Business confidence in Scotland fell two points during June to 48%, according to the latest Business Barometer from Bank of Scotland.
Companies in Scotland reported lower confidence in their own trading outlook month-on-month, down five points at 57%. When taken alongside their optimism in the economy, up two points to 40%, this gives a headline confidence reading of 48% (vs. 50% in May 2026).
Despite this dip, Scottish firms reported strong customer demand (79%) as the key driver of optimism in the wider economy.
A net balance of 38% of businesses in the country also expect to increase staff levels over the next year, up seven points on last month.
Business confidence in Scotland now sits slightly above the 12-month average of 47%, with its highest figure of 59% in August last year.
Looking ahead to the next six months, Scottish businesses identified their top target areas for growth as evolving their offering, for example by introducing new products or services (48%), introducing new technology such as AI or automation (45%) and entering new markets (39%).
The Business Barometer, which surveys 1,200 businesses monthly and which has been running since 2002, provides early signals about UK economic trends both regionally and nationwide.
Martyn Kendrick, Regional Director for Scotland at Bank of Scotland, said: “While business confidence in Scotland has dipped slightly this month, it remains above the UK average, underlining the resilience and ambition we’re continuing to see across the country’s business community.
“It’s particularly encouraging to see hiring intentions rising, suggesting many businesses are looking ahead with confidence despite the ongoing challenges facing the economy. With the busy summer trading period now underway, firms focusing on growth opportunities are investing in the people, products and services that will support their future success.”
National picture
Overall, UK business confidence fell three points in June to 44%.
Firms’ trading outlook fell two points to 56% and their optimism in the economy generally also fell four points to 31%.
The 12-month average for overall confidence is currently sitting at 47% and is trending above the long-term average of 30% since the survey began in 2002.
Despite a modest softening in business confidence due to wider global uncertainty, two thirds of firms nationally (64%) expect stronger output over the year ahead and hiring intentions for the coming twelve months strengthened for the first time since March.
The share of firms planning to increase their workforce rose to 55%, while 14% anticipated headcount reductions, leaving the net balance up five points at 41%. Firms intending to hire cited the need to meet strengthening demand and expand capacity, pointing to a degree of confidence in near-term activity.
Business confidence rose across six of the twelve UK regions and nations in June, with the South West seeing a 22pp jump to 44%, and the East Midlands becoming the most confident region with a headline confidence reading of 56%.
Amanda Murphy, CEO for Lloyds Business and Commercial Banking, said: “Confidence has edged down this month, and that reflects what we’re hearing directly from businesses. Many are still dealing with a mix of higher costs, uncertain demand and a wider global backdrop that feels difficult to read.
“That is weighing on decision making, particularly for firms that are focused on the UK market and have fewer ways to offset those pressures.
“However, this is not a picture of businesses stepping back altogether. Trading outlook remains relatively steady and we continue to see firms looking for new opportunities, even if investment plans have become more cautious.
“Businesses have shown over time that they can adapt in tough conditions, but for many the priority is managing costs and maintaining stability rather than pushing for growth.”
Google is allegedly limiting the use of its Gemini AI models to Meta after the social media firm’d demand exceeding the models’ computing capacity, according to reports from the Financial Times.
Back in March, Google reportedly told Meta that it did not have the capcity to fullfil the amount of Gemini use the social media company sought to buy. This shortfall, according to reports, lead to delays and disruptions for Meta’s own AI projects.
According to the reports other clients of Google have been affected by the tech titan’s inability to meet demand for its Gemini model compute capacity.
The FT report said that Meta has been particuarly affected by the capacity squeeze due to its high demand on Gemini AI.
The capacity limitations have meant that Meta is now encouraging employees to be more economical when using AI tokens, the report claimed.
The reports have yet to be verfied by other media outlets – FT credits them to sources close to the matter – but DIGIT has reached out to Google and Meta for comment.
Despite the shift in investment towards AI infrastructure such as data centres and chips which should improve compute capacity of models, the report shows that even top AI firms are still struggling to meet growing demand.
The British Business Bank has invested more than £600m into the UK’s fastest-growing science and technology scale ups, increasing its direct equity portfolio to more than 50 high-growth companies.
The Bank has more than doubled its direct equity investments since October 2025, investing more in the last nine months than in the previous four years.
The Bank has ramped up the pace and scale of its direct equity investing activity to tackle longstanding gaps in the UK late-stage capital market and support high growth companies to scale up and stay in the UK.
Since its first direct equity investment into Quantexa in 2020, the Bank has built a portfolio spanning life sciences, deeptech, including advanced manufacturing, clean energy and defence, AI and fintech, becoming one of the UK’s most active late-stage investors in key sectors shaping the UK’s future.
The Bank completed 18 new investments plus 18 follow-on investments in FY25/26, compared to 12 investments the year before. Total investments were up 2.5x from £75m to £188m year-on-year, and are expected to scale to over £400m this year.
“Supporting UK scale ups is a national economic imperative. The UK excels at creating businesses, but our domestic capital base has yet to match our scientific excellence,” Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer at the British Business Bank, said.
“Our activity should be interpreted as a clear signal to UK institutional capital that we want them to join us in backing UK scale ups. We now have fuel in the tank and intend to put UK innovation in fifth gear.”
Charlotte Lawrence, Managing Director and Head of Direct Equity at British Business Bank, said, “We are accelerating our ambitions to match the calibre of UK innovation. By investing £400m per year into the most exciting venture backed UK scale-ups across life sciences, deep tech, AI, and fintech, we aim to act as an ecosystem multiplier and ensure the most innovative UK businesses have the capital and support to rapidly scale.”
Business Secretary Peter Kyle, said, “We are ramping up the pace and scale of investment – backing the UK’s highest-growth scale ups at a level not seen before, through our modern Industrial Strategy. By more than doubling investment in just nine months, we’re giving firms the firepower they need to stay and scale here in the UK and drive the economy.”
