ownership groups, to adapt quickly to LCTs.
“While many householders benefitted from shifting their energy use to a lower tariff on short notice, people living with health conditions, those with financial stress, and smaller or larger than average households were less able to participate.”
The team, coordinated by Strathclyde, includes the University of Oxford and the University of East Anglia, as well as the Energy Systems Catapult and Hugo Technologies Limited.
“We are developing an inclusive approach to strengthening households’ capabilities to take part in existing and emerging demand flexibility services,” professor Vladimir Stankovic said.
“The research is exciting as it challenges perceptions on the benefits of research and practice across the disciplinary spectrum, bridging the gap between social science and engineering methodologies.”
The pilot UKRI encourages new and unexpected types of interdisciplinary research not currently funded through existing UKRI responsive mode schemes and supports research that will be potentially transformative for the participating disciplines or lead to the creation of new disciplines.
The perspectives of different disciplines, working together in collaboration, are vital to solving some of the most pressing problems we face as a society,” Professor Alison Park, UKRI Cross Research Council Responsive Mode champion and Deputy Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council.
“The UKRI cross research council responsive mode scheme is designed to break down silos and champion research that transcends, combines and significantly spans traditional discipline boundaries.”
The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) has now opened applications for the 2025 cohort of its TechX Clean Energy Accelerator, startups across the globe can now apply for a place on the programme and a share of £500k grant funding, with up to £50,000 for each startup.
The TechX Clean Energy Accelerator programme will help scale up the most promising clean energy start-ups through expert mentorship, tailored technology development guidance and commercial growth support. The selected start-ups will also have access to NZTC’s extensive network of advisors, investors, energy operators, and the supply-chain.
NZTC will welcome applications from companies which are actively researching or testing their technology, with specialities focussing on carbon and methane capture and storage, low carbon hydrogen, alternative fuels, and renewable energy.
“I am always amazed at the innovations we see each year through our TechX programmes,” Mark Anderson, chief acceleration officer and TechX director, said. “The disruptive nature of start-ups makes them key players in discovering and advancing nascent technologies that will be required to reach net zero.
“I look forward to welcoming our next cohort of budding start-ups, who will undoubtedly help us unveil new potential to help expedite a future of clean, resilient and affordable energy.”
Now in its seventh year, the award winning TechX Clean Energy Accelerator has supported nearly 70 startups to date. The programme’s alumni have collectively raised over £106m in equity and generated an aggregate £27.3m in revenue, with the potential to save 20-25 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030.
“Scotland is already well placed to capitalise on the enormous opportunities that established clean energy technologies are already delivering,” deputy first minister Kate Forbes said.
“We also have a huge opportunity to be at the forefront of developing the new innovations that will unlock further economic growth and support the energy transition.
“The TechX programme, supported as part of our £90 million investment in the Net Zero Technology Centre through the Aberdeen City Region Deal, continues to be an important catalyst in helping start-up businesses and founders unlock this new innovation as part of our transition to net zero.”
Thirty-six projects will share £32.4 million from the first round of UKRI’s new cross-research council responsive mode pilot scheme.
The projects are designed to stimulate innovative new interdisciplinary research, with several projects from Scottish universities taking part.
Treatment for bile duct cancer, degradation of toxic organic pollutants, historical accounts that inform marine ecosystem management, and techniques to protect children’s digital data are among the breakthrough projects being funded.
Following along this first round, the second phase of funding is now launching with a further £32.5 million available.
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) cross research council responsive mode (CRCRM) pilot scheme is supporting new and creative interdisciplinary ideas emerging from the research community.
The scheme aims to unlock new research and methods that is not possible with current disciplinary thinking, encourages interdisciplinary research, and supports transformative research that can lead to the creation of new disciplines.
A project from The University of Edinburgh was a featured recipient of the funding, which focused on empowering children to understand and benefit from their personal data.
Professor Andrew Manches is set to lead the project to change perceptions about children and their personal data through the creation of child-centered tools and teaching practices.
The project will work with 270 children aged three to eight in schools, Edinburgh Zoo and Glasgow Science Centre to construct physical representations of personal data that children can touch, explore, talk about and learn with.
It aims to contribute knowledge to early learning, cognitive psychology, child-centered design, data ethics, data visualisation and computer science.
UKRI also highlighted a project from Heriot-Watt University, Aston University, and University of Birmingham to explore the use of biochar, a charcoal-like material made from non-recyclable biomass, as a low-carbon building material to help reach net zero.
It will test the performance, durability, and thermal conductivity of biochar in materials such as concrete, brick, plaster, and grout.
A project from the University of Glasgow, led by Huabing Yin, will also benefit from funding. This project will look into anti-tumour immunity via the role of tumor microbiota using high resolution molecular profiling.
The University of Stirling will gain funding for their research looking into ecological knowledge games as well.
Additionally, a project from University of Strathclyde will look at the sustainability of AI when it comes to energy demand.
A study from the University of Dundee has discovered the potential for AI to transform care for heart failure patients.
A team from the University’s School of Medicine, working with Red Star AI, were able to identify alternative treatment plans for patients who may currently be on outdated or less effective treatment plans.
The pilot project has used machine learning to examine health records of heart failure patients, determining whether or not modern knowledge and medications could potentially improve their welfare.
Up to a million people in the UK are living with heart failure, a condition that reduces quality of life and increases the risk of being admitted to hospital with symptoms such as breathlessness and fluid build-up.
The team behind the project say that utilising AI could tailor treatment for each patient, ensuring individuals receive optimised treatment with the potential to improve their quality of life.
“AI is already beginning to show its potential, but projects such as this are a demonstration of how we can harness this to revolutionise patient care,” Dr Ify Mordi, senior lecturer at the University of Dundee, who led the research project, said.
“Over the past few years, there have been major advances in heart failure care with new medications, however many patients who were diagnosed before these advances may not yet be on up-to-date treatment,” Dr Mordi continued.
“Unfortunately, due to service constraints, sometimes the first opportunity to identify patients who might benefit from more intensive treatment is after their condition has deteriorated and they have been admitted to hospital, which might be too late.
“If we could identify such patients at an earlier stage, we might be able to intervene before a deterioration, but at present doing this is often difficult and time-consuming, as it requires busy clinical teams to do a manual search of patient records over weeks and months.”
The study team worked with Red Star AI to develop software capable of scanning “echo reports,” an ultrasound of the heart, and other medical data to determine what treatment would best benefit each patient.
The team then developed personalised treatment plans for patients that lead to improvements in quality of life and markers of heart stress.
The sheer number of health records and time required to do this by healthcare staff makes such a process inefficient. However, through this pilot project the Dundee team determined that AI is able to scan records both quickly and accurately.
The study was conducted with support from DataLab Scotland, the Small Business Research Initiative, and the University’s Health Informatics Centre.
The findings have been presented at the European Society of Cardiology Conference in London.
“The NHS holds vast quantities of cradle to grave data, but this is far more than any single person can understand,” Andrew Conkie, CEO of Red Star AI, said.
“Additionally, a lot of healthcare data is held in a Free Text format, which is difficult to analyse at scale.
“This study allowed us to identify – across a large population – patients who were not on the correct treatment. Importantly, we then presented these patients to the cardiologists allowing them to make the final decision on how best to treat the patient.
“The improvements in quality of life shown in this study demonstrate the potential for AI to improve population health at scale.”
Confusion around digital transformation is risking paralysis among SME manufacturers, a new whitepaper from Made Smarter reveals.
Donna Edward, director of the North West Adoption Programme, an initiative helping SME manufacturers adopt digital technology, says businesses are hesitant to commit to change because they lack the confidence with technology and digital skills among leaders and employees.
But, delaying digital transformation risks being left further behind, or wasting time, effort and money, Edwards cautioned.
The stark warning opened Made Smarter’s new white paper – Digital Transformation: A Made Smarter Roadmap for SME Manufacturers, which offers a free guide aiming to help makers looking for a place to start on their digital transformation journey.
It explains key concepts and steps for a successful digital transformation, as well as pointing out resources and successful cases across the UK.
“Ask a hundred SME manufacturing leaders what digital transformation means to them, and you’ll likely get a hundred different answers,” Edwards said.
“But the common view is that it is daunting and confusing. SMEs, while aware of the benefits technology brings, lack the resources and skills to approach digital transformation in the right way. Many hesitate or become paralysed, risking being left behind, or wasting time, effort and money.
“The Made Smarter Adoption Programme is a tried and tested approach that offers businesses access to fully funded support so they can improve their understanding of what steps they need to take, to arm them with the tools and strategy to take those steps, and accelerate them towards the multitude of benefits and growth opportunities.”
The whitepaper points to general digital transformation guidelines and benefits, as well as specific references for small and medium manufacturers.
Following a Government commitment to a national rollout, by 2027 – the 10th anniversary of the seminal Made Smarter Review – every SME manufacturer in the UK will have regional access to an adoption programme to accelerate their digital transformation.
Since the Made Smarter review, new technologies have emerged, offering new opportunities – and challenges – to the manufacturing industry. AI and automation, as well as data analysis and sustainability initiatives, need to be effectively integrated to offer the most benefit to manufacturers.
“As we approach the first decade of Made Smarter, the pace of change has quickened,” Edwards added.
“The conversation has already shifted from Industry 4.0 and the smart factory to an emerging phase of industrialisation where humans work alongside advanced technology and AI-powered robots to enhance workplace processes.
“It means we at Made Smarter need to redouble our efforts to reach more SME manufacturers and showcase the opportunities afforded by technology.”
Several UK banking giants, including Lloyds Bank, Virgin Money, NatWest, and Nationwide, were suffering technical issue on their online banking apps.
Earlier on Monday morning (2nd September), users reported problems with their digital banking apps on downdector.com.
Lloyds confirmed that they were aware of the issues on their X account, saying that they are “working to have everything back to normal soon.”
Similarly, Virgin Money also confirmed that they were aware customers were having issues with their mobile and internet banking service. Customers were apparently not able to view their transactions.
According to one X user responding to Lloyd’s post, the issue had been ongoing for two hours.
We know some of our customers are having issues viewing their recent transactions. We're sorry about this and we're working to have everything back to normal soon.
Complaints concerning Lloyds Bank began at around 7:30am, reaching a peak at 9:59 am with 642 reports. The last update prior to publishing, at 11:14, showed 510 reports of an outage or issue.
Earlier this year, many retail organisations including Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s, Greggs and McDonald’s faced outages on their payment and IT systems.
It remains unclear what is causing the issues, or the specifics of the issue.
Users are reportedly having issues seeing some transactions on their digital banking platforms, but reply to the Lloyd’s X account provides a “workaround” saying that users can view missing transactions by clicking to see the current month’s transactions.
New technology and real-time data will be employed to improve flood and drought prediction in the UK under a new project for scientists announced by the UK government.
The project will help key bodies, like local authorities and the Environment Agency, to stem the worst of extreme weather’s impact on communities, saving lives, homes, and businesses, and helping to cut the devastating cost of such events to the UK economy, estimated at £740 million a year.
The Floods and Droughts Research Infrastructure, led by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and backed by £40 million, will be the first UK-wide network focused on understanding the impact of extreme weather conditions across the country, pinpointing where incidents are likely to occur and planning to limit their impact.
According to the project announcement, researchers will use the latest technologies including sensors and real time computer monitoring, plus a huge bank of data including river profiles and near real-time monitoring of information including on atmospherics, ground saturation, water movement, abstraction, and storage.
Taken together, this will form a clearer impression of where and when extreme weather will strike.
“Flooding and droughts can devastate UK communities, from leaving people stranded, to destroying homes, gardens, roads and businesses, and even claiming lives,” science and technology secretary, Peter Kyle said.
“With climate change sadly making extreme weather events more common and adding an eye-watering cost to the economy, there is no time to waste in backing our researchers and innovators to ensure we are better prepared for floods and droughts striking.
“This project will help drive that progress, with dedicated teams using the most advanced tech to crunch data gathered from our rivers and paint a clear picture of its likely impact – using the power of science and tech to keep the public safe.”
Researchers will be based at UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology’s offices throughout Great Britain, with further input from researchers in the British Geological Survey, University of Bristol and Imperial College London.
The new measures build on £5.6 billion of government investment into flooding from 2021 and 2027, with over 100 coastal risk management projects helping to better protect thousands of people and properties from flooding from the sea, rivers and reservoirs.
Further, the UK government has said that it will shortly launch a new Flood Resilience Taskforce to invigorate the delivery of new flood defences, drainage systems and natural flood management schemes, which will ensure we’re prepared for the future and help grow our economy.
“In the case of extreme flooding and drought, preparation and prediction are everything,” floods minister Emma Hardy said.
“Our new institute will bring together a team of world-leading researchers and the latest technology to ensure our communities, businesses and farms are protected from these devastating events.”
Scotland Women in Technology (SWiT) has announced that it has agreed an alignment with the meetup network, Women Who Code Edinburgh (WWCode), which will see it become part of SWiT.
Launched in Edinburgh in 2017, WWCode Edinburgh was founded by directors Maria Gutierrez, Ceri Shaw and Lea Savage. It was forced to pause its membership and events when its previous supporter, the Women Who Code charity, closed due to a lack of funding.
Until it paused in activity, WWCode Edinburgh had an active membership of 3,000 women working in the Scottish tech ecosystem and had hosted 100 events over seven years.
With a thriving membership and a desire to continue to champion collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity between women working within the Scottish tech ecosystem, WWCode Edinburgh was keen to continue the success the group had enjoyed and approached SWiT to become its new partner.
As part of the alignment, the current directors of WWCode Edinburgh – Lea Savage, Ceri Shaw, Stephanie Boyle and Dr. Aamani Budhota – will continue to run the hugely successful technical meetups under the SWiT brand which provide a forum to provide a supportive and empowering environment for networking, skill-building, and ideas exchange.
“Having attended several of WWCode Edinburgh’s events in the past, the SWiT board was upset when it heard that WWCode would have to wrap up its Edinburgh chapter when its previous supporter closed,” said Silka Patel, founder and chair of Scotland Women in Technology.
“Given the immense value that women bring to tech organisations and the rate at which we see women dropping out of the sector due to a variety of reasons, we felt compelled to protect the hugely valuable work that WWCode Edinburgh had done over the last seven years.
“In addition to the inclusion of the meetups under the SWiT umbrella, we are pleased to welcome Lea Savage, a former Director of WWCode Edinburgh to the SWiT board.”