Simple Online Healthcare, headquartered in Glasgow’s East End, has announced a new programme of community-focused digital skills initiatives, bringing together technology expertise with longstanding local commitments to deliver an expanded effort to help develop the next generation of technology and healthcare talent in Scotland.
The announcement coincides with the company’s recognition in both the 2026 Sunday Times 100 and Sunday Times Scotland 50 rankings.
Founded in 2015, Simple Online Healthcare was one of the UK’s pioneers in digital health, providing fast and affordable access to private medical care.
Founded and run from its Glasgow HQ, the organisation has gone from strength to strength. In FY26, the business grew to £155 million reported revenue, while remaining entirely self-funding and debt-free.
With over 150 employees, and more than 80% based in Scotland, they have plans to continue to invest in headcount by approximately 15% in the coming financial year, drawing on the depth of talent Scotland has to offer.
The business has recently been recognised in the 2026 Sunday Times 100 and Sunday Times Scotland 50 rankings. Simple Online Healthcare was ranked 48th overall in The Sunday Times 100 – the annual ranking of Britain’s fastest-growing private companies – making it the second-highest ranked Scottish business and second-highest ranked healthcare company on this year’s list.
It was also recognised this weekend in the Sunday Times Scotland 50, listed among Scotland’s 50 fastest-growing private companies.
Built in Glasgow, Invested in Glasgow
Simple Online Healthcare has long been committed to the local community, from establishing a mentoring programme with local schoolchildren, to supplying EpiPens at cost price to schools as part of a national access programme, and regular donations and engagement with local charities, particularly during Ramadan and Christmas.
In recent years, Simple Online Healthcare has invested extensively in skilled digital talent as well as a programme of professional development for employees across all functions – including a series of workshops from external experts covering emerging technologies, their practical applications and the responsibilities that come with them. Now, the company is launching a programme designed to help young people in Glasgow develop their skills and confidence.
Addy Mohammed, CEO and Co-Founder of Simple Online Healthcare said: “Glasgow has given us the talent and community which has helped us build a truly innovative and fast-growing business, as well of course as the trust of patients.
“We want to give something back that has a lasting impact. Scotland has world-class strengths in healthcare and the sciences, and we want to support the next generation of talent and entrepreneurs achieve their potential.”
New Initiatives for Glasgow’s Next Generation
At the heart of the programme is a new series of technology, software engineering and digital skills hackathons for senior secondary school pupils.
Designed in partnership with schools across the Glasgow area, these events will give students the chance to work on real-world challenges drawn from the healthcare and technology sectors as an opportunity to develop practical skills, and encounter careers and disciplines many may not have previously considered.
Simple Online Healthcare is also partnering with Entrepreneurial Scotland through its Saltire Scholars Programme to support graduates into skilled internships and employment, helping strengthen pathways into Scotland’s growing technology and healthcare sectors.
The first three Saltire graduates have already joined placements in the business.
Sean McGrath, CEO Entrepreneurial Scotland, said: “Every host partnership we build, like this one with Simple Online Healthcare strengthens the connection between Scotland’s universities and the industries that will employ their graduates.
“It’s good for the scholars, who gain real experience and confidence; it’s good for Simple, who gets access to fresh thinking and top talent early; and it’s good for Scotland’s economy as a whole.”
For school leavers, the company will offer twelve structured work experience opportunities during the next academic year, spanning technology and engineering, marketing, finance and patient care.
These placements have been designed to give students exposure to a professional working environment, develop workplace skills through experience and mentoring, and demonstrate the breadth of roles that exist within a digital healthcare company.
SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO is more than a capital markets milestone: it is a signal that space has moved decisively into the mainstream of the global economy. For Scotland, that shift creates a timely question: how can a specialist, innovation-led space ecosystem compete, collaborate and attract investment in a market increasingly shaped by global platforms of unprecedented scale?
SpaceX’s public debut marks a turning point in how the space sector is understood and valued. The company raised approximately $75 billion, making it the largest IPO in history, and despite recent fluctuations has maintained a valuation of over $2tn.
That scale places SpaceX among the world’s most valuable companies and positions space alongside other critical infrastructure sectors, including energy, telecoms, data and artificial intelligence. SpaceX is no longer best understood simply as a rocket company; increasingly, it is part of the operating layer of the global economy.
The same is true of the space sector more broadly. The conversation is no longer limited to exploration missions or prestige projects. It now extends to satellite-enabled communications, earth observation, climate monitoring, agricultural technology, life sciences research, defence resilience and, increasingly, proposals for space-based data infrastructure.
SpaceX’s IPO also marks an important moment for UK capital markets participation. More than 100,000 UK retail investors applied for shares, representing close to $1 billion in demand and the highest level of interest in an IPO since Royal Mail.
But what does this mean for Scotland?
Scotland’s space sector has developed rapidly in recent years, supported by strengths in small satellite manufacturing, data analytics, academic research and emerging launch infrastructure. The development of SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland, together with Skyrora becoming the first UK-based manufacturer to receive a launch licence for a commercial vehicle, demonstrate the depth of that ambition. At the same time, Orbex entering administration earlier this year underlines the difficulty of scaling capital-intensive launch businesses, even where the underlying technology and strategic case are compelling.
That combination of promise and pressure is important. Scotland is not trying to build a like-for-like competitor to SpaceX. Its opportunity lies in a more targeted position within the global space value chain, particularly in areas where it already has recognised capability:
Satellite manufacturing: Glasgow builds more small satellites than any other city in Europe;
Data and analytics capabilities: particularly in earth observation and downstream services; and
Emerging launch infrastructure: Scotland remains one of the UK’s leading locations for domestic launch capability, even if the route to first commercial launch is proving more complex than expected.
This points to a more nuanced opportunity for Scottish businesses. Rather than competing directly with global launch providers on volume or price, Scottish companies can position themselves around specialist manufacturing, downstream data services, mission support, sustainability, satellite operations and other higher-value niches that benefit from the expansion of space infrastructure worldwide.
The SpaceX IPO sharpens the strategic choices facing Scotland’s space sector. In particular, it highlights three practical implications for businesses, investors and advisers operating in the market:
Specialisation over scale
Direct competition with SpaceX on launch cadence, cost or balance-sheet capacity is unlikely to be viable for most Scottish businesses. The stronger route is specialisation: identifying defensible, higher-value roles in the supply chain where technical expertise, regulatory credibility and agility matter more than sheer scale.
Clear value chain positioning
Investors will increasingly ask where a business sits in the wider space economy: upstream manufacturing, launch, midstream operations, downstream data or enabling services. Companies that can explain that position clearly, and show how it connects to growing global demand, are more likely to attract capital and commercial partners.
Dependence requires mitigation
Reliance on dominant global platforms may be unavoidable, but it should not be unmanaged. Scottish businesses should consider how contracts, procurement strategies, intellectual property arrangements, data rights, export controls and partner diversification can reduce over-dependence on any single provider or route to market.
Regulation and resilience will become part of the investment case
As space becomes critical infrastructure, legal and regulatory readiness will matter more. Businesses that can demonstrate robust governance, licensing awareness, cyber resilience, sustainability credentials and credible risk allocation in commercial contracts will be better placed to win customers, partners and funding.
SpaceX’s IPO confirms what has long been anticipated: space is now a mainstream commercial sector and a critical component of global infrastructure. It also shows how quickly capital, talent and public attention can consolidate around market leaders.
For Scotland, the development is both a challenge and an opportunity. It raises the bar for competition, reinforces the importance of scale in certain segments and intensifies global competition for capital and talent.
However, it also provides clarity.
Scotland’s strengths in satellite manufacturing, data, research and emerging launch capability remain real and commercially relevant. The key is not to replicate the SpaceX model, but to define a distinct role within a globalised supply chain where specialist capability can still command value.
For businesses operating in the sector, success will depend on precision: understanding where they add value, protecting the assets and relationships that create that value, and positioning themselves for a market that has now firmly come of age.
As UK legal partner to Space Network, we work closely with businesses across the space ecosystem and will continue to monitor the sector’s evolution with interest.
The rapid expansion of AI-driven data centers is not only increasing electricity demand, but making it significantly harder to predict, challenging how power systems are planned and delivered.
A large majority of electricity executives expect more extreme and less predictable demand spikes, while more than three quarters say they struggle to forecast future needs accurately, according to the Capgemini Research Institute’s latest report, AI meets the grid: shaping the data center power play.
The research, which surveyed over 600 senior electricity executives from organizations with annual revenue exceeding $500 million, highlights how power systems are entering a new phase as AI workloads become increasingly unpredictable.
According to the report, forecasting has become significantly harder, but AI is also part of the solution with a majority of executives expecting AI to unlock significant efficiency and operational gains.
A new era of volatile and uncertain electricity demand
Beyond growth, the bigger challenge is uncertainty. Utilities are increasingly planning for demand that may never materialise.
The report highlights a growing disconnect between projected and actual demand: a majority (67%) of electricity executives refer to “phantom” data-center load requests, with around two in ten (19%) of them never materialising, distorting forecasts and increasing the risk of both over- and under-investment.
This forecasting uncertainty creates a significant capital allocation dilemma. Utilities must decide not only how much capacity to invest in, but where and when to prioritise grid modernisation investments to support future demand while avoiding stranded assets.
For hyperscalers, the challenge is equally acute, requiring major infrastructure decisions to be made against a backdrop of uncertain demand forecasts, grid availability and connection timelines.
Furthermore, over three-quarters (77%) of utilities are forecasting difficulties predicting future demand accurately, as consumption patterns from AI become less stable and more difficult to model.
As a result, they expect demand variability to emerge as a major system challenge, requiring new approaches to planning and operations.
In addition, 68% of electricity executives also anticipate shortages due to data-center demand growing faster than they can expand supply.
The challenge is compounded by the geographic concentration of data centers, which places significant strain on local grids: more than half of electricity executives identify load concentration as a major obstacle to reliable service, while large clusters of high-density facilities are creating localised bottlenecks that affect system stability and investment planning.
“AI is transforming electricity systems far beyond demand growth. It is exposing structural constraints in grid capacity, planning, and power availability, while making demand more dynamic and harder to predict,” said Claire Gauthier, Global Head of Energy & Utilities at Capgemini.
“The challenge is no longer only how much power is needed, but whether it can be delivered reliably, where and when it is required. Utilities have a defining role to play as system orchestrators, leveraging AI-enabled insights to balance grid and customer-owned resources, accelerate deliverable capacity, and enable the next phase of data-center growth.”
AI’s dual role: demand accelerator and a force multiplier for grid performance
According to the report, electricity consumption from AI training and inferencing is expected to rise significantly from 25% to 60% of total data center electricity demand in the next three to five years, largely displacing other IT workloads.
At the same time, electricity executives see AI as a force multiplier for grid planning and reliability: around six in ten expect advanced AI analytics to deliver over 10% improvements in failure reduction, operational productivity, and preventing and restoring outages.
Despite its benefits AI adoption remains limited
As per the report, less than half (45%) say they are currently using AI for grid optimisation, and only 16% of electricity organizations have implemented more advanced AI-driven approaches to optimise power flows, enhance resilience, and improve real-time system performance to keep pace with booming demand.
According to the report, grid infrastructure construction timelines are also a critical constraint in accommodating rapid demand growth from AI data centers. This underscores the urgent need to accelerate grid modernisation through AI itself and climate tech to deliver reliable, affordable and sustainable power.