Lea Savage, newly-appointed SWiT board member and computer scientist at Adobe, added: “When we were looking to the future of WWCode Edinburgh, we wanted to engage with an organisation that shared our values and mission.
“We had long admired the work that SWiT does to champion and inspire women working in the Scottish tech ecosystem and felt that there was a lot of crossover with our values.
“After approaching them to understand how we could work together, we were over the moon when they said they would welcome us into the SWiT family. The team and I are already planning our first meetup, and we cannot wait to create a new programme for all our members.”
Separately, SWiT has partnered with Nine Twenty Recruitment to create a new Scotland Women in AI community established to increase visibility and create opportunities in the rapidly evolving field.
It will hold its inaugural event at the University of Edinburgh (Paterson’s Land) on Wednesday 18th September. The evening event will include networking with fellow AI enthusiasts as well as guest speaker Dr. Aamani Budhota, who will provide insight into ‘A Day in the Life of an AI Scientist.’
The Digital Office for Scottish Local Government is working on a project with Scotland Excel to develop a singular cybersecurity framework for councils to contact Security Operations Centre (SOC) services.
Scotland Excel, the centre for procurement expertise for public sector, is set to play a vital role in the initiative.
“Cyber attacks can happen at any time, and cyber criminals often choose times when they know staff will be thin on the ground, with bank holidays being a popular target for this reason,” CISO for the Digital Office Dave Ritchie said in a blog post.
However, creating a SOC that offers year-round, 24-hour monitoring and services would be outwith the capabilities of local councils, Ritchie explained, saying that the private sector will be relied on for support.
The SOC project therefore sets out to develop a service with private sector support to create a cybersecurity team of experts to offer support with cyber-incidents for local councils.
Essential functions of the SOC will include monitoring a council’s network and systems, as well as detecting, analysing, and responding to cyber-incidents. The team will also help reporting and communicating cyber-incidents and improving overall cybersecurity.
The SOC aims to not only improve the organisation’s cybersecurity posture, but help employ better legal and regulatory compliance.
Ritchie listed many benefits the SOC is expected to bring, including reducing downtime and disruption caused by cyber-incidents, and helping councils deliver reliable and secure digital services.
The framework will be open to councils and the wider public sector, which Ritchie envisions will foster collaboration.
“With Scotland Excel, the Digital Office will be convening a User Intelligence Group to develop the specification and take the project to the next stage,” Ritchie explained as the next steps for the project.
The Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), led by the University of Edinburgh, The Universities of Manchester and Southampton, has been awarded a record £10.2 million funding for a a new project phase from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The national initiative will seek to improve the environmental sustainability of software used in research – the newest phase aims to address the rising interest in artificial intelligence.
Led by the University of Edinburgh’s EPCC (formally known as the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre), the new SSI phase will focus on how to improve equality, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in the research software community, and address the rising interesting in AI and machine learning.
For this phase, SSI is partnering with Open Life Science, a not-for-profit organisation focuses on diversifying leadership in research.
It will also work with the University of Oxford in developing strategic activities that strengthen links to the arts and humanities communities.
“Over the past decade SSI has shown that reliable, reproducible and reusable software is vital across all research disciplines,” professor Mark Parsons, EPCC director, said.
“I’m excited to see what SSI can achieve in this next phase as we look forward to continuing our work with our partners in crucial areas such as the environmental impact of software, the growing use of AI and importantly how we value software as a research output.”
Neil Chue Hong, SSI director and EPCC professor, said: “Every modern societal advance is driven by research which relies on software. From weather forecasting to whether we can build new narratives for the next decade, it’s important that we provide equitable access to the digital tools and skills enabling this.
“This grant – which will see the SSI into its 18th year – enables us to work with the research community to build capability and expertise, ensuring a sustainable future for research software.”
The project will be led by the Art and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
“Software plays a fundamental role in all disciplines of research,” Christopher Smith, AHRC executive said.
“That’s why it’s so important that we invest in supporting the development of research software that is top quality, meets the needs of our research communities, is environmentally sustainable and is ready for the future.”
Women are more likely to have their jobs impacted by a shift towards automation and AI, a new report has found.
Around two in five (43%) jobs are due to be automated within the next three years, prompting Code First Girls and Tech Talent Charter to investigate how this shift will impact the workforce and its diversity.
According to their joint report, Building tomorrow’s workforce: Inclusive skills development in the age of AI women are 40% more likely to be impacted by job automation than their men.
With 90% of software engineers being men, the shift for automation and AI to take over jobs in the tech industry may only widen this gender gap.
“The scope of AI innovation is exciting, but it needs to be developed with diversity in mind,” Anna Brailsford, CEO and co-founder of Code First Girls said.
The report claims that the way to tackle this upcoming shift in the workforce is through upskilling and training initiatives.
“Reskilling will become a competitive advantage, with employees who are hungry to learn, more satisfied at work, and able to innovate using the latest technology tools,” Brailsford said.
“Inclusive reskilling can achieve exactly what AI promises to deliver. It’s capable of releasing the fullest spectrum of our human intelligence and creativity, unhindered by the biases of the status quo. Let’s get it right.”
Skill-building in the workforce can no longer be sidelined, the paper contends, with about a quarter (24%) of businesses putting skill-building efforts in the context of corporate strategy.
Only 41% of Code First Girls members have been given the opportunity to upskill in the workplace, which can severely lessen their ability to future-proof their skills or gain promotions.
This is not because workers are unwilling to skill – 68% of workers are aware of upcoming job disruptions and are willing to learn – but a lack of opportunity from companies.
The issue is more paramount for women workers, the paper claim, as they are more likely to come from non-traditional tech backgrounds, and more likely than men to be learning on the job (28% v 18%).
The impact of tech training has been essential in closing the gender gap in tech, with 78% of the Tech Talent Charter’s survey respondents saying they would not hae been able to secure their current role without tech training.
Further, eight in ten (81%) of career switchers said upskilling could have encouraged them to stay in their original role, with 70% of the Code First Girls community ranking upskilling and reskilling as the best way to retain workers and support women.
Reskilling can enable workers to not only retain their jobs, but climb up the corporate ladder. Tech Talent Charter found that only 21% of senior tech role holders are gender minorities. When asked why, 15% pointed to low diversity in the talent pool, others explained why this might be: 9% said the recruitment focus was too narrow, and 4% there was a lack of training in specialised skills, with 3% saying they had trouble in attracting diverse talent.
While many are scared that AI will take their jobs, it can also help women avoid burnout. AI tools that reduce repetitive tasks and overall workload can help workers avoid burnout, a phenomenon that is more likely to affect women, the report says.
The report detailed three steps to build an inclusive skills programme to lessen the effects of job automation. This included workforce planning and skills mapping, building flexible skills pathways, and measuring ROI.
To further encourage women into tech, the report suggested a skills-based approach in hiring rather than based on years of experience, and allowing for training and upskilling opportunities in the company to encourage career switchers.
“In the ever-changing landscape of technology, it is crucial to create inclusive skills programs for the future,” Karen Blake, co-CEO of Tech Talent Charter said.
“By embracing diversity, we can unlock the full potential of emerging technologies and create a future where everyone, regardless of their background, can thrive and make meaningful contributions. When we develop inclusive skills programs, we are not just closing gaps, we are paving the way for progress and prosperity
The seventh annual FinTech Scotland Festival offers an exciting array of bespoke conferences and events aiming to highlight, invigorate, and further the vibrant Scottish fintech ecosystem.
This year FinTech Scotland is offering a line-up of engaging events in partnership with Scotland’s leading tech news and events company DIGIT, who will headline the festival with two of our top yearly events.
The Festival will primarily centre around the four pillars identified in FinTech Scotland’s Research and Innovation Roadmap, focusing on financial regulation, payment innovation, open finance and data, and climate goals.
With the rise of emerging technologies, regulation woes, increased emphasis on sustainability, and the constant push for innovation, there’s much to consider, discuss, and collaborate on.
“There is certainly a lot of fintech activity in Scotland; we’ve got a very collaborative cluster, in terms of large fintechs, academia, and startups working together,” said Mickael Paris, marketing director at FinTech Scotland, who’s helped spearhead the overseeing of this year’s festival.
Although Scotland is considered a leader in fintech, programmes like the Fintech Scotland Festival help to ensure the nation’s leading edge by keeping its fintech ecosystem active, lively, and engaged.
To hear about what, exactly, is happening over the course of the much-anticipated festival, read on.
25 September: DIGIT’s Full Day of FinTech
Opening the festival is DIGIT’s FinTech Summit 2024, offering a day full of insightful sessions and networking opportunities, with the talks centred around the major trends and concerns affecting the fintech landscape.
Key topics from the day include the use of generative AI, regulation and compliance concerns, as well as data utilisation and customer experience—presented by speakers from the likes of Barclays, the CMA, FreeAgent, and many other leading organisations.
The Summit, which will take place at Edinburgh’s iconic Dynamic Earth, will also feature a range of exhibitors offering their services and solutions to intrigued customers.
Following the Summit, special guests will join DIGIT at The Sheraton Hotel in Edinburgh for our annual celebratory FinTech Awards night, where some of the individuals and companies trailblazing in Scotland’s dynamic fintech ecosystem are highlighted and honoured.
Award categories include best use of data and AI, best startup or newcomer, and best environmental impact.
Find out more information for the FinTech Summit here, and the Financial Technology Awards here.
26 September: Financial Regulation Innovation
The following day, participants have the opportunity to attend the Barclays Eagle Labs campus in Glasgow, where regulation in the fintech sector will be delved into.
Interested attendees can hear talks from keynote speakers and experts in the ever-changing regulatory environment, but also learn how technology developed by fintechs can provide solutions to streamline regulatory compliance issues across the sector.
An array of companies are set to participate in the event, including Barclays and Morgan Stanley, as well as Scottish startups docStribute, Malted AI, Aveni, Amiqus, and Exizent.
“This day would be suited for large financial institutions interested in understanding how new technologies can help them solve regulatory requirements,” Paris explained.
Regulatory compliance is an ongoing and prominent concern across the tech world, with fintech companies having the added complexity with financial responsibilities.
“Fintechs are normal tech businesses with the added difficulty that most of them will be regulated when it comes to investment, when it comes to exporting, which can create added difficulties,” Paris added.
Find out more about the event, and book tickets, here.
27 September: Payment Innovation
Taking place at the Edinburgh Napier University campus is Payment Innovation Day.
“The day will have a very big focus on distributed ledger technology, digital currencies, and online trust,” Mickael said of the anticipated presentations.
Following talks from experts around innovation in the payments sphere, including post-quantum security, the blockchain, and financial inclusion, attendees will have the chance to take part in an Innovation Sprint.
A large UK-wide retail bank will provide a real-world payment innovation problem statement that participating entrepreneurs can develop a solution for—and which they will pitch later in the day.
The collaborative, fast-paced problem-solving approach is sure to highlight Scottish ingenuity, as well as Scotland’s strength as a collaboration- and community-focused ecosystem.
The Innovation Sprint will be an ideal opportunity for students, entrepreneurs, and fintech leaders to collaborate and problem solve in real-time.
For more information on the Payment Innovation Day, click here.
1 October: Scaling Your FinTech
Hosted by CodeBase in Edinburgh, the Scaling Your FinTech event invites entrepreneurs and prospective fintech aficionados alike to learn about how to uplift and scale businesses.
While the event will discuss particular issues facing fintech scaleups, such as the world of finance, compliance, and security resilience, the day will be informative to the wider tech startup community.
“The day will be tailored to a point to fintechs, but will not be exclusive to fintech,” Paris assured.
Talks will offer insights into topics such as hiring best practices and how to scale digital platforms, as well as data infrastructure and hybrid environments, offering vital learnings for tech startups looking to scale.
Find more information on the Scaling Your FinTech event here.
3 October: Data Innovation
Hosted in partnership with the University of Edinburgh’s Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Data Innovation day promises to discuss critical topics in fintech, not least open finance, data analytics, AI, and the use of data to better meet ESG targets.
“There will definitely be a bit of horizon scanning,” Paris said about the event, “but it will also look at some of the current work being done, whether it’s companies working on open finance or open banking, ESG data, or using data to help customers access new financial products.”
The speaker line-up is expected to feature knowledgeable researchers from the Edinburgh Futures Institute to highlight how data, and AI, can be used to continually advance fintech in Scotland.
To book your spot for the Data Innovation day, click here.
Fringe Events
The festival will also include numerous evening networking events, as well as organised fringe events, such as one from Addleshaw Goddard on navigating the cloud ecosystem, with more to be announced.
All the events combined, the main message of the seventh annual FinTech Scotland Festival is to highlight Scotland’s important and integral place within the wider fintech sphere, as well as fintech’s critical role in the wider world. As Paris said, “Scotland is driving innovation. Scotland is leading when it comes to collaboration.
“Those technologies and those innovations it is developing are driving better financial inclusion, and creating a better financial services sector for everyone.”
Aberdeen public sector organisations have launched a new mobile app aimed at mitigating drug deaths.
Led by the Alcohol and Drugs Action (ADA) charity, NHS Grampian, the Aberdeen City Health and Social Care Partnership, and tech consultancy Cluster Reply, the app was developed by the city council with a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft.
Called Aberdeen Protects, the app highlights to users the nearest sources of naloxene, a drug that can temporarily reverse the severe effects of an opioid overdose. It also provides video guidance showing how to administer the drug, and uses notifications alerting people if dangerous substances are in circulation, carrying messages of support and advice
Doses of naxolene can make the difference between life and death during an overdose, providing people with more time before paramedics arrive to provide medical assistance.
The programme promoting the use and availability of the drug won cross-party support on Aberdeen City Council. Drug deaths in Aberdeen amounted to 313 people between 2018 and 2023, according to public health Scotland.
1,051 people died in Scotland from preventable drug overdoses in 2023, the highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe.
The freely available app, which can be found on the Apple and Google app stores, aims to prevent further deaths.
“We recognise the importance of intervening early to prevent an unnecessary death in addition to preventing people from developing problem drug use,” Susan Webb, director of public health for NHS Grampian, said.
“By services and communities working together and using fantastic new tools like this app we can reduce harm associated with drug use for people at the highest risk of harm, overdose and death.
“It’s not only opioids which can cause overdose, and the app will also help to raise awareness of the support services ADA offers seven days a week for those using illicit and other substances, including alcohol.”