On-site power as a structural shift toward hybrid and decentralised energy systems
Facing grid constraints and delays, data centers are increasingly shifting from backup-only approaches toward primary behind-the-meter (BTM) and near-site solutions.
Nearly three in ten say they already deploy on-site power solutions and 39% plan to add on-site/BTM within the next one to two years; more than seven in ten expect these solutions to significantly reduce reliance on the grid within five years.
The majority (86%) see the ability to operate independently from the grid as a competitive advantage. This evolution is reshaping the traditional relationship between utilities and large energy consumers, introducing both opportunities and coordination challenges.
A balanced, diversified energy mix at the core of reliable and sustainable data-center growth
A diversified energy mix is emerging as essential to ensure reliability and long-term resilience while renewable energy alone cannot yet provide continuous power at scale for large data centers and AI workloads – according to 78% of electricity executives and 73% of data-center executives. Both report on active investment in battery energy storage systems (BESS) to help bridge the gap.
They also agree that long-term solutions such as nuclear (Small Modular Reactors) will take time to deploy.
As a result, more than two-thirds (68%) of electricity and data-center executives globally see natural gas as a near‑term, transitional solution until renewable energy and storage technologies can scale, creating tensions with decarbonization goals.
“For both energy providers and data-center operators, the key challenge is no longer only scaling capacity, but doing so under uncertainty, speed constraints, and rising system complexity,” concludes Claire Gauthier.
“Success will depend on the ability to align infrastructure investment, energy sourcing, and AI-enabled operations to manage both the scale and volatility of demand, while balancing reliability, cost, and sustainability.”
Pathways Forward, the not-for-profit set up by Scottish entrepreneur and investor Ana Stewart, is gaining wider recognition for its Pledge initiative where companies sign up to specific actions that are then tracked and shared across organisations aimed at driving equal opportunity for women in entrepreneurship and business.
Barclays, Venture Café Edinburgh, Cruinn Consulting, The Ventures Lab, and existing member Elevator are coming together to create the Pledge’s 8th cohort.
Existing Pledge organisations include a diverse range of companies including EY, Royal Bank of Scotland, BGF, University of Strathclyde, RBC Brewin Dolphin, AccelerateHer, BTO and Ooni, as the total number of Pledge partners reaches the 50 mark, with over 100 active Pledges.
Ana Stewart said: “As well as making strides in Scotland, the Pathways Pledge is now gaining momentum across the UK and internationally. The Pledge gives organisations across industries, large or small, young or old, the ability to commit to actions whilst learning and collaborating with others.
“The fact that we’re becoming a beacon outside our own borders is more than we could have wished for when we started out on this journey.”
Pledges made by the latest cohort include Barclays Scotland deepening its relationship-led support for female founders through new drop-in clinics, and Venture Café Edinburgh hosting global virtual events in partnership with other Venture Cafés around the world.
The Ventures Lab has also committed to helping five female-led ventures become investment-ready, with the aim of unlocking up to £2 million in related investment funding over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, Cruinn Consulting will host at least one stereotype-challenging speaker event bringing together professionals from non-traditional career paths.
Ana Stewart added: “We are excited to welcome our new Pledge members as we also reflect on how impactful the Pledge has been across our Pledge alumni.”
Nathalie Cutting, Relationship Director at Barclays UK, said: “Barclays is proud to be part of the Pathways Forward cohort, supporting the next generation of female entrepreneurs across Scotland. Through this initiative, we’re committed to helping remove barriers to growth and ensuring more women have access to the networks, capital and confidence needed to scale their businesses.“
The date has also been announced for the third annual Female Founder Growth Summit, which will take place in Edinburgh on Thursday 1st October. Pathways Forward is partnering with Superscalers, The ScaleUp Institute and Buy Women Built to bring the UK’s high-growth female entrepreneurs together to connect, learn and accelerate business growth.
Google is set to go to trail in a £1bn lawsuit on behalf of thousands of UK app developers who claim to be overcharged when using Google Play Store.
The lawsuit was approved in May 2025 by the Competition Appeal Tribunal, allowing Professor Barry Rodger to file the case in an opt-out basis on behalf of UK developers.
The claim alleges that Google abused its dominant market position as the main app distributor for Androids – technical and contractual restrictions the tech titan introduced have been said to limit competition, forcing UK app developers to use the Google Play store as there are little alternatives when reaching Android users.
Google will face claims that it used this dominant position to charge developers exessive commissions of up to 30% on their app sales, subscriptions, and in-app digital contnet.
The lawsuit will seek compensation of the revenue allegedly lost due to the Google’s dominance.
The claim will allege the a fair market would see UK app developers pay less to Google to use the Play Store to market their apps, but that Google instead charged unfair amounts, reducing revenue for developers.
This stifled revenue constricted the type of products developers and enterprises could create, how many people could be hired, and how much businesses could grow, Rodger alleges.
“This is a significant moment for UK app developers,” Rodger said. “Many small businesses have had little realistic choice but to use Google Play Store to reach Android customers. The cost of doing so, we believe, was excessive and unfair.”
Google previously attempted to make the lawsuit opt-in, which would mean that developers would have to actively opt-in to receive compensation for the claim if it is successful. This was deenied by the Tribunal.
UK consumers are becoming more informed, more deliberate and less forgiving when it comes to how companies collect and use their personal data, according to new research from Usercentrics.
The State of Digital Trust 2026 report found that four in five (80%) UK consumers would stop using a service if they discovered their data was being misused, while almost nine in ten (88%) have taken steps to protect their personal data online in the past six months. And at a time when AI is becoming embedded in everyday digital experiences, 61% of UK consumers say they are uncomfortable with their personal data being used to train AI models.
The shift is being driven by growing awareness. The proportion of UK consumers who are unaware of their privacy rights has fallen from 50% to 43% over the past year. This represents the largest year-on-year improvement in privacy rights awareness of any market surveyed.
The findings suggest privacy is moving beyond a passive concern, but an increasingly important factor shaping consumer behaviour, purchasing decisions and brand loyalty.
“Consumers are making purchasing decisions based on how brands handle their data, and over half are willing to pay more to the ones that get it right. The brands that move first won’t just earn the premium. They’ll earn a category position that’s almost impossible to compete against once it’s established,” said Tilman Harmeling, Strategy & Market Intelligence, Usercentrics.
Consumers are taking greater control of their data
The research suggests consumers are becoming more proactive about managing their privacy online. More than two in five (43%) have rejected cookies on websites in the past six months, while 45% say they now click “accept all” less often than they did three years ago, up from 40% in 2025.
At the same time, understanding remains a challenge. Despite taking action to protect their data, 41% of consumers say they do not have a good understanding of how companies collect and use their personal information.
This growing gap between action and understanding is creating new expectations for brands. Consumers are becoming less willing to accept opaque data practices and increasingly expect organisations to clearly explain how personal information is collected, used and shared.
The consequences of getting data practices wrong are becoming increasingly tangible for brands.
More than half (56%) of UK consumers say they have stopped using a company’s services because of concerns about its data privacy practices.
Concerns around AI are also beginning to influence purchasing behaviour. Nearly a quarter (24%) of UK consumers say they have avoided trying a new product or service because of concerns about how a company uses AI, while 23% have stopped purchasing from a brand altogether.
At the same time, trust is creating new opportunities. Half (50%) of consumers say they would be willing to pay more for a product or service from a company that is transparent about how it uses AI and personal data and gives them control over whether their information is used to train AI systems. The findings suggest consumers are not rejecting innovation or AI itself. Instead, they are increasingly demanding transparency, accountability and greater control over how their information is used.
For brands, the message is clear: as privacy awareness grows, trust is becoming a business issue, not just a compliance one. Consumers are becoming more selective about who they share their data with and more willing to act when expectations are not met. Organisations that prioritise transparency and responsible data practices will be best placed to build lasting customer relationships in an increasingly AI-driven world. The findings are part of Usercentrics’ State of Digital Trust 2026 report, which explores how consumer attitudes towards privacy, AI, personalisation and trust are evolving as digital experiences become increasingly data driven.
By 2028, AI coding costs will overtake the average developer’s salary due to rising large language model (LLM) token consumption and the shift to consumption-based licensing models, according to Gartner, Inc.
AI tokens are the units of data processed by generative AI models. Token consumption directly impacts the cost of AI coding tools, particularly under consumption-based pricing structures.
“Organisations are rapidly moving from experimentation to scaled deployment of AI coding agents, but many are underestimating the financial impact of rising token consumption,” said Nitish Tyagi, Sr. Principal Analyst at Gartner.
“Token discipline will not emerge through developer choice alone, as developers tend to optimise for speed and convenience over cost efficiency. Without a governed engineering operating model, costs can escalate faster than the productivity gains these tools are designed to deliver.”
Cost Predictability Challenges
The shift from seat-based licensing to consumption-based pricing among AI coding agent vendors is introducing highly variable cost structures for software engineering workloads. Many vendors lack transparency into how token consumption is calculated and billed, limiting enterprises’ ability to accurately forecast and control costs.
Without clear visibility into token usage across development tasks, organisations risk budget overruns and reduced ability to track cost-to-value outcomes.
“Most organisations still lack the maturity and frameworks to effectively measure cost versus business impact,” said Tyagi. “Software engineering leaders are increasingly concerned as token-driven AI spend becomes harder to justify, with budgets often being depleted earlier than expected.”
Cost Pressure Drivers
Beyond pricing and visibility challenges, how AI coding agents are used within organisations is further driving cost pressures. Token overspending is often linked to how software engineering leaders govern usage, with common failure modes including ungoverned autonomy in agent-driven workflows, bloated context windows and the absence of structured feedback mechanisms to optimise usage.
In addition, AI coding vendors are yet to deliver mature, built-in cost optimisation capabilities in AI coding agents, further contributing to cost escalation.
“AI coding costs will continue to rise as infrastructure investment and profitability challenges push model pricing higher,” said Tyagi. “At the same time, as more developers adopt AI tools, light users are expected to rapidly become mainstream users as familiarity and reliance increase, driving further growth in token consumption and overall spend.”
To manage rising costs and avoid budget overruns, Gartner recommends that software engineering leaders implement a disciplined operating model for AI usage:
Establish a use-case-driven decision framework: Organisations should clearly define when AI coding agents should be used and determine appropriate levels of autonomy for each task. This includes classifying development tasks into three execution models: developer‑led, developer‑with‑agent, and fully agent‑led.
Align model selection with task complexity: AI coding agents are most cost-effective when work is broken into smaller tasks that can be handled by smaller models, with escalation only when complexity demands it. Engineering and platform teams should implement intelligent model routing strategies that direct simpler, high-frequency tasks to smaller models while reserving frontier models for complex and high-value development work.
Mandate context engineering practices: Developers must be trained to optimiae the input context provided to AI systems by including only relevant information, summarising content where possible, and eliminating unnecessary data to reduce token consumption without compromising output quality.
Implement governance and cost controls: Organisations should introduce mechanisms such as token thresholds, escalation policies, and automated monitoring to manage usage. Embedding these controls into engineering workflows ensures consistency and prevents uncontrolled cost growth.
Embed token usage reviews into development cycles: Leaders should mandate regular reviews of high-token-consuming workflows as part of sprint retrospectives to identify inefficiencies, refine practices, and promote knowledge sharing across engineering teams.
Oracle’s workforce decreased by 13% in the fiscal year of 2026, losing around 21,000 employees in thi period as the cloud computing firm entered a phase of AI-driven restructuring.
The cloud company’s total workforce now sits at 141,000, compared to 162,000 last year, according to Oracle’s annaul report.