Business confidence in Scotland rose 13 points during August to 64% according to the latest Business Barometer from Bank of Scotland.
Companies in Scotland reported higher confidence in their own business prospects month-on-month, up 21 points at 66%.
When taken alongside their optimism in the economy, up five points to 62%, this gives a headline confidence reading of 64%, beating out July’s figure of 51%.
This is the second highest-reading across the UK in August, just behind the North East of England at 65%.
Looking ahead to the next six months, Scottish businesses identified their top target areas for growth as introducing new technology (44%), entering new markets (42%), and investing in their team, for example through training (35%).
“It’s great to see Scottish business confidence soaring, and particularly to see firms so optimistic when it comes to their own trading prospects,” Martyn Kendrick, Scotland director at Bank of Scotland Commercial Banking, said.
“August is often a particularly busy period for our tourism and hospitality sectors, not least in the capital. In 2023, Edinburgh’s festivals drew 250,000 attendees to the city, leading to a 30% increase in hospitality sales compared to the rest of the year. This August, hotels have similarly seen strong demand, with an average occupancy rate of 79%, peaking at 86%.
“With international tourism going from strength to strength throughout Scotland, local SMEs must continue to make sure they’re able to capitalise on demand. We at the Bank of Scotland will be by their side every step of the way.”
The Business Barometer, which surveys 1,200 businesses monthly, provides early signals about UK economic trends both regionally and nationwide.
National picture
Overall UK business confidence in August remained unchanged from July at 50%.
Firms’ confidence in the overall economy increased two points to 47%, offsetting marginally weaker confidence in their own trading prospects, which fell two points month-on-month to 54% but remained above the long-term average.
Output expectations from the various sectors remained at or near their three-year highs. Construction had a steep increase to 58%, up by 14 points, whereas other sectors experienced slight declines.
Trading prospects for manufacturing dropped by two points to 58%, at the same level as construction, while retail and services fell to 53% down seven and three points respectively.
“As in July we’ve seen a particularly strong outcome for business confidence,” Hann-Ju, senior economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said.
“It remains at an elevated level of 50%, which is well above the long-term average of 29% – and it has been above the average for the past 15 months. Official GDP data for the first half of this year was encouraging and the survey results indicate that solid economic performance will likely continue as we move into the second half of the year.
“On a more cautious note, we have seen wage growth expectations pick up this month, although not enough to negate the downward trend so far in 2024.
“Overall, the economy looks to be stable and from the positive results recorded, businesses are echoing this sentiment.”
Paul Gordon, managing director for relationship management, Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said: “With business confidence levels remaining at an eight year high, it is reassuring to know that UK firms are making strides in this space.
“It is great to see economic optimism rising steadily throughout the year and we hope to see this continue.
“Our priority is to provide ongoing support for all businesses regardless of their confidence or trading prospects, to ensure that we can continue to help Britain recover and prosper.”
Students from Abertay University have worked with the James Hutton Institute, Scottish Ecological Design Association, and SEFARI Gateway to design a video game to educate people on the environmental effect of land use in Scotland.
Stone & Veil, the real-time strategy and resource management game, was designed by students from the university’s Professional Masters in Games Development.
Set in Northeast Scotland, the game educates players about soil health and land use, as well as the area’s unique mythology, drawing on Pictish heritage for the theme and narrative.
The brief set for the team was to help raise awareness and enhance the understanding of land use for people who may not be familiar with the topics and the pivotal role of the land in our daily lives.
By focusing on sustainable ecology, the video game gives players a better understanding of how land is deployed, as well as consequences for the future.
It also highlights the complex value of land use and the impact of different forms of production on soil health.
As part of their research, the game development team visited the nearby Ardblair Standing Stones and walked part of the Cateran Trail.
Designed to be playable on a tablet or smartphone device, Stone & Veil will be showcased at conferences and outreach events and hosted on the SEDA Land section of the SEDA website.
“Working on Stone & Veil has been a great learning experience for the team, and we’ve gained a lot of valuable insights throughout the process, from discussing and agreeing the client brief, through to planning, designing and delivering the finished product. I hope that Stone & Veil can help people of different generations to engage with this important topic and the excellent work led by SEDA Land, the James Hutton Institute and SEFARI Gateway.”
SEDA Land is a Scottish registered charity focused on promoting a cultural shift in how we use and value land in Scotland with a view to achieving both a healthy ecology and a a dynamic economy.
Founder of SEDA Land, Gail Halvorsen said: “We have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Abertay team on the development of ‘Stone & Veil’. It has been a fascinating experience, not least because of what it has taught us about the complexities of games development.
“SEDA Land is always on the lookout for new ways of reaching new audiences who might not normally engage with ecological issues, and we are very optimistic that this exciting game will capture the imagination of young Scots.”
Professor Lorna Dawson, senior soil scientist at the James Hutton Institute, and Knowledge Exchange Lead for Environment at SEFARI Gateway said: “The game has in-built information about soil, farming and the environment, where the player can gain knowledge of land use change though interactive decision-making play.
“It is also designed to offer exciting challenges through contact with climatic events or the appearance of mythical creatures – both good and bad.”
Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s national economic development agency, and Interface, a hub connecting Scottish businesses and academic institutions, have announced a £250,000 fund for research and development collaborations to create new products, processes, and services.
They are open to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland and are awarded on a sliding scale with the business match funding the award up to £20k.
Since 2011, the Advanced Innovation Vouchers programme has awarded £1.77m for 143 business-academic projects.
The vouchers are aimed at building sustained relationships between SMEs and universities or colleges in Scotland, designed to bridge the gap between companies and academics to ensure collaborative work between the sectors.
Funders will require supporting statements for the projects in relation to Net Zero and Fair Work policies to support applications for the voucher scheme.
Paul Cross, innovation team leader at Scottish Enterprise, said: “We are really pleased to invest in this funding which will enable businesses to create impacts as they innovate and scale whilst deepening their relationships with academics.”
Laura Goodfellow, associate director of business engagement and systems at Interface, said: “Interface encourages universities and colleges across Scotland to collaborate with SMEs on groundbreaking products, processes, and services.
“This funding provides a significant opportunity for businesses aiming to scale their innovative projects—whether building on a successful partnership or launching a new venture.
“Interface is here to help businesses connect with the academic expertise that can drive their ideas forward.”
The initial deadline for applications is 27th September 2024, with subsequent deadlines on 31st October and 29th November 2024.
Further information on application criteria can be found here:
The Department of Education has published the culmination of research supporting the potential of generative AI across different use cases in education, though more work is to be done to develop the tools.
The two research papers – one on user research and one on the technical aspect of genAI in education – were published as the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) announced a £4 million investment in developing AI tools for use in education.
Tools would be used by teachers and administrators to lessen their workload, and involve tools to check for plagiarism, grade work, and provide feedback to students.
The research papers revealed the processes involved in testing genAI technology in educational contexts, including several hackathons where teachers used AI tools to help them grade papers and provide student feedback.
Focussing on how AI could reduce teacher’s day to day workload and accomplish repetitive tasks, the hackathons involved educators, computer scientist, and researchers coming together to develop the AI tools.
However, while each use case piloted by the hackathons had significant potential, none were thought to be ready for a rollout across schools.
The project did develop a proof of concept tool that was able to take a student’s work, detect any errors, including anything linked to the national curriculum, and generate feedback for both student and teacher, as well as create a series of studying activities directly linked to any mistakes or key lesson areas.
Teachers had mixed opinions on the tool, with some ultimately seeing the positives of genAI’s impact on their workload, with others concerned about associated risks, such as a lack of trust and an over-reliance on the tool.
Further, teachers wanted training, funding, and help from experts to increase their knowledge of genAI in their education, and how to do so safely.
The research paper did admit that genAI is rapidly evolving, as well as educational tools using the emerging technology. This has put its own research at risk of soon falling behind AI’s continued advancement.
“For example, in the time since the hackathons, new EdTech tools have come to market that address (or partly address) some of the use cases explored, and a key part of the challenge for schools and educators in the adoption of genAI is navigating this changing landscape,” the paper read.
According to a survey from TeacherTapp, around half of teachers are already using AI tools to help them with their work.
Fewer than half of Scotland’s CEOs believe the talent to succeed them exists within their current organisation, according to new research.
The findings emerged from a survey of more than 120 CEOs and senior leaders in Scotland as part of a research partnership between Glasgow-based executive search specialist Livingston James Group, and professional services frim EY UK, aimed at identifying the skills required to be a CEO of the future.
The same questions were also posed to other senior leaders and potential CEOs heading up departments including finance (CFOs), operations (COOs), technology (CIOs), human resources (CHROs), and non-executive directors and chairs (NEDs) across the public and private sectors.
Just 47% of the CEOs surveyed said they could see anybody in their current leadership team as potential future CEOs of theirs, or another organisation, while more than half (56%) of the functional leaders responding to the survey believed they have the potential to take the top job in future.
“With more than 50% of current CEOs believing the talent to succeed them doesn’t exist within their organisations, investing in proactive, long-term succession planning for the C-Suite and C minus one roles is paramount, identifying leaders with potential early on in their careers, ensuring a motivational career path for the best talent whilst focusing on nurturing and attracting more diverse talent pools to potentially become future CEOs,” Alistair Shaw, director at Livingston James Group said.
The research – a blend of surveys and interviews – also asked respondents to identify key challenges and priorities going forward, and what they believe the CEO of the future will look like.
Participants said integrating AI into their business, keeping on top of tech regulation and compliance, risks associated with cybersecurity, and attracting and developing tech-focused talent amid significant skills shortages were amongst the key issues ‘keeping them awake at night’.
“While the role of a CEO has always been demanding, contemporary challenges such as AI, ESG and increased stakeholder expectations may contribute to an overall perception that the job is becoming more difficult,” Tricia Nelson, consulting leader at EY Scotland said.
Aside from technology, participants singled out a need to improve workplace culture and diversity as a key challenge, alongside balancing profitability with improving long-term values including ESG.
CEOs overwhelmingly named improving customer value proposition (CVP) as their number one priority (100%), while CFOs, COOs, and CCOs favoured employer value proposition over CVP. The HR leaders placed ESG as the top priority.
Asked for the top attributes CEOs will need to succeed in future, 100% of CEOs identified resilience as the most important, as did CCOs and COOs. High emotional intelligence also ranked highly with CEOs – with 80% naming it a top trait. Only CHROs (100%) picked out humility as the top attribute in a future leader.
“It’s also clear those softer, intangible, human attributes – voice, vision, resilience, and the ability to innate ability to bring the technical skills of others together – remain essential to leaders of the present and future,” Shaw said.
The study also asked CEOs to identify the most important characteristics for the role of a future CEO, with being a ‘transformational leader’, ‘being the face and voice of the organisation’, and ‘setting the tone’ the top three responses.
“Organisations with a clear and meaningful purpose tend to attract and retain talent more effectively, and consumers and investors are placing greater importance on corporate social responsibility and ethical practices,” Shaw said.
“CEOs adopting purpose-driven leadership styles align well with these expectations, contributing to enhanced reputation and brand value.”
Nelson added: “Developing the future CEO, with the new required qualities and an increased focus on emerging internal talent, is a critical responsibility of the Chair and Board.
“By operating in Scotland, they already have a massive recruitment advantage – the business community plays on an international field but is effectively networked into the strong local ecosystem of education, industry and government which, in turn, attracts a truly global C-Suite talent pool.
“Fostering and building on the competitive advantage, along with a passion for innovation, will mean organisations can do what they do best with a local footprint in a global market.”
Immigrants’ critical role in supporting the UK’s startups could be in jeopardy due to continually prohibitive policies, new research urges.
The Entrepreneurs Network (TEN) have studied the number of immigrants contributing to the UK’s startup sector across the years, noting their disproportionate contribution to some of the UK’s top performing startups.
While less than 15% of the UK population is foreign born, over a third (39%) of founders of the UK’s 100 fastest-growing companies are foreign-born, according to their most recent survey.
However, recently adopted immigration policies have made the UK a more difficult economy to enter as a business starter or worker.
New visa policies, with higher salary entry requirements and restrictions on dependents, as well as proposals to scrap the Graduate Route visa programme, have damaged the UK’s reputation as an attractive country to work.
Brexit coming into full force means that most Europeans will require a work visa, which requires fees on behalf of the employer and employee. Coupling this with higher salary fees and making it more difficult for workers to bring over dependents, the UK may struggle to attract skilled workers, the paper argues.
While other competitive countries, including the US, Canada, Germany, and China reformed their policies to attract skilled workers into their country, the UK has taken a more stringent stance.
Though the UK did introduce the High Potential Individual visa, which would allow graduates from the world’s top universities to work in the UK for up to two years, the government is reportedly looking at reforms that would make it more difficult for foreign graduates of the country’s own universities to stay and work in the UK.
Further, TEN argues that “the failure to distinguish skilled migration and illegal immigration has plunged individuals and businesses into policy uncertainty.”
TEN therefore has provided several recommendations to reform the UK immigration system to benefit UK startups.
1. Reform Eligibility Thresholds to Support Startups
New visa salary requirements are prohibitively high, which may drive many workers into the hands of more successful large corporations which can afford the salary hike, over innovative smaller startups.
Further, the new entrant visa allowance, which allows workers a visa on a lower salary threshold, should be extended so that new entrants do not lose their ability to work after two years if their company cannot afford the rise in visa salary requirements.
They also recommend that academic institutions should have different visa salary requirements in order to retain and attract foreign academic excellence.
The Immigration Salary List provides a list of in-demand occupations where workers can be paid less and still receive a visa, with discounted visa fees.
TEN recommends that the new Labour government harness this list to strengthen the UK’s tech and financial services sectors, as well as the green energy sector.
“The new Government should see immigration as an essential part of industrial policy and use the Immigration Salary List as a lever to help achieve its goals,” the report read.
3. Youth Mobility Schemes
The UK has a number of youth mobility schemes with Commonwealth countries and other nations allowing for 18-30-year-olds to live and work in the country for two years.
TEN recommends the government extends these visas to a number of countries including the EU and the US, recognising how Brexit has dampened the UK’s ability to attract European talent, and acknowledging the influence of US immigrants on the UK’s startup success.
4. Lower Visa Fees for High-Skilled Immigrants
Visa costs in the UK have rise by over 129% since 2019, and are consistently higher than peer countries, the report noted.
The Immigration Health Surcharge also rose significantly, introducing another economic hinderance for immigrants looking to work in the UK.