Oracle cut thousands of jobs this year; its filling credited this workforce transformation to a range of variables, from performance issues, shifts in strategy, and changes in management.
The firm, while notable, holds a much smaller role in the global cloud computing market compared to Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, but has gained momentum thanks to deals with OpenAI and Meta for data centres as firms focus on AI infrastructure.
Despite these large deals, Oracle has seen its shares drop around 10% this year, as the firm burns through cash and enters debt to keep up with sprawling demand.
The firm expects its net capital expenditure to reach $70 billion in the current fiscal year, meaning the company will need to raise a further $40 billion in debt and equity to keep up with costs.
Fiscal 2026 saw the firm spend $1.84 billion on severance payments and exit costs associated with its mass layoffs.
Oracle is not alone though, as tech companies continue to let staff go as they re-align to an AI-first world.
Entering debt and burning through capital is also common in the AI arena, with projections for rising AI debt issuance to reach $570bn by the end of the year.
Time will tell if Oracle comes to regret its restructuring, however, as Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg admitted to his staff that the tech giant “made some mistakes” when it came to mass layoffs in favour of AI.
The majority of cyber security professionals believe advanced AI systems, like Claude Mythos, will amplify cyber risk rather than reduce it, according to a new survey from UK-based cyber firm CybaVerse.
The survey was conducted at Infosecurity Europe at ExCeL, London in June 2026 and it studied the attitudes of 141 cyber security professionals.
Despite advanced AI systems being touted as supporting cyber defences, the survey highlighted that the majority of security professionals believe they will have the opposite effect.
When respondents were asked if they believe advanced AI could increase their organisation’s exposure to cyber risk, 87% agreed.
The findings also highlighted growing concerns around vulnerability management.
86% of security professionals believe advanced AI systems, such as Mythos, will significantly reduce the time attackers need to identify and exploit vulnerabilities, forcing them to shorten patching cycles.
However, 68% are not confident their organisation has the resources or budgets to cope with these increased patching demands.
When asked if the hype surrounding Claude Mythos was causing organisations to focus too heavily on vulnerability volume instead of vulnerability prioritisation and context, 60% agreed.
“Advanced AI platforms were blasted into the public domain and organisations had no time to prepare for the impact they would have on their cyber defences,” said Oliver Spence, CEO of CybaVerse.
“Now that some of the largest technology companies in the world have access to these platforms, we are already seeing an increase in the volume of vulnerabilities being identified and disclosed, with the latest Patch Tuesday being the largest on record.
“Verizon’s latest Data Breach Investigations Report revealed that the median time to remediate vulnerabilities has risen to 43 days and we can’t expect this to improve as organisations are set to face more disclosures.”
“The answer is not to create panic or expect organisations to patch every vulnerability immediately. This isn’t realistic. Instead, organisations need to become better at understanding which vulnerabilities present the greatest risk to their specific environment and focus resources accordingly. Context has always been critical in effective vulnerability management and this is even more important in an AI-powered world.”
Other findings from the survey revealed that 75% of security professionals believe an advanced AI platform will eventually be weaponised by cyber-criminals.
“This is something organisations must be prepared for because bulletproof security doesn’t exist,” Spence added.
“As these technologies become more widespread, it is unrealistic to assume that cyber criminals, hostile nation states and other threat actors will not seek to exploit them or develop their own alternatives. The reality is that advanced AI capabilities are here to stay.
“Organisations that do not currently have access to advanced AI systems may understandably feel concerned about being on the backfoot, but the fundamentals of cyber security have not changed. Security teams still need visibility of their assets, they still need strong vulnerability management processes and they still need to prioritise remediation efforts based on risk.
“Advanced AI may change the speed and scale of cyber threats, but the organisations that maintain strong cyber hygiene and focus on reducing exposure to their most significant risks will always be in the strongest position to defend themselves.”
The evolving AI landscape is rapidly transforming cyber risk, the leaders of the Five Eyes cybersecurity agencies warn in a new call to action.
The Five Eyes – the intelligence coordinating body from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US – have warned that AI is accelerating the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyber threats.
While AI will help improve cyber defences over time, the threat is already here: frontier AI models are expected to exceed current expectations when it comes to offensive and defences cyber abilities.
“The timeline is not years, it is months,” the Five Eyes warned.
The Five Eyes have urged organisations to treat these cyber risks not just as a technical issue, but as a core business risk.
Leaders should ensure core cyber principles are followed, from secure-by-design and secure-by-default being the standard, to improving the depth of defences.
AI will see new vulnberabilities emerge, including zero-days, which must be deal with swiftly and proactivley.
The Five Eyes provided practical solutions, such as accelerating patching processes, reducing attack surfaces, addressing legacy seystems, revewing identity controls, and preparing for incidents before they happen.
The cyber alliance is also encouraging organisations to use AI to bolster their defences. AI can help improve threat detection, improve software quality, aid monitoring, and respond to incidents faster.
“Success will not come from having the most tools. It will come from getting the basics right, acting quickly, and integrating cyber security into core business strategy,” the Five Eyes said in a join statement.
“We must act before and be prepared to adapt and withstand evolving threats.
“Cyber resilience is not an IT issue – it is central to operational continuity and market trust. Leaders who act now will reduce exposure, strengthen resilience, and build confidence with customers, partners, and investors. Those who delay will face growing and avoidable risk.”
New statistics showing Scotland’s foreign direct investment attractiveness is at record levels are a testament to what the country has to offer, First Minister John Swinney has said.
EY’s UK Attractiveness Survey 2026 has found that Scotland remains the UK’s top destination for foreign direct investment outside London for the eleventh consecutive year. Investors cited Scotland’s highly skilled workforce, strong infrastructure and overall business environment as core strengths.
One in three businesses planning to invest in the UK are now considering Scotland – up from 27% in 2024 to a record high.
This shows Scotland has maintained its strong, long-standing competitive position despite foreign direct investment project numbers declining across the UK due to a challenging global environment.
First Minister John Swinney welcomed the results of the survey on a visit to the Gartcosh factory of Guala Closures, a global leader in premium bottle closures, where he met General Manager Peter McAllister to discuss Scotland’s offer to international investors.
“These findings are a testament to what Scotland has to offer – and the world is taking notice,” Mr Swinney said.
“Confidence in our investment proposition is at its strongest ever level, demonstrating Scotland’s resilience in what is an incredibly challenging global environment.
“Driving economic growth is not just a priority for the Scottish Government – it is central to our commitments to ease the cost of living, reduce child poverty and deliver better public services for the people of Scotland.
“My government will seize every opportunity to ensure that Scotland continues to have a strong and vibrant economy in the years to come, creating well-paid jobs in every part of Scotland, from our cities to our island and rural communities.
“We will continue to do everything we can do to make Scotland the most attractive place in the UK to invest, create jobs and build a more sustainable future.”
Peter McAllister, General Manager, Guala Closures said: “Scotland has always been a strategic geography for Guala Closures: close to many of the customers and industries we serve, particularly the world-renowned Scotch whisky sector and offering a highly supportive environment for investment thanks to its skilled workforce, strong industrial heritage and collaborative business ecosystem.
“Our Gartcosh facility reflects that long-term commitment and our confidence in Scotland’s ability to foster sustainable growth and innovation.”
Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise Adrian Gillespie said: “Scotland’s ability to attract major investors like Guala Closures points to our rich talent base, fantastic infrastructure and welcoming business environment. These assets have helped us remain the UK’s top FDI location outside London for 11 years.
“We’re now seeing a shift towards higher‑value projects in areas like energy transition, digital technology and advanced manufacturing, unlocking global trade and investment opportunities. Crucially, investors tell us the way we work with them really sets Scotland apart. It’s often the key differentiator in winning big projects despite strong international competition.”
More than 70% of mainframe exit projects initiated in 2026 will fail to produce the intended benefits due to an overestimation of generative AI (GenAI) tooling capabilities, according to Gartner, Inc.
“There is a widening gap between the marketing promise of GenAI and its real-world ability to transform and migrate complex legacy code,” said Alessandro Galimberti, VP Analyst at Gartner.
“At the same time, intense investor pressure is pushing vendors to embed AI into their offerings regardless of whether it meaningfully improves outcomes.
“When this is combined with the ‘too-big-to-fail’ nature of mission-critical mainframe applications and the accelerating loss of experienced talent, infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders face a perfect storm of risk that makes poorly planned exit strategies increasingly untenable.”
Mainframe Exits
Poor mainframe migration decisions are not just defined by cost overruns; they can also pose a direct threat to business and operational continuity.
Organisations that pursue “seemingly magical” AI-driven exit strategies, rather than taking a platform-smart approach to align workloads with the right environments, risk introducing significant technical debt and exposing the enterprise to critical failures.
As a result, the mainframe exit market is at a pivotal point. Sustained investments from IBM, along with independent software vendors such as 21CS, BMC, Broadcom, and Rocket Software, and managed service providers like DXC, GTSG, and Kyndryl, further reinforce the mainframe’s position as a modern platform for strategic investment.
Gartner predicts that by 2030, 75% of vendors operating in the mainframe exit market will pivot their business models or cease operations, as market expectations reset and demand for one-size-fits-all migration solutions declines.
“The right mainframe strategy depends heavily on the profile and complexity of an organization’s environment,” said Galimberti. “For many mainframe customers, GenAI can be more effectively used to enable modernisation in place rather than accelerate migration off the platform.
“For medium environments, which constitute the largest market segment, they face the most complex decisions. Organisations must balance strategies focused on optimising existing mainframe investments, while limiting full platform exits to select, case-by-case scenarios, as these efforts require high-risk transformation and often result in suboptimal outcomes.
“Small mainframe environments can instead tackle mainframe-as-a-service (MFaaS) as a cost-effective hosting strategy and focus on replacing legacy third-party software (ISV solutions) and targeted in-platform modernisation where a positive ROI is achievable.”
AI is now mainstream for Scotland plc, with AI use by Scottish businesses maturing according to a survey carried out by Scottish AI and software development firm Zudu.
Over 50 Scottish businesses were surveyed, from SMEs to larger corporates, during Q2 of 2026, finding that 94 per cent of respondents are now using AI, 38 per cent have applied AI across the business, with 19 per cent in more specific areas.
Regarding return on investment (ROI), almost 70 per cent are seeing either a clear ROI from AI or early positive signs. And, looking ahead, 75 per cent rate AI as highly important to their future business success.
Zudu CEO Paul Duffy said: “AI is increasingly viewed as a core business capability, rather than an emerging technology trend.”
One in four Scottish businesses polled have been using AI for more than 2 years, while 1 in 3 started using AI over the last 6 months.
In terms of areas of the business where AI is being applied most by companies, 77 per cent of AI use is in marketing and content, 62 per cent in data and reporting, 38 per cent in sales, 38 per cent in operations, 31 per cent in software development, 31 per cent in finance and administration, 23 per cent in customer support, and 15 per cent in HR.
Other key findings included that 80 per cent of businesses are using AI every day, leadership teams manage AI strategy in almost 50 per cent of Scottish businesses, 53 per cent have paid subscriptions for AI platforms, 40 per cent have an allocated AI budget, and 1 in 5 businesses are building custom-made AI internally.
Tony Quinn, CEO of Glasgow-headquartered SilverCloud, an IT and cyber security group who participated in Zudu’s survey, said: “The stat that stood out for me was how few Scottish businesses said their IT team owns the AI within the business. We see it every day, with AI running in three or four places across a business that nobody in IT knew about.”