TEN recommends lowering both to make it easier for companies to hire foreign workers, and for foreign workers to be more attracted to coming to the UK.
A subsidiary of Australian fintech HALO Technologies, HALO Invest, has announced its intention to set up a new operations and development centre in Glasgow.
The move will create more than 60 jobs over the next two years, the company said.
Douglas Boyce, formerly of Interactive Investor and FNZ, has been appointed CEO of HALO Invest, which aims to become a leading provider of financial services and technology solutions in the UK.
The project is expected to cost in the region of £8 million and is being supported by £800,000 of grant funding as a contribution from Scottish Enterprise.
“We had the opportunity to locate anywhere in the UK, but Glasgow demonstrated itself as the ideal city for us to base ourselves with its well-established mix of financial services and fintech talent,” Boyce said.
“HALO Invest will be Glasgow’s first purpose-built Investment Platform and we know that just being here will significantly increase our chances of success.”
HALO Technologies, founded in 2017, is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its chief executive, George Paxton, believes that HALO Invest can help its parent company extend its reach into untapped markets by leveraging its expertise and brand reputation.
“The launch of HALO Invest in the United Kingdom in January of this year represented a key strategic milestone in our continued growth,” Paxton said.
“With a solid platform of ongoing success in the Australian market on which to build, we are looking forward to taking our unique product offerings to the UK. We know that Glasgow, a world class city with a highly skilled workforce, will make the perfect base for our UK operations.”
HALO Invest is the latest foreign-owned company to establish a base in Scotland. It follows news that the country was again named as the number one UK location for Foreign Direct Investment projects outside of London, according to the independent EY UK Attractiveness Survey – Scotland 2024.
“HALO Invest is a growing international company and the selection of Glasgow for its latest base is a vote of confidence in the city and will create high quality jobs,” employment and investment minister Tom Arthur said.
“This announcement further underlines Scotland’s reputation as a centre for innovative fintech businesses and its position as the UK’s most attractive location for inward investment outside London.
“The Scottish Government is focussed on driving innovation, securing investment, and increasing entrepreneurial activity. With our partners at Scottish Enterprise, we will continue to ensure Scotland is recognised as offering the innovation, skills and expertise that global fintech firms need when setting up a new base.”
Scottish Enterprise‘s support for HALO Invest is part of the economic development agency’s new missions-based approach. One of its aims is to double the number of scale-up businesses operating in Scotland over the next ten years by focusing on industries where Scotland has global strengths, of which fintech is one.
Jane Martin, managing director of innovation and investment at Scottish Enterprise said: “It’s fantastic to see HALO Invest choosing Scotland and investing around £8 million in establishing a presence here, demonstrating our globally recognised reputation for financial services and fintech excellence.
“Glasgow has a rich pool of talent and the city is well on its way to becoming a world leading tech hub, making it an attractive destination for innovative fintechs looking to disrupt the market.
“We’re committed to growing Scotland’s fintech community alongside partners such as FinTech Scotland. Revenues in the fintech industry are predicted to grow almost three times faster than those in the traditional banking sector over the next three years. We see this as being an important breeding ground for new scaling businesses that will help drive Scotland’s future economic growth.”
Scotland is home to more than 220 fintech companies, making it the largest hub outside of London, and has an industry-led Fintech Research & Innovation Roadmap, a pioneering framework developed to accelerate fintech innovation.
Only a third (32%) of IT leaders in the UK and Ireland believe their organisations are fully set up to realise the benefits of AI, despite 96% having started or completed setting up AI goals.
This was revealed in a research report commissioned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), which also discovered critical gaps in these organisations’ strategies, such as a lack of alignment between processes and metrics, resulting in consequential fragmentation in approach, further exacerbating delivery issues.
The report, Architect an AI Advantage, which surveyed almost 400 IT leaders from the UK and Ireland, found that while commitment to AI shows growing investments, businesses are overlooking key areas that will have a bearing on their ability to deliver successful AI outcomes – including low data maturity levels, possible deficiencies in their networking and compute provisioning, and vital ethics and compliance considerations.
The report also uncovered significant disconnects in both strategy and understanding that could adversely affect future return on investment (ROI).
“It’s unsurprising that our research reported that 94% of businesses are planning to increase their AI budgets this year,” said Matt Armstrong-Barnes, chief technologist for AI, Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
“However, what may be surprising is that businesses are investing in AI without first taking a holistic view of the technology and how to implement it. Diving in before considering whether they are set up to benefit from AI and who needs to be involved in its roll-out will lead to misalignment between departments and fragmentation that limits its potential.”
Acknowledging low data maturity
Strong AI performance that impacts business outcomes depends on quality data input, but the research shows that while organisations clearly understand this – labelling data management as one of the most critical elements for AI success – their data maturity levels remain low.
Only a small percentage (6%) of organisations can run real-time data pushes and pulls to enable innovation and external data monetisation, while just 29% have set up data governance models and can run advanced analytics.
Of greater concern, fewer than six in 10 respondents said their organisation is completely capable of handling any of the key stages of data preparation for use in AI models – from accessing (57%) and storing (51%), to analysing (54%) to processing (52%).
This discrepancy not only risks slowing down the AI model creation process, but also increases the probability the model will deliver inaccurate insights and a negative ROI.
Provisioning for the end-to-end lifecycle
A similar gap appeared when respondents were asked about the compute and networking requirements across the end-to-end AI lifecycle. On the surface, confidence levels look high in this regard: 92% of IT leaders believe their network infrastructure is set up to support AI traffic, while 83% agree their systems have enough flexibility in compute capacity to support the unique demands across different stages of the AI lifecycle.
While recent Gartner analysis predicts that generative AI will play a role in 70% of data- and text-heavy tasks by 2025, less than half of IT leaders admitted to having a full understanding of the demands of AI. This includes data acquisition, model training, and monitoring – calling into serious question how accurately they can provision for these essentials.
Ignoring cross-business connections, compliance, and ethics
Organisations are failing to connect the dots between key areas of business, with over a quarter (28%) of IT leaders describing their organisation’s overall AI approach as “fragmented.”
As evidence of this, over a third (38%) of organisations have chosen to create separate AI strategies for individual functions, while 38% are creating different sets of goals altogether.
More dangerous still, it appears that ethics and compliance are being completely overlooked, despite growing scrutiny around ethics and compliance from both consumers and regulatory bodies.
The research shows that legal/compliance (15%) and ethics (14%) were deemed by IT leaders to be the least critical for AI success. In addition, the results showed that almost one in four organisations (20%) aren’t involving legal teams in their business’s AI strategy conversations at all.
The fear of missing out on AI and the business risk of over confidence
As businesses move quickly to understand the hype around AI, without proper AI ethics and compliance, businesses run the risk of exposing their proprietary data – a cornerstone for retaining their competitive edge and maintaining their brand reputation.
Among the issues, businesses lacking an AI ethics policy risk developing models that lack proper compliance and diversity standards, resulting in negative impacts to the company’s brand, loss in sales or costly fines and legal battles.
There are additional risks as well, as the quality of the outcomes from AI models is limited to the quality of the data they ingest. This is reflected in the report, which shows data maturity levels remain disappointingly low.
When combined with the metric that less than half of IT leaders admitted to having a lack of full understanding on the IT infrastructure demands across the AI lifecycle, there is an increase in the overall risk of developing ineffective models, including the impact from AI hallucinations.
Also, as the power demand to run AI models is extremely high, this can contribute to an unnecessary increase in data centre carbon emissions. These challenges lower the ROI from a company’s capital investment in AI and can further negatively impact the overall company brand.
“If business continue their current approach to AI, it will adversely impact their long-term success,” continued Armstrong-Barnes.
“They must adopt a comprehensive end-to-end approach across the full AI lifecycle to streamline interoperability and better identify risks and opportunities. Considering AI – especially GenAI – is data, power, time and resource intensive to deploy and maintain, businesses need to take the necessary steps and lay the groundwork for their deployments so they don’t run before they can walk.”
The Scottish Government has published ethical guidance to direct the use of public sector data, by private, public, and third party organisations, based on a panel of 25 randomly-selected people from across Scotland.
Selection for the panel was randomised, and included people with no previous background knowledge in data protection or privacy, aiming to get a more rounded understanding of how the general public would feel about the use of public sector data.
The panel, co-managed by Sciencewise and designed by Ipsos and the University of Edinburgh, was given an overview of past government projects using public data, including during the COVID pandemic, and more recently, their work with displaced Ukrainian people.
Panelists also looked into current and future projects dealing with public sector data.
Following a set of presentations from experts, learning about the general data protection issues, and group discussions, the government compiled a report detailing the ethical guidelines set by the group.
In general, the panel of 25 random Scottish residents found that they generally trusted the public sector’s use of data.
This trust was linked to the understanding that the use of data by the public sector should have benefits for society, and that it would follow a set of rules and regulations set out for its use, and be held accountable for any misuse. They also wanted to be assured that ethical principles alongside existing legal frameworks would be followed.
Participants also wanted the use of data by the public sector to have a clearly defined purpose and scope, with transparency and openness on how and why the data is used.
The panel also said that the use of data would only be acceptable to them if there was a clear public benefit.
Data quality was also important, with participants stressing the importance of data-driven decisions being made with up-to-date and accurate information.
The context for the need to use data influenced how participants felt, specifically if it was an emergency situation or not. In emergency situations – COVID 19 was used as an example – panelists appreciated the need for leniency on some of the ethical guidelines, as long as basic principles were followed.
Avoiding harm was also a top priority, specifically for the protection of marginalised groups and individual privacy.
Holding those using public data accountable was also important to panelists, who thought there should be a body responsible for overseeing its use.
Other stipulations the panelists argued for was that data was not only used for profitable reasons, and that data is not shared beyond the agreed organisations.
The panel also gave its support to future public engagement efforts to determine the ethical principles government should follow when using public data.
While AI has been identified as a key avenue for UK innovation, obstacles are holding back the emerging technology from being fully realised.
The challenges to UK innovation were revealed in Pure Storage’s report, The Innovation Race, Reducing Risk and Navigating the AI Frontier for Future Success, which provided insights from UK CIOs and senior IT leaders distilled from a global report.
The need for critical infrastructure upgrades, along with high cyber defence budgets, have hampered innovation in the UK, according to the survey.
Further, as the UK continues to grapple with the cost of living crisis, CIOs and other senior leaders are facing significant economic pressures.
Despite these challenges, driving innovation remains imperative for enterprises, with AI rapidly emerging as a key technology for business improvement.
However, navigating the complexities of AI integrations is putting a damper on what should be an AI gold rush.
The vast majority (91%) of UK IT leaders recognise AI as a substantial opportunity for transforming their organisation, with almost all UK businesses planning or adopting AI.
42% are even developing an AI first strategy, where AI is considered for every new use case.
The three main use cases identified to have the most potential include improving efficiencies and automating repetitive tasks (53%), personalising customer experience (49%), and driving decision-making with customer data (45%).
However, infrastructure, economic woes, and cyber concerns are stifling AI-led innovation.
Infrastructure Challenges
Over three quarters (78%) of IT leaders are concerned that their business’s infrastructure can’t keep up with AI.
Nearly nine in ten (88%) predict that their AI-generated data will soon outgrow their organisations current data centres, meaning that their expenditure on infrastructure will have to increase.
Budgetary constraints are expected, however, with almost half of IT budgets and 53% of IT department’s time expected to be spent on AI efforts in the next year. This will not only squeeze budgets, but require a skilled workforce that may not be possible in today’s skills shortage.
Economic Constraints
The cost-of-living crisis continues to squeeze households and businesses, and a rise in energy costs is expected this autumn.
A third of UK businesses see rising energy costs as a threat to their ability to innovate, a challenge felt more acutely in the UK than globally.
UK IT teams are struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation, with 56% focused on keeping on the lights and firefighting – the highest among countries in the global report.
The UK’s growing tech talent shortage is only compounding the struggle, with 37% saying its one of the greatest risks impacting their ability to innovate.
Interesting, tech debt was highlighted as a real challenge by 34% of UK IT leaders.
Cyber Threats
About half (49%) of UK IT leaders see cyber-attacks as the biggest threat to innovation. With their high associated cost and reputational damage, cyber threats have never been a deeper concern, especially with their surge in cases.
Frustration is mounting at the high cost of cyber-attacks, with 87% of IT leaders expressing that the budget and time dedicated to preventing and dealing with cyber-threats would be better spend on innovation.
“Plagued with concerns about their infrastructure’s ability to support AI, UK IT leaders fear losing the Innovation Race,” Wes can den Berg, regional VP UK&I, Pure Storage, said.
“This research aims to help them understand all the risks to their organisation beyond the obvious cyberthreats, enabling them to prioritise and strike a balance between security and innovation. Addressing rising energy costs and assessing AI readiness with a hybrid infrastructure approach can significantly benefit their efforts to harness AI for future success.”
About nine in 10 (89%) organisations expect a significant or moderate increase in data security budgets in the next year, a new report from Normalyze shows.
Escalating threat landscapes and stringent regulatory requirements like GDPR and HIPAA are expected to drive this rise in budget, the report found.
Despite these investments, however, many organisations continue to struggle with the complexities of managing vast, unstructured data environments and ensuring compliance.
The report, which surveyed 209 US-based security decision makers, underscores the significant gaps in data protection that data security posture management could address.
To underscore what is overlooked in data security, the survey revealed the top data protection priorities for the next one to two years, which include reducing the opportunity for threats to infiltrate data stores (59%), improving data security posture (53%), and demonstrating ROI through improved reporting and business communication (42%).
The report did reveal that overall, the adoption of data security posture management (DSPM) is on the rise, particularly among larger organisation with 72% of companies with 10,000+ employees confident in DSPM’s capabilities.
About two thirds (67%) of organisations expressed confidence in DSPM’s ability to provide suitable data protection, and three quarters (76%) of respondents who have already deployed a DSPM solution agree that DSPM provides visibility and security in data-heavy environments, essential for preventing data breaches and ensuring regulatory compliance.
With data breaches costing an average of $4.45 million per incident, and the report revealing that many organisations still have inadequate data labelling which can lead to increased risks and non-compliance, data management has never been more important.
“Organizations must prioritize data classification and governance to stay ahead of evolving threats and regulatory demands,” said Adam Strange, Principal Analyst at Omdia. “This research makes it clear that organizations are still struggling with data security and DSPM appears to be the next stop on many roadmaps.”
However, DSPM implementation can be a challenge, with companies struggling to make new hires or find internal resources (61%) and finding difficulty in selecting vendors and tools (51%). Obtaining executive buy-in (38%) was also a challenge cited by survey respondents.
“DSPM is a strategic enabler for a wide range of use cases, including AI initiatives, data migration projects, and data hygiene efforts. Data context and security must be the first step in these endeavors – without it, these projects are destined to fail,” said Amer Deeba, CEO and co-founder of Normalyze. “The economic value becomes clear when considering how many of these projects fail due to a lack of classified data, which stems from insufficient understanding and alignment among leadership to secure the necessary budget and resources from the outset.”
Pathways Forward has announced its second cohort of Pledge partners, with Converge, The Open University in Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, SIS Ventures, Social Investment Scotland, South of Scotland Enterprise, and the University of Strathclyde committing to actionable steps aligned with the principles set out in the Pathways report.
Pathways Forward’s Ana Stewart said: “We have been overwhelmed by the level of support for Pathways from across the corporate, public, and not-for-profit sectors, and the Pledge partnership centres on firm commitments to effect change across each organisation.
“I would like to personally thank all of our Pledge partners to date, and we look forward to more like-minded organisations joining the fold.”
Pathways Forward was launched in September 2023 following the publication of the Scottish Government-commissioned Pathways: A New Approach For Women in Entrepreneurship report.
In February, an Advisory Group was appointed to work alongside Pathways Forward’s chair Ana Stewart to amplify and progress the recommendations outlined in the Stewart Report.
The latest cohort join AccelerateHER, CivTech, CodeBase, Deloitte, Eos Advisory, Scottish EDGE, and the Scottish National Investment Bank as Pathways Pledge partners.
The individual pledges are aimed to complement existing internal policies, and range from the capture and publication of enhanced gender data, gender diversity on selection panels, evidential increases in female participation rates, and the design of key programmes with integrated childcare.
The news comes as Pathways prepares to stage the inaugural Female Founders Growth Summit at the Royal Bank of Scotland Conference Centre at Gogarburn in Edinburgh on Thursday 5th September in partnership with Female Founders Rise, a UK-wide resource and community for female founders building growth businesses.
Ana Stewart added: “The Female Founders Growth Summit brings our scale-up founders together with the investment community and is focused on energising this often challenging growth stage of the founder journey.”
The headline sponsors for the summit are Royal Bank of Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, and Scottish National Investment Bank, with British Business Bank, EY, and Eos as sponsors, while the community partners for the Summit are Dechomai and AccelerateHER. Former BBC broadcaster and Freer Consultancy associate Dr Vanessa Collingridge will be the on stage host on the day.
Cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure was up 30% globally, with over 420 million attacks across the sector between January 2023 and January 2024. This is the equivalent of 13 attacks per second.
This is according to a new security report from KnowBe4, which revealed that attacks against critical infrastructure have skyrocketed across the globe, increasing risks to economic stability and national security.
Energy, telecommunications, and transportation sectors have all been targeted under this new surge, with threat actors seeking control of these systems for either disastrous disruption or espionage.
The increasing interconnection of infrastructure sectors to digital technologies have only increased their vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks.
In particular, the report noted a rise in attacks on the energy sector: the average number of cyber-attacks against utilities each week more than doubled between 2020 and 2022, and doubled again in 2023, based on a worldwide report from International Energy Agency.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only increased the cyber-attacks levied against Europe’s power grip, which is facing a deluge, according to the report.
The report also showed that, while the US has faced the most attacks, this is followed by the UK, Germany, India, and Japan.
Threat actors are mostly from China, Russia and Iran, the report noted.
“The findings in our report are a wake-up call for critical infrastructure sectors,” says Stu Sjouwerman, CEO at KnowBe4.
“While the surge in cyberattacks on them is deeply concerning, it’s important to remember that we’re not powerless in this fight. By fostering a strong security culture that combines technology, processes, and people, we can significantly mitigate these risks. Every organization, regardless of size or sector, has a role to play in safeguarding our collective infrastructure. It’s time we view cybersecurity not as just an IT issue, but as a fundamental aspect of our operational resilience and national security.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek have penned a joint statement critiquing the EU’s open-source AI regulations, claiming it risks leaving the continent behind.
The letter claimed that Europe hosts “more open-source developers than America” and is therefore in perfect position to make the most of open-source AI.
“Yet its fragmented regulatory structure, riddled with inconsistent implementation, is hampering innovation and holding back developers,” the joint statement said.
“Instead of clear rules that inform and guide how companies do business across the continent, our industry faces overlapping regulations and inconsistent guidance on how to comply with them.”
Spotify’s CEO went on to say that it is “well aware that we remain one of only a few” European tech successes, giving reference to its early adoption of AI for its success.
“A simplified regulatory structure would not only accelerate the growth of open-source AI but also provide crucial support to European developers and the broader creator ecosystem that contributes to and thrives on these innovations.”
The letter said this decision was “not because any law has been violated but because regulators haven’t agreed on how to proceed.”
While this may be true, it does not necessarily make the decision to delay wrong. Lawmakers across the globe are, understandably, unsure on how to proceed on regulating a technology that has yet gone unseen.
With even the creators of AI urging for regulation, governments are grappling with how to regulate the emerging technology. Taking a cautious approach may stall progress in certain areas, but it can also offer protection to people whose data would otherwise be scrapped to train AI models.
OpenAI is already facing backlash for data scraping without consent to train their AI models, and copyright lawsuits continue to crop up across the globe.
Europe is known as a regulatory leader when it comes to tech, with its landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) transforming the data landscape in an effort to ensure data privacy.
Still, Spotify and Meta make a decent point: “In the short term, delaying the use of data that is routinely used in other regions means that most powerful AI models won’t reflect the collective knowledge, culture, and language of Europe – and Europeans won’t get to use the latest AI products.”
The statement said that these fears are coming to fruition – Meta will not be able to release its upcoming model, Llama multimodal, which claims to be capable of understanding images, in Europe under current regulatory uncertainty.
“That means European organisations won’t be able to get access to the latest open-source technology, and European citizens will be left with AI built for someone else,” the statement warns.
The CEOs warn that laws meant to increase European sovereignty and competitiveness are actually doing the opposite, and the tech leaders call for a new approach.
“We believe that open-source AI can help European organisations make the most of this new technology by levelling the playing field, and we hope that the EU doesn’t limit the possibilities that we are only starting to explore,” the statement read.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was detained in France on Friday for a warrant pertaining to the messaging app, officials have said.
Reportedly, Durov was arrested due to a lack of moderation on his company’s platform, which French officials saying the app failed to co-operate with law enforcement efforts to combat drug smuggle, child sexual abuse material, and fraud.
In a statement, Telegram contested the alleged reasons for the arrest, claiming that Durov “has nothing to hide.”
“Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving,” the company said.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”
A French police source told Reuters that Durov was attested as an early step in a police investigation that alleged Telegram, and by default its chief executive, had allowed a range of crimes to proliferate on its platform due to a lack of moderators.
The national anti-fraud police uni as well as a cybersecurity unit in France are leading the investigation into Durov and Telegram, according to reports.
Durov, Russian born, founded Telegram, which is now based in Dubai. He originally left Russia in 2014 after he refused to remove opposition communities, as demanded by the government, on his VKontake social media platform, which he later sold. He now holds dual French and United Arab Emrites citizenship.
Telegram is a popular platform across Russia, Ukraine, and many Eastern European countries, offering the ability to create groups or channels of up to 200,000 members. This, however, has lead to many concerns that the platform allows the proliferation of illegal and harmful content, including criminal activity and hate speech and hate groups to spread.
The platform was directly criticised for hosting far-right groups that were responsible for organising the racist attacks across England in early August.
It has also played a central role for both sides of the ongoing war in Ukraine, used by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the Russian government, as well as users on both sides to spread information, and often disinformation, regarding the conflict.
The app was temporarily shut down in Russia in 2018 after Durov refused to share personal data with the government, in an effort to protect user privacy.
It is uncertain at the moment the nature of Telegram’s lack of cooperation with French police.
Cybersecurity experts have also showed concern over Telegram’s security protocols. Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, and does not offer encryption for group messages. This means that it is easier for the company, or law enforcement, or threat actors, to access and view chats.
Further, unlike WhatsApp, Telegram uses its own in-house encryption techniques rather than the open, industry standards developed by Signal, a competing encrypted messaging platform.
The app, however, is one of the five most downloaded in the world, despite the proliferation of phishing toolkits, the lack of moderation, and it offering insights into illicit activity usually only reserved for the dark web, a report from Gaurdio revealed.
Despite not offering default end-to-end encryption and continually harbouring hate speech and illegal activity, Durov continually champions the platform as a save haven for free speech. And while he has actively denied governments the opportunity to access user data, its lack of encryption by default makes this protection a policy, rather than a technological assurance.
While Durov had issues with the Russian government, Russia still considers him a citizen, and the Russian embassy in France said it was seeking clarity from French officials on the reasons for the arrest.
Environmental concerns have been raised about the rollout of mobile masts across Scotland’s most rural and remote regions.
A coalition of rural, wildlife, and conservation bodies including RSPB Scotland, the John Muir Trust, and Mountaineering Scotland, has called for an urgent review of the mobile network infrastructure rollout.
The bodies wrote to Sir Chris Bryant, minister of state for digital and data infrastructure at Westminster for an urgent review of the Total Not-Spot (TNS) portion of the Shared Rural network Programme (SRN), which aims to provide mobile connectivity to the most rural and remote parts of the UK.
Introduced under the previous Conservative administration, the programme is a collaborated between the Labour-led UK Government and mobile phone operators, seeking to achieve 95% 4G mobile phone coverage across Britain.
Now, the programme is facing environmental backlash, as the coalition claims the approach taken to achieve coverage has been “target-led”, “top-down” and is “failing to consider whether people living in rural areas need the masts.”
So far in Scotland, 260 sites have been classified as TNS – Mountaineering Scotland produced a digital map on the proposed mast areas. These, the coalition argues, have been selected mainly to provide landmass coverage and meet geographical targets of the programme, rather than prioritise coverage for communities or transport routes.
According to member groups, this has resulted in a scenario where extremely remote and ecologically fragile areas have been chose to accommodate unnecessary masts, along with related infrastructure and access roads.
The coalition argues widespread agreement among its member organisations about the impact of the rollout demonstrates the need for an urgent review and to assess how the financial resources behind the TNS element of the programme could be better used.
A number of community councils across the Highlands, as well as Scottish Land and Estates, the National Trust for Scotland, Ramblers Scotland, and Woodland Trust Scotland, also make up the broad coalition.
“The SRN programme has been vital in improving mobile connectivity for many communities and businesses across Scotland,” Sarah-Jane Laing, chief executive of Scottish Land and Estates, said, “but it risks undermining that achievement by placing expensive masts in locations where there is no demand for them and where the infrastructure will be a blot on the landscape – potentially irreparably damaging these special, often untouched, places.
“We are urging the Government to undertake a review of the TNS programme and take a pragmatic approach rather than simply pushing forward in order to achieve ill-devised targets.”
Thomas Widrow, head of campaigns for the John Muir Trust, said: “Decisions taken in Westminster are impacting beautiful and incredibly important wild places hundreds of miles away.
“As a charity whose purpose is to protect wild places, we are alarmed that damage will be inflicted on landscapes and wildlife with no evident public or environmental benefits.
“Rural communities and outdoor enthusiasts alongside environmental organisations are speaking with one voice – we need connectivity where we live and work, not in our most fragile and remote wild places.
“The new UK Government needs to listen to this unprecedented alliance of voices and pause and review the TNS programme.
“Wild places, the biodiversity they shelter and the people they benefit deserve nothing less.”
Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land management at RSPB Scotland, added: “Whilst initially well-intentioned, the SRN mast rollout has subsequently raised significant concerns, with development proposals coming forward that we believe will impact some of our most threatened species and habitats, and in places where we believe that the case for these mast developments is weak.
“We stand together with landowners, communities and other conservation eNGOs in calling on the UK Government to review the current programme, and to listen to the genuine and deepfelt views of the various stakeholders in Scotland.”
Scottish technology services company Waracle has agreed a new multi-million-pound contract with SP Energy Networks that aims to help the electricity network operator accelerate its digital technology programme.
SP Energy Networks – part of the ScottishPower group – owns and maintains the electricity network in central and southern Scotland alongside Merseyside and North Wales, which sees the company serve more than 3.5 million homes and businesses across the United Kingdom.
Waracle has been tasked with designing and developing a digital customer experience that will provide a simple, easy-to-use, automated self-serve solution to meet the growing demand from both households and businesses for network connections for EV chargers, solar panels and heat pumps.
The Dundee-headquartered firm has worked with ScottishPower and Iberdrola since 2016, designing and engineering a number of digital products including ScottishPower’s YourEnergy app, which is used by millions of customers to monitor their energy usage and input meter readings.
This new independent partnership with SP Energy Networks will support more than a dozen jobs throughout Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh, cementing Waracle as one of the industry leaders in mobile and digital product development for the utilities sector.
It follows recent wins south of the border which will see transformative growth in Waracle’s London office, strengthening their UK-wide proposition in the energy, financial services and health sectors.
Waracle co-founder David Romilly said: “We’re excited to bring Waracle’s track record in customer experience, digital product development and emerging technologies to one of the UK’s largest electricity network providers.
“The Waracle team has been incredibly impressed with the leadership, passion and ambition of the SP Energy Networks Business Transformation Team and we’re delighted to have been chosen as the successful bidder following an exhaustive tender process.”
Lynda Ward, business transformation director at SP Energy Networks, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Waracle to deliver our crucial digitalisation agenda. The team at Waracle has demonstrated the value it can bring to the table over several years working with the ScottishPower group and I’m excited about the prospects for this new partnership as we look to introduce new and innovative digital solutions across a range of systems and processes.”
Lynda Ward added that SP Energy Networks is committed to improving the services it provides to its customers through digitalisation and working towards the transition to net zero.
The deal comes just a month after Waracle acquired Glasgow-based design and software engineering agency, Screenmedia.
Waracle, which has offices in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, now has more than 200 employees. The company is backed by growth capital investor BGF and has a client base that includes Lloyds Banking Group, Royal London, Roche and Imperial College London.
Autonomous AI, developer productivity, total experience, as well as human-centric security and privacy programmes have reached the height of their hype, according to Gartner.
The analysis frim has released their 2024 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, which tracks the rise, and potentially the fall, of new technologies as they travel along the undulating graph of human perception and adoption.
“Generative AI (GenAI) is over the Peak of Inflated Expectations as business focus continues to shift from excitement around foundation models to use cases that drive ROI,” said Arun Chandrasekaran, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.
“This is accelerating autonomous AI. While the current generation of AI models lack agency, AI research labs are rapidly releasing agents which can dynamically interact with their environment to achieve goals, although this development will be a gradual process.
“Even as AI continues to grab the attention, CIOs and other IT executives must also examine other emerging technologies with transformational potential for developers, security and customer and employee experience and strategize how to exploit these technologies in line with their organizations’ ability to handle unproven technologies,” said Chandrasekaran.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies distills insights from more than 2,000 technologies to track their progress as they are adopted into the mainstream.
Four themes have emerged from this year’s hype cycle.
Autonomous AI
AI’s fast evolution is producing autonomous AI systems that can operate with minimal human oversight, improve themselves and become effective at decision-making in complex environments.
These advanced AI systems that can perform any task a human can perform are beginning to move slowly from science fiction to reality. These technologies include multiagent systems, large action models, machine customers, humanoid working robots, autonomous agents, and reinforcement learning.
Developer Productivity
Developer productivity is about more than writing code quickly. It’s influenced by developer’s effective communication and collaboration, and their feeling of energised focus, full involvement and enjoyment.
“Technology is revolutionizing the way developers design and deliver software, making them more productive than ever,” said Chandrasekaran. “It’s ensuring they deliver higher-quality products quickly while maximizing gains by improving developer satisfaction, collaboration, and flow.”
Emerging technologies enabling developer productivity include AI-augmented software engineering, cloud-native, GitOps, internal developer portals, prompt engineering and WebAssembly.
Total experience is a strategy that creates superior shared experiences by intertwining customer experience, employee experience, multi-experience and user experience practices.
It uses technology to address critical interactions, empowering both customers and employees, with the goal of driving greater confidence, satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Technologies to assess include digital twin of a customer, spatial computing, superapps and 6G.
Human-centric Security and Privacy
Organizations will become more resilient by using security and privacy techniques that create a culture of mutual trust and awareness of shared risks between teams.
“Security practices too often rely on the premise that humans can behave in a completely safe and secure way. But when employees must make a choice between security and business delivery, they often choose business delivery, sometimes bypassing too-stringent security controls,” said Chandrasekaran. “Human-centric security and privacy weaves a tight security and privacy fabric into the organization’s digital design.”
Emerging technologies supporting human-centric security and privacy include AI TRiSM, cybersecurity mesh architecture, digital immune system, disinformation security, federated machine learning and homomorphic encryption.
One in five Fortune 500 companies mention generative AI in their annual financial reports, new analysis found, but not necessarily for good reasons.
In the most recent financial reports as of May 2024, 108 US-based Fortune 500 companies cited generative AI in their financial reports, an increase of 250.1% since 2022, new analysis from Arize reveals.
However, 281 companies cited the emerging technology as a potential risk factor, an increase of 473.5% from 2022.
Over half (64.6%) of Fortune 500 companies mentioned AI as a whole in their most recent annual report.
Over two-thirds (69.4%) mentioning generative AI do so in the context of risk. These cited risks ranged from general harms associated with the technology, risks of losing out to competitors, regulatory compliance, and security risks.
Companies are required to mention potential risks in their financial reports, so this could explain why these companies are pressed to discuss the less than savoury aspects of AI.
While some of these risks related to failing to achieve their AI goals or keep pace with competitors, others were about AI bias and the ethical integration of AI into their systems.
“AI may not always operate as intended and datasets may be insufficient or contain illegal, biased, harmful or offensive information, which could negatively impact our results of operations, business reputation or customers’ acceptance of our AI offerings,” Motorola’s financial report read.
On the other hand, businesses were concerned that new governing rules for emerging technology could effect existing business models, a concern cited by Disney.
Basic security concerns, such as heightened risk of data leakage, were also cited, with specific reference to ChatGPT by Vertex.
Still, just shy of a third (31%) of companies that did discuss generative AI cited its benefits, missing out on an opportunity to comfort investors on their push for AI adoption.
Software and Tech companies had the most mentions of generative AI, while media and entertainment companies had the most mentions of AI risk by disclosure (91.7%), followed by software and technology (86.4%).
The tech leadership picture has stagnated, with only 14% of tech leaders at NASDAQ-100 companies being women.
NASDAQ-100 is a stock market index representing the the 100 largest, most actively traded companies listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, a New York-headquartered stock market.
A dataset from Tenth Revolution Group tracking the gender composition of top performing companies found that despite greater awareness of gender inequality, the tech leadership picture has not changed.
Following up on previous research into companies on the UK’s FTSE 100 index, the group collated data on CIOs and CTOs at NASDAQ-100 companies, spanning the period 2021-2024.
The results pinpoint the present state of gender inequality at the biggest companies, while also tracking how the landscape has (or hasn’t) shifted over the last four years as a whole.
In 2024, just 14% of leaders in these companies were women – this has remained largely the same since 2021. In 2022, the figure rose to 17%, but this was back down to 14% by 2023.
The statistics also revealed that women‘s tenure as leaders was also significantly shorter than their male counterparts, with the average tenure of a female leader being just 1.5 years, compared to 4.3 for men.
Further, there is currently no upward trend toward gender parity amongst tech leaders at the biggest businesses in the US market, with the current figure of 14% the same as it was in 2021.
Only adding to gender inequality is the fact that not a single company included in the survey had a visible non-binary tech leader at board level.
“There’s been so much good work in terms of research and advocacy around gender inequality in tech over the past decade, but this new data on the balance at leadership level amongst some of the biggest and most influential companies is really very stark,” James Lloyd-Townshend, chairman and CEO of Tenth Revolution Group said.
“Women making up only 14% of tech leaders in 2024 just isn’t right.”
Addressing the question of tenure, Tenth Revolution Group president Zoë Morris added: “We know we need to get more women into tech, but we also need to create the conditions to support women to stay in tech and become our next generation of leaders.
“More than ever, we need to ensure progression pathways are clear and that both hiring and promotional decisions are taken equitably.”
“The shorter average tenure for women is also a problem,” Morris continued. “It indicates that the few women who are in these posts are newer to them, but it could also be telling us that women are burning out and leaving their posts.
“Our research into wellbeing last year revealed that in 2023 some 46% of women in tech had experienced burnout. High rates of burnout and shorter average tenures for women are connected issues, and we have to work towards better long-term sustainability and a culture of true equity.”
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched a new tool to help small organisations and sole traders to create a bespoke privacy notice and better protect people’s information rights.
The privacy notice generator will help organisations in creating an explanation on why it holds and what it does with user data, something required under data protection law.
The new tool can create tailored privacy notices relevant to small organisations in a variety of sectors of the economy. There are sections for the tool specific to the finance, insurance, and legal sectors; education and childcare, health and social care; and charity and voluntary sectors. There are also sections designed for other small organisations in sectors such as retail and manufacturing.
The tool offers two different types of privacy notice: one for customer and supplier organisation, and one for staff and volunteer information.
For the former, organisations can display on their website or external communications, and the latter can be included in welcome packs, policy libraries, and other internal channels accessible to staff and volunteers.
“We’re very pleased to have supported the development of this tool, which will allow small businesses to generate tailored privacy notices in far less time and with far less hassle and cost than previously, or to check the robustness of their current notice,” Tina McKenzie, policy chair, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said.
“Data protection is a vital component of consumer rights, reassuring customers that their personal information won’t be mistreated, and is something small firms are keen to get right. By reducing small businesses’ cost of compliance, and the associated stress, the ICO’s tool should be a big help.”
The ICO are also encouraging soul traders and small organisations that already have a privacy notice to use the generator to ensure it is up to date.
“We’re always looking for ways to make data protection compliance simple and stress-free for smaller organisations and start-ups, who tend to have less time and fewer resources,” Faye Spencer, head of business services at the ICO, said.
“Our new privacy notice generator is a quick and easy solution that provides smaller organisations with the support they need, so they can concentrate on what they’re good at, serving the needs of their customers and growing their organisation.”
Donation sites used by the seven major UK political parties during the recent 2024 elections lacked key critical security measures, a review has found.
Donors looking to help fund political parties often provide personal and financial information, including as names, addresses, and credit card details. Securing this information is critical in preventing identity theft and financial fraud – yet donation portals representing political parties are failing to protect their supporters.
This is according to analysis from DataDome, which looked into the security measures used by the UK’s seven major political parties (Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and Reform UK).
Researchers found that all lacked critical security measures, with only three sites – Plaid Cymru, SNP, and Reform UK having a login endpoint. Regardless of this feature, however, every site was missing critical features to protect against bots and credential stuffing attacks.
DataDome claims it was even able to create a bot capable of successfully logging into an account it had made without any security measures countering it.
Only two of the sites, Labour and SNP, used reCaptcha, a feature to weed out bots, and even then they only use to security feature on account creation pages rather than on login pages. The use of CAPTCHA alone leaves these sites still vulnerable to bots.
The lack of robust or even basic security measures can expose user accounts to credential stuffing attacks, which can lead to unauthorised account access, allowing attackers to harvest personal information and stored credit card data.
Further, if users saved their payment card information for recurring donations, then they are at an increased risk of financial theft and data breaches due to a lack of security measures.
The heightened risk of a data breach could also lead to significant reputational damage, potentially eroding donor trust and impacting future fundraising efforts.
Following the revelations, DataDome urged donantion platforms to take extra security steps before the next round of local elections set to take place in 2025.
Deploying two-factor authentication and employing advanced bot protection were just two measures the platforms were urged to adopt.
Donors are also warned to shore up their protection efforts by using a strong and unique password to mitigate the effectiveness of a credential stuffing attempt.
It is incredibly easy to think of digital transformation as technology that brings about positive, sweeping change just by its mere identification and adoption.
Of course, that is true to a degree – we live in exciting times, and no one doubts that digital-led innovation is vital to the future of the NHS if we are to realise ambitions for better patient outcomes, greater efficiency, and a more sustainable health service.
The potential is vast, particularly in meeting the needs of a changing population. We also know that the workforce is overwhelmingly keen to engage with, and fully utilise, new digital capabilities where possible.
However, the existence and availability of fresh technology does not necessarily equate to immediate success – potentially the opposite in fact if not considered properly. The most important facet of enduring digital transformation is therefore changing the way we think and approach it – not with a quick fix mindset, but through rigorous evaluation, testing, and integration into effective day-to-day healthcare.
Digital is not an object or any singular approach. It is a data-driven expression of how to perform tasks better through technology across a wide range of opportunities. For those looking to effectively implement those opportunities, the first step then must be engendering a fresh mindset. Initially at least, that is what is truly transformational.
In other words, digital is not the entire solution but instead represents a chance to rethink how we use new capabilities at our fingertips to improve how services are delivered and made more accessible and financially efficient.
Fundamentally, this includes being open to re-examining our approach to all processes and how digital opportunities can be effectively integrated into them.
Fertile ground for transformation can be created of course but it does not mean that seeds of change will grow – they must be carefully nurtured and tended.
Primarily, we need an enabling culture that encourages discourse on what works best at a local level with bespoke design and delivery being vital considerations.
Indeed, there are disparities across the country in what can be provided and when. Scottish health boards operate in slightly different ways, so some are undoubtedly more digital-ready than others.
Integration can therefore be more or less challenging depending on location, so analysing core infrastructure on a case-by-case basis is a significant part of the discussion on how we progress and achieve the full-scale national adoption of new solutions across the entirety of our NHS.
There are other key considerations. Just as modifying the way we think and consider how to achieve culture change must come before fully deploying technology, digital solutions have to remain people-centred and always implemented with the end user in mind, ideally with their input from the very start. Digital must supplement and not replace human expertise while remaining safe, secure, inclusive, and ethical as part of a resilient and financially robust NHS.
While NHS Scotland is already tapping into that potential in numerous ways, and there have been success stories, we are only beginning to see what it can truly achieve in terms of improved patient experiences and interactivity in managing their own healthcare journey, as well as freeing up staff to perform priority tasks and ultimately driving wider system change and improved service efficiency.
In terms of remote monitoring tech for Scottish patients, the rolling out of Connect Me – accessed via mobile app, website, SMS, or automated phone call – has produced fantastic results. Indeed, over 98,000 people across Scotland have used Connect Me to monitor their own blood pressure and manage hypertension, and for that, it was rightly named a Digital Service Transformation winner at the Digital Health and Care Awards earlier this year.
Across the next 10 years, it is estimated that Connect Me could create savings of £14.5 million with over 385,000 appointments no longer required.
Furthermore, amongst other huge digital potentialities, automation’s ability to reduce human intervention in so many processes is starting to undoubtedly make them more efficient and productive. Unlike humans, streamlined, automated processes continue tirelessly, tend to reduce error and risk, and are faster while ensuring appropriately secure storage. If directed correctly, they are also easily scalable without affecting continuity.
Through maximising output, improving labour efficiency and minimising waste, digital-led transformation offers positive, continuous change in almost everything the health service does.
The national engagement on NHS Reform will be engaging directly with the workforce, service leaders, the public, and other groups over the next year, collecting views on how best to “transform services to meet changing demands,” alongside complementary work being carried out by the Scottish Partnership Forum.
This is positive, since consulting a diverse spectrum of voices could help to change the direction and pace of digital travel, ensuring it is going the optimal way and is in the best interests of all.
The stakes are high for effective and efficient healthcare transformation and delivering lasting change at this pivotal juncture, but the potential benefits are also great if we are collectively ready with the right mindset.
The Scottish Government has been called increase its efforts to tackle digital exclusion as one in six adults lack the digital skills needed for everyday life.
This is according to a new joint report from the Auditor General and Accounts Commission, which found that 15% of Scotland’s adult population lack a foundational level of digital skills.
The report took a ‘human rights’ approach, and included testimonials from people directly affected by digital exclusion to determine in the government’s current efforts are enough to mitigate the intersectional issue.
Digital exclusion can come in many forms, including a lack of access to the internet, technological devices, as well as basic digital skills allowing people to access and connect to essential online services.
Intersecting with poverty and education, digital exclusion affects Scots of all ages across all regions, but is a particularly hard hitting issue for those in rural and remote communities, as well as both the younger and older generations.
In short, the report found that not enough is being done to ensure people can get online, with the auditor general calling for clearer leadership and focus to tackle digital exclusion and its many harms.
90% of people in Scotland use the internet for work or personal use, and while 91% of Scottish households have access to the internet, that 9% shortfall can be devastating to individuals trying to access work, education, and basic services.
The report also found that, while the total number of people using and accessing the internet has risen in recent years, the proportion of people without the necessary skills to use it has stagnated.
Rural communities also are continually left behind despite broadband rollout efforts – rural residents have 79% superfast broadband coverage compared to 99% of those in urban areas, and may often pay the same premiums for poorer internet service.
This can drive young people away from rural and remote communities as they search for work opportunities which are often remote and require stable, high-speed internet access.
Further, public services are continually pushed online, including benefits forms, banking, and social services. As Elizabeth Anderson, CEO of Digital Poverty Alliance, told DIGIT: “We often think that if something is put online, it is free to access for everyone, but that just isn’t true,” Anderson said. “You need a device, internet access, you need data, to apply for a job, to access benefits, and that costs money. Not everyone has that access.”
The report called out public bodies as they continually switch to fully-digitised services.
“All public bodies have a responsibility – they need to do more to support people to use digital tools in a way that benefits them and make sure they can access the services they need,” read a release about the paper.
The report found that the Scottish Government’s previous progress, spurred on during the pandemic and a £50m investment to provide devices, data and skills, has now slowed.
The Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission are therefore calling on the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) to develop a clear action plan, with clarity on leadership, roles, and responsibilities by the end of 2025.
“Digital technology is at the heart of public service reform,” Stephen Boyle, auditor general for Scotland, said.
“Increasing efficiency is vital to ensure services can be delivered cost-efficiently, at a time of ever-intensifying budget and service pressures.
“To achieve this, the Scottish Government must have clear actions to tackle and mitigate the impacts of digital exclusion. Failing to do so risks marginalising the most vulnerable people in our communities. Those who most depend on public services, must be at the forefront of the Government’s plans to reform how services are delivered.”
And it is not just up to the Scottish national government – local councils must work with government to best allocate resources and advocate for their constituents and their own particular struggles.
“Councils across Scotland, working collaboratively with local public, private and third sector partners. must be clearer about how they will reduce digital exclusion in their local area,” Nichola Brown, member of the Accounts Commission said.
“COSLA has a vital role in setting out clear commitments and actions to support councils to deliver on digital.”
The AI boom is contributing to jobs bust, as major layoffs continue across the tech sector as firms prioritise investing in AI advancements to maintain a competitive edge.
Layoffs have continued to expound since 2022, which first saw a litany of job cuts following a hiring boom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According layoffs.fyi, a redundancies tracking website, more than 264,000 people were laid off in 2023, following 165,000 in 2022.
In 2024 so far, 132,900 employees across 410 companies have lost their jobs.
However, this could be an underestimate: a different analysis of over 700 layoff announcements by trueup.io and BestBrokers, estimated that 203,946 tech workers were laid off across over 165 firms since the start of 2024.
According to the data, the US saw the most layoffs in 2024 with 115,257 jobs cut. The UK trialled behind, still with a significant 3,471 jobs cut.
Job cuts in these two countries can be all the more devastating for workers, as foreign workers rely on visas tied to specific jobs to stay in the country.
The report also found that Dell (18,500) Intel (15,000) and Telsa (14,000) accounted for the most jobs cut so far in 2024.
Dells’s major layoffs, which came in two rounds so far this year, are part of a major restructuring effort with AI as a central focus.
Intel’s major cuts also have to do with AI, as the company has so far failed to exploit the benefits of the AI boom as other semiconductor competitors, such as Nvidia, have done.
Tesla’s layoffs, on the other hand, represent the lingering effects of the Covid job boom, as the company cuts down on its rapid expansion following the pandemic.
DIGIT’s last round up of global tech layoffs, which dates back to February 2023, already pointed to AI as a top reason cited by companies to rationalise the major workforce cuts.
Microsoft’s layoffs back in 2023 cited economic downturn, but also the emergence of AI, as the company continued to invest in OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.
Similarly, Google mentioned the company’s early investments in AI when it announced 12,000 job cuts back in early 2023, though both companies did not directly link the two.
However, rumored lay offs found in an internal memo from Google CEO Sundar Pichai back in January 2024 only mentioned the need to restructure to “drive velocity in some areas.” The company’s job cuts in April of this year were similarly murky in their reasoning.
Microsoft, on the other hand, explicitly outlined their focus on AI in a leaked memo released after it cut jobs in its cloud departments.
BestBrokers’ analysis also cited a rise in interest rate as a hurdle for major tech companies to contend with, creating a perfect storm of over hiring, rising costs, and shifting priorities to put even more tech jobs in danger.
The number of women opting to study computing at degree level this September has increased according to analyse by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
Computing at Higher Education is increasingly seen as a good choice by students – particularly by women – according to data from the university admissions service, UCAS.
The number of women accepting a computing science higher education degree is up 8% from 2023/2024, with 2,940 UK 18-year-old women opting to start the degree in the 2024/2025 school year.
The male to female ratio in this area is also continuing to close slowly – with an ongoing trend towards increased participation by female students. However, the distance remains wide and there is still a long way to go to close the gender gap in tech degrees.
Recently, BCS also found that entries to A level computing science courses are also up overall by 12%, with a 29% increase in female attendees.
“It’s fantastic that the overall number of people taking computer science is increasing, but there remains a huge demand for more skilled people to meet the needs of our digital future,” Julia Adamson, managing director for education and public benefit at BCS, said.
“The growth in the number and the diversity of qualified technologists needs to continue to accelerate, not only to help close the gender gap, but also to meet future needs of the UK economy.”
As pointed out, the gender gap is persisting in the tech workforce despite more women electing to take tech courses in higher education.
Women only make up around 20% of the UK’s tech workforce in 2022, according to BCS’s 2024 report.
However, a report from the Financial Times found that the number of women in tech in the UK has risen over the last four years, with the proportion of women in the UK working in computer related roles rose from 29% in 2019 to more than 32% throughout the last year.
Still, this percentage may be overexaggerated depending on how FT defined “computer related roles” – according to techUK, women only make up 24% of the UK tech workforce as of 2023.
UK construction firm, McLaren Construction, has partnered with connectivity and network specialist Clarus Networks Group to deploy Starlink satellite connectivity to construction sites across the UK.
The partnership aims to deliver high-speed internet connectivity throughout the UK with minimal setup.
Within 12 months, Starlink satellite technology has now become the primary connectivity method for most UK McLaren construction projects.
Clarus Networks Group’s installation offers managed internet connectivity that can support McLaren’s construction operations, as well as innovative technology like real-time monitoring and AI.
Digital transformation is often key to company’s growth, and expansion in construction requires secure and reliable internet connection. McLaren must ensure compliance with building safety legislation and demonstrate robust digital information management for all aspects of design, procurement, change control and quality control.
“We have increased investment in our people, skills, and tools to enhance digital construction delivery across the board,” Daniel Blackman, IT director at McLaren, said.
“This level of growth in data generation and consumption at our construction projects demands a modern IT architecture with innovative connectivity methods.
“Clarus’ installation of Starlink at our sites has supported continuous data transfers and online service access, whilst ensuring a smooth IT experience, enabling innovation and adoption to be a success across the McLaren business.”
McLaren says that Starlink as supported their company’s cloud-first architecture, enhancing productivity and reducing IT service disruptions.
Derek Phillips, managing director at The Clarus Network Group, said: “Our partnership with McLaren marks a significant milestone in shaping the construction site of the future, where technology works seamlessly alongside those on site, encouraging the highest standards and unlocking transformative developments across the board.”
“Clarus was established nearly a decade ago, recognising a crucial need for effective and reliable communications on site. Starlink allows us to deliver lightning-fast speeds to even the most remote areas, empowering leaders like McLaren to drive improvements across all elements of their sites and projects.”
AI is not a top concern for consumers looking to buy a new tech product – in fact, a recent survey found that AI capabilities rank last as a priority.
64% of consumers said that they did not care if something they are buying is AI or AI-enabled.
The stat appears antithetical when looking at investment portfolios, company strategies, and even new products, which would all suggest AI capabilities are key to meeting consumer demand.
And, while AI is driving success for applications, integrating AI into actual tech products is not a top priority for consumers, who were found to be more concerned with the product manufacturer, product price, and operating system.
This was found in a new survey conducted by Future, titled Demystifying AI, which asked a range of consumers in the US about their overall perceptions on AI, and how the emerging technology might influence their purchasing habits.
While AI was not found to influence buying habits, that is not to say AI was negatively viewed by consumers.
The report found that for most, AI was viewed as “interesting, futuristic, and cool,” despite some showing concerns for AI.
However, many did recognise that AI comes with a higher price tag, with about one in four (24%) associating AI products with the word “expensive.”
The same amount of respondents showing concerns about the AI price tag were also worried about the potential downsides of AI, such as data privacy.
Still, many respondents said that they would be more likely to purchase products that were marketed as “AI-enabled” (52.9%), with the figure rising to 61% for millennials and Gen-Zers.
However, 18.5% said that they still did not even know what AI-enabled means, highlighting a disconnect between the tech world’s buzz worlds and everyday consumer concerns and needs.
This plays into the overall mixed perceptions around AI – while some are positive, and some are concerned, around 38% of respondents admitted that they don’t really understand what the term AI means, or what AI is.
While this represents over a third of respondents, a larger proportion (45%) think that AI is currently improving their lives, while only 12% think AI is either slightly or drastically detrimental to their everyday lives.
Even with this optimism, consumers appear cautious – 70% agree that AI has the potential to harm society if it is not properly regulated.
And consumers are also taking note of the inescapable nature of the AI boom in tech, with 58% saying that tech companies need to be working on AI to stay relevant in today’s climate.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has closed two heavy-weight cases in anticipation for the new digital markets competition regime’s rollout.
The new digital markets competition regime was outlined in the approved Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act (DMCCA), and will provide new powers to the CMA to specifically regulate companies designated to have Strategic Market Status (SMS).
Until SMS organisations are identified however, the CMA has decided to close two separate cases against Google and Apple’s respective app stores as the markets authority waits for their new powers to take affect.
The cases dealt with the companies’ app store payment policies, which may limit application developer’s choices for payment solutions of in-app game purchases. The CMA initially opened the cases because it was concerned that Google and Apple were leveraging their market positions to promote their own payment platforms, potentially leading to higher prices and reduced choice for app users.
The move to close the cases comes as the CMA recently rejected commitments submitted by Google to quell competition concerns. The commitments would have given app developers the ability to use alternative payment options, but after consulting app developers, the CMA was “not satisfied” that the commitments were enough.
Developers contested that they would still owe commission to Google, and that Google’s proposed “pop-up screens” for different payment options could put users off of completing transactions altogether.
After reviewing the two cases under the DMMCA, the CMA decided to close its investigations under the existing Competition Act.
The CMA has said that if Apple and Google are deemed to have SMS, then the CMA will be empowered to consider a range of issues raised by parties more holistically than it would under its current investigation powers.
In all likelihood, Apple and Google would fall under the SMS category due to their dominance across several digital markets. The new DCMMA offers similar powers to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which also has a special designation and specific powers for companies with obvious market dominance.
“Once the new pro-competition digital markets regime comes into force, we’ll be able to consider applying those new powers to concerns we have already identified through our existing work,” Will Hayter, executive director for Digital Markets at the CMA, said.
“It’s critical that tech businesses in the UK, including app developers, can have access to a fair and competitive app ecosystem, helping to grow the sector, boost investment and result in better outcomes for UK consumers. These are all factors we are considering before launching our first investigations under the new regime.”
The CMA has said that it intends to launch around three to four SMS investigations within the first year of the new digital markets regime coming to force, which is expected later this year.
Two autonomous vehicles are being trialled in the Inverness in an effort to boost the Highland’s public transportation offerings.
Organisations involved in the pilot project include the University of Glasgow, Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (Hitrans), Aurrigo International plc, Stagecoach North Scotland, and Darwin Innovation Group Ltd.
One of the vehicles, an Aurrigo Auto-Pod complete with four seats, will offer passengers a ride between Dalcross railway station and Inverness Airport.
The larger Aurrigo Auto-Shuttle, with ten seats, will offer transport across Inverness’s University of the Highlands and Islands campus.
Previously, an autonomous bus, dubbed the Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Driverless Machiney, was tested at the campus.
The new pilot programme aims to highlight the potential energy efficiency and cost effectiveness of driverless autonomous transportation.
The Highlands are made famous for their beautiful, mountainous scenery, but this terrain can complicate their transportation woes.
“We are delighted to act as one of the testing grounds for the autonomous vehicle which is being used to explore the potential of a vehicle connection for passengers travelling between the railway station and the terminal building,” Graeme Bell, general manager for Inverness Airport said.
Currently, the alternative route between the Airport and the rail station is to walk or take a shuttle bus, for which there is a charge. The trial is to gauge public perception around autonomous vehicles, as well as assess the feasibility of the service for the long term.
“Operating at Inverness Airport highlights the diverse environments where Aurrigo’s automated vehicles can truly make an impact,” Proffessor David Keene, CEO of Aurrigo said.
“The aviation industry as a whole offers countless opportunities for this innovative technology to enhance operations, improve safety, and transform the passenger experience.”
The project has received funding through Innovate UK, and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, and the trial will be ongoing until 30 August.
2024 is expected to be the highest-grossing year for ransomware payments yet, raking in a record $459.8 million (£353.24m) in the first half of 2024.
This is a year-on-year increase of 2%, but last year’s analysis showed that ransomware payments reached a record-breaking $1.1bn (£850m). The first half of 2024 has already exceeded the figures of the first half of 2023, which saw ransomware payments amounting to $449.1m (£345m).
2024 has already seen the largest ransomware payment ever recorded, at $75 million (£57.62m), collected by the Dark Angels ransomware group.
Chainanalysis, which tracked the ransomware payments, claim that the rise in payments is likely due to ransomware gangs opting for “big game hunting” – a method of conducting less overall attacks, but going for the largest payments possible.
This tactic saw the median ransom payment spike from $200,000 (£154,000) in early 2023 to $1.5m (£1.15m) in mid-June 2024. Ransomware gangs are targeting larger businesses and critical infrastructure providers that would be more likely to pay higher ransoms due to their systemic vitality and their larger resource pools.
The rise in ransomware payments is even despite law enforcement cracking down on some of the industry’s largest players, including LockBit and Black Cat. However, LockBit is already back in action after being taken down, but many affiliates have been forced to start their own strains, or join less lucrative ones.
“Whether it be former affiliates of these well-known threat actor operations, or new upstarts, a large number of new ransomware groups have joined the fray, displaying new methods and techniques to carry out their attacks such as expansion in their means for initial access and lateral movement approaches,” Andrew Davis, general counsel at Kiva Consulting, commented on the continued ransomware trends despite law enforcement efforts.
The research also found that the number of confirmed ransomware attacks increased by 10% year on year in 2024, with a similar rise in the number of victims published on the dark webs.
Despite a rise in attacks, Chainanalysis found that ransoms are being paid less often. While posts to ransomware leak sites have also increased by 10% YoY, payment events measured on-chain (as in, on the blockchain) have gone down by 27.29% YoY.
“Approximately 65% of the matters in which Kivu has been engaged in to assist victim organizations have resolved without a resulting payment of the ransom, continuing the positive trend of resiliency on the part of impacted organizations and a lack of necessity to pay the attackers,” Davis commented.
Demand for convenience is the number one customer behaviour to influence customer experience (CX) practitioner’s planning in 2024.
This is according to a new report from CX Networks, which found that demand for convenience rose form fourth place in 2023 to the most influential behaviour in the 2024 report.
Conversely, customer awareness of ethical working conditions and the demand for sustainable or ethical products and brands have dropped, with just 19% and 16% of respondents indicating this as a top behavior influencing strategy respectively.
The findings, which have been highlighted in CX Network’s flagship report ‘The Global State of CX 2024, state the latest trends in customer experience and behaviour.
Compiled using survey responses from 282 CX practitioners, service leaders, experience designers, analysts, and consultants, the report covers the customer experience trends, tech developments and customer behaviours over the last year.
Customer loyalty remains a top-10 trend for practitioners for the rest of this year, and one of only two trends that are not directly related to technology.
Elsewhere, 56% of respondents strongly agreed that customers will switch brands when unsatisfied, with organisations needing to focus on a customer-centric strategy, alongside driving technological innovation.
Separately, 55% of CX practitioners strongly agree that data privacy and security are becoming more important to customers, with the customer base becoming increasingly ‘tech savvy’ compared to previous years.
“We need to go back to basics and deliver to expectations,” Sam Phillips-Lord, senior customer insight manager at Hastings Direct, said.
“As a customer, I want to be able to do what I want to do, in the quickest way possible – that means if I can’t do something online, don’t make me try. Don’t lead me down the garden path on a journey that takes in all the things I can do if the thing I want to do cannot be done.”
Vinay Parmar, CEO of Dhruva Star, former chief CX officer for National Express and CX Network advisory board member said: “The overarching factor (in customer behaviour) is our shorter attention spans.
“There are time pressures in there too, and since remote work became more widespread, that time pressure piece has changed. Pre-COVID, people had less time to fit things in but now, working from home has given people more time and because they value their time more, they are being selective in how they want to spend it.
“Utilising AI and data analytics to understand customer preferences and behaviours in real-time allows for the creation of tailored interactions that resonate on a personal level, minimising the time spent by customers on finding the products that match their expectations.
“By recognizing and valuing a customer’s time, companies can foster a sense of loyalty and encourage continued engagement. The best experiences happen when something goes wrong – that is when unforgettable experiences are created and where the true value lies.”
Over four in five (86%) of businesses report that environmental, social and governance (ESG) is important to their organisation when deciding which cloud vendor to work with, with almost half (44%) considering it extremely important.
This figure is up from 30% in 2023, indicating that despite media reports of ESG being put on the backburner by many companies, they remain committed to continued sustainability efforts.
This is according to research from Cloud Industry Forum, which polled 250 senior IT and business decision-makers in large enterprises, small to medium-sized business (SMEs) and public sector organisations with UK operations.
Data from this year’s report indicated that ESG’s value is only increasing, with 40% of respondents reporting that IT sustainability is an important project for their organisation.
This ranks equally with other areas of business such as security and cloud migration, and is second only to artificial intelligence (42%).
Despite this, when deciding on whether or not to work with a cloud service provider, cost is still king, being the most important priority for 45% of respondents.
Next, 41% referenced the availability of services and 39% mentioned partnering with a trustworthy company as being key factors, all ranking more highly than sustainability credentials (28%).
However, the research also found that 49% of organisations said they would always reject a prospective vendor if they gave a poor response on their ESG and sustainability strategy.
This continued emphasis on sustainability is supported by the finding that 79% of organisations are now measuring the carbon footprint of their existing data storage infrastructure in the cloud.
According to the data, 47% of organisations have already been measuring this for more than 12 months, and just 7% indicated that they do not have any plans to measure this in the future.
Further, organisations are taking crucial steps to reach net zero despite economic constraints, with 87% of organisations planning to reach net zero by at least 2050. More than a quarter (26%) of respondents plan to achieve the milestone before 2030.
On the whole, businesses are largely positive about their sustainability credentials, and this is growing year on year. 31% of respondents now believe the sustainability of their organisation’s IT emissions is ‘established and mature’, a figure that has increased from 16% in 2023.
“Despite recent media reports suggesting that organisations are watering down ESG commitments amid a difficult economic climate, this year’s data shows that the focus on sustainability continues to grow,” David Terrar, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, said.
“Cost undoubtedly – and understandably – remains a key factor for all businesses, but it doesn’t come at the expense of sustainability. Businesses are continuing to invest time, effort and funds into ESG initiatives and are set to continue to do so.
“It’s also positive to see that businesses are taking steps to measure the carbon footprint of their storage infrastructure. The recent AI boom has been met with some opposition due to the energy intensiveness of popular tools such as large language models, so it’s important that businesses are taking steps to measure and combat this as the use of these tools grows.
“Cloud service providers should take note that a large proportion of businesses are prepared to reject partnerships on the basis of sustainability alone, and should ensure they are setting themselves high standards in this area. Those companies able to demonstrate clear consideration of sustainability issues will stand ahead of those relying on the prospect of cost savings alone.”
A rocket engine exploded at Shetland’s Saxavord Spaceport during a launch test by German company Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA).
According to the company, no one was injured as a result of the explosion, and the launch pad itself was secured and saved from damage.
The engine exploded as a result of a nine-engine test, just one of many trials RFA must take before performing what would be the UK’s first vertical launch into orbit.
Other spaceports in the UK, such as Cornwall Spaceport, launch rockets horizontally, with aircraft support. When Saxavord was first given approval in 2023 to begin orbital launches, it became the first fully-licensed spaceport able to do vertical launches into orbit in Western Europe.
Saxavord Spaceport said in a statement that all safety standards were followed, and no staff were at risk of the explosion as the site had been evacuated before the test.
“This was a test, and test campaigns are designed to identify issues prior to the next stage,” a spokesperson said.
“We will work with RFA to understand and learn from the causes and support them as they move forward to the next phase of their preparations.”
The engine explosion comes after the first rocket test on the site, which was successful, was carried out on the Shetland island Unst just three months before.
Back in 2023, RFA received £3.5 million in funding to continue conducting tests and developing the necessary infrastructure to support orbital launches of its rockets at Saxavord.
Saxavord Spaceport is allotted 30 launches per year to launch satellites and other materials into space, but rigorous testing is required before a full launch can take place.
Among those interested in using the port besides RFA are Edinburgh-based Skyrora and German company Hylmpulse.
Hylmpulse and Saxavord recently entered an agreement to start orbital launches in late 2025, with sub-orbital launches supposed to be occurring this month after three years of engine tests by the company.
Consumers across the UK who are using digital financial management tools report being on average £37.08 better off per month, or £445 better off per year, compared to pre-adoption.
Today, as many as 7.6 million Brits are already using digital financial management tools, meaning this group is gaining up to a total of £3.38 billion collectively each year.
Widening this out statistically, this means that ever person in the UK over the age of sixteen started using digital financial management tools, this could represent the equivalent of a potential extra £24.5 billion going into consumer wallets each year.
This is according to new research released by Tink, a payment services platform and subsidiary of Visa.
Guidance in the Cost of Living Crisis
Tink’s research comes at a time when an estimated three quarters (75%) of consumers surveyed across the UK say they are mindful about what they are buying because the cost of goods is so high.
When asked about personal finance goals for the year ahead, almost half of consumers surveyed said they wanted to build saving pots (49%). More than a quarter surveyed want to cut off unnecessary expenses (27%) or build an emergency fund (26%).
The survey found that consumers are using the money saved through digital financial management tools to work towards these personal finance goals. Over a third (39%) of those surveyed used the extra funds to increase their savings contributions and almost one in four (23%) paid down their debt.
Benefits for Banks
Half of consumers (50%) surveyed would like their banking app to help them track spending on subscriptions, and over a third (37%) would like their bank to give them better visibility over their finance. This could mean that digital financial management could give banks a competitive edge.
The survey also suggests that some consumers are more likely to consider switching banks to gain access to better support and tools to help them manage their finances.
Over a third (36%) of respondents say they would switch to another bank if it provided them with tailored support to meet their financial goals. A similar number (32%) would switch to another bank if it provided them with tools to track and manage their spending.
“It’s clear that financial management tools can make a material difference to a consumer’s finances,” Jack Spiers, UK&I banking and lending director at Tink, commented.
“In addition to improved financial health, our research shows consumers have also reported a wide range of wellbeing and lifestyle benefits. These vary from reduced stress levels to increased happiness, as well as less time spent on managing money.
“At the same time, there are clear advantages to banks offering these tools to their customers. In a competitive retail banking market, banks have an opportunity to differentiate their offer and meet evolving consumer expectations by helping their customers better manage their finances.”
DataKirk has announced that tickets for their inauguaral Scottish Ethnic Minority Talent Summit and Festival 2024, are now on sale.
The data-driven advocate for diversity and inclusion is calling for partners, sponsors and exhibitors to take place in the event, an evolution on the company’s past two Scottish Black Talent Summits.
The SEM Summit 2024 promises to be a talent-driven event, aiming to unite local employers, academic institutions, corporate organisations, non-profits, and government agencies to share ideas and best practices for building and managing a thriving multicultural workforce in Scotland.
Panel discussions, keynote speeches from industry leaders, and interactive roundtable sessions are all to be expected, with the goal of equipping attendees with the tools and strategies needed to navigate today’s complex work environment.
The event will take place on 31 October 2024 at Tynecastle Park, McLeod Street, Edinburgh. The event follows two successful Scottish Black Talent Summits put on by DataKirk.
With the theme Uniting Communities, Empowering Talent, SEM Fest is set to offer a vibrant programme of live musical performances, interactive activities, and a showcase of arts, dance, and cultural experiences. The event aims to be a fun-filled day that the entire family can enjoy, while also serving as a meaningful celebration of the cultural fabric that strengthens Scotland’s communities.
SEM Fest will take place on 2 November at the BoxHub Warehouse in Glasgow, and aims to offer insights, innovation, and invaluable connections in conjunction with the festive activities.
DataKirk Launched the SEM Summit and Festival to better aid and repesent Scotland’s dynamic talent pool in the hope to transform the narrative surrounding talent, diversity, and opportunities.
“It is clear that it’s us people that makes this country what it is: it’s not the weather, it’s not the accent, it’s not the landscape,” Abel Aboh, data management lead at the Bank of England .said at the Scottish Black Talent Summit in October 2023, which DIGIT attended. “It is people.”
Tickets for both are currently on sale, but parties interested in partnership proposals with DataKirk can also get in touch.
Doquit Technologies LrD and Planda AI have won the Smart Data Foundry and FinTech Scotland UK Fintech Challenge, designed to encourage data-led innovation and accelerate the development of products to assist with Later Life financial planning.
Each companies were awarded a prize of £45,000 to develop their ideas. Doqit Technologies developed an app to help people manage their life-admin more easily, and Planda AI won for their mission to increase financial wellbeing.
Both companies were among six finalists which were given a chance to improve their financial solutions and products with synthetic data from Smart Data Foundry, which replicates data relating to consumer banking, investment and savings products.
By doing so, they were able to test their innovations before presenting them to some of the largest financial institutions in the UK, including NatWest Group, PwC, and Royal London.
Doqit’s life-admin app was born out of Catherine Ann Reid’s struggle to manage life admin while caring for her daughter Chloe, who has a rare genetic condition. Drowning under mounds of paperwork, hospital appointments, and tax returns, she embarked on a journey to create a single, simple, place for people to manage their day-to-day life admin, such as monitoring bills and tracking insurance policies and multiple pensions.
“We really enjoyed working on the FinTech Scotland and Smart Data Foundry challenge,” Catherine Ann said.
“It supports Doqit’s mission of simplifying the overwhelm of day-to-day life admin. We believe people being more organised, and having better control of their important financial documentation, plays a significant part in ensuring they are more financially prepared for living a longer life.
“The synthetic data allowed us to create personas, and envision the introduction of machine learning into doqit’s next phase. This will streamline the process of recording a huge chunk of life admin into doqit using Open Finance and more APIs. Thank you to FinTech Scotland and Smart Data Foundry for their support and to the partners NatWest, PWC, and Royal London for sharing their wider challenges and use cases. Congratulations to all short-listed, and Planda on receiving their award.”
The other winner, Planda AI, has designed an AI and machine learning financial wellbeing platform which transforms the way financial services firms engage with their customers about their finances.
Using machine learning models, it analyses people’s behavioral patterns to predict how and where individuals will end up financially, helping banks guide customers toward more financially secure paths.
“Thank you to FinTech Scotland for supporting us in this challenge,” Sam Brown, founder of Planda AI, said.
“Later life wellbeing is something very close to our heart, and the UK is sleepwalking into a big problem. We are on a mission to make money human, combining behavioural and artificial intelligence to help the industry understand how people feel about money.
“Smart Data Foundry’s synthetic data set, combined with our AI profiling technology, has been invaluable in allowing us to prove out key hypotheses related to peoples’ financial trajectory in life.
“Working with NatWest, Royal London, and PwC helped us better understand some of the challenges and opportunities they are facing, and we have met some other fantastic start-ups along the way.
“Congratulations to Doqit on their award alongside Planda.”