SilverCloud CEO Quinn added: “The £23 billion contribution from AI to the national economy by 2035 being targeted by the Scottish Government is the right ambition, but businesses are already moving faster than the support around them. The ones who’ll get there are the ones who name an owner, write the rules down and ask for help on the bits they don’t have.”
When it comes to barriers to AI adoption, 69 per cent of businesses cited lack of expertise, 38 per cent referenced data and compliance concerns, 31 per cent said costs, and 31 per cent said time constraint. 63 per cent of respondents said they would use external support to better implement AI.
On concerns about AI, 93 per cent said accuracy, 53 per cent said data privacy, 20 per cent said reputational risk, and 13 per cent said regulation.
Zudu CEO Paul Duffy added: “In summary, AI adoption is now widespread, the biggest barrier is capability not cost, businesses want to move beyond experimentation, to which many are seeking external support, and AI is now overwhelmingly a strategic priority.”
CEO Duffy continued: “Many organisations are using AI tools but have not progressed into custom solutions, structured automation, governance, or measurement of business outcomes. This creates a significant opportunity for organisations to bridge the gap between experimentation and implementation.”
Scotland’s National Health Service has officially launched its new MyCare app, providing an online service which will help people access their health and social care information.
The first version fo the MyCare.scot app launched in Lanarkshire back in December 2025, but is now being fully rolled out across Scotland.
It was previously only available as a web-based service, but can now be downloaded onto smartphones via the Apple App Store or Google Play.
Scotland has high hopes for the app, with aims that it will act as a the most “comprehensive health and care app in the UK,” rivaling with England’s NHS app.
The app will provide views to users’ medications, allergies, and vaccination status, as well as personal information like addresses, their Community Health Index number, and how to find local health services.
The app aims to expand its offerings over time, offering new features, as well as social care capabilities.
“The availability of MyCare.scot on the app store is an important milestone in this government’s programme to give people a single, secure digital access point to their personal health information,” Health Secretary Angela Constance said.
“I am clear that our NHS in Scotland will never be for sale. That is why the app has been developed within the public sector, protecting the privacy of patient medical records and ensuring best value for the taxpayer.
“Over time, MyCare.scot will make it easier to manage appointments, reduce the need for patients to retell their story, order prescriptions, and gain access to the information they need to help them stay well and supported. It will also be integrated with Scotland’s social care and social work system.”
Three-quarters of cyber attacks impacting organisations within the UK’s critical infrastructure over the past year can be linked back to hostile state actors, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has revealed.
The CEO of the NCSC Dr Richard Horne said more than 200 cyber incidents affecting the UK’s critical national infrastructure and its supporting ecosystem were managed by the NCSC in the year to May 2026, with around 75% of those believed to be linked to state actors.
Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) Annual Security Lecture, Dr Horne, warned that hostile states, such as Russia, China and Iran, are increasingly targeting the systems that underpin the UK’s essential services, arguing that cyber security should not be treated simply as a risk to be managed, but as an ongoing contest with capable adversaries.
“…this contest is not confined to a compact space. It is not like a wrestling match in a closely defined territory as some have suggested,” Dr Horne said.
“It is far more akin to a football or basketball game, played across a large field of play, where success depends on how you operate across the entire pitch.”
He outlined the need for coordinated action across the “near, mid and far” cyber spaces, “the different parts of the environment where we come into contact with our adversaries, with different approaches in each.”
Dr Horne called on “every board member and every executive, in every organisation” to strengthen cyber resilience by focusing on three core capabilities: understanding their exposure to threats, building stronger defences based on proven security fundamentals, and ensuring they can continue operating and recover quickly after an attack.
In his lecture, he said: “We still see far too many significant incidents today that are possible because the fundamentals are not in place….
“The truth is that in this great contest there are no spectators, we are all on the pitch. From boardrooms to IT help desks, to sofas at home, the contest is everywhere.
“If we collectively embrace the contest, understand the urgency and believe we can be a match for any opponent, then we can and will prevail.
Speaking about the cyber threat in future conflict scenarios, Dr Horne emphasised the urgency of organisations acting now for their own protection, arguing: “…the many vulnerabilities that organisations tolerate today will be exploited in conflict tomorrow. If they are too expensive or hard to fix in peacetime, then they certainly will be in war…
“In cyberspace, we are not preparing for tomorrow’s conflicts, to some degree we are fighting them today.”
NCSC CEO also warned that advances in artificial intelligence are likely to accelerate the threat, with the NCSC assessing that by 2028 AI-enabled cyber capabilities will likely be used by attackers to exploit known vulnerabilities in legacy technology at scale across critical national infrastructure.
John Edwards has announced his resignation from his position as Information Commissioner following an investigation into unspecified workplace issues that were found to have “a case to answer.”
In his resignation post on LinkedIn, the former privacy regulator said that he sometimes exhibited “poor judgement and made attempts at humour that were inappropriate and caused offence,” giving some insight into what the workplace issues may have been about.
The investigation, which caused Edwards to step back from his position in February 2026, found that there was a case to answer.
“While I have not agreed with how that investigation has been conducted, I accept that my position has become untenable,” Edwards said.
Prior to this decision on 10 June, Edwards was recieving information from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regarding cases and was available if required; since the decision he has not been able to fullfill his role at all.
“From the time the investigation was launched, I have accepted that there have been occasions where I exercised poor judgement and made attempts at humour that were inappropriate and caused offence,” Edwards said.
“It is for this reason that I have decided that it is appropriate that I resign from my position.”
He added: “I do not wish to be a distraction to the ICO’s important work.”
The Information Commissioner is officially appointed by the Crown on advice of the government and is held to account by the Parliamentary Select Committees.
He will have to formally submit his resignation to the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT). The ICO has yet to make a comment on Edwards’ post.
DSIT told DIGIT: “John Edwards has resigned from the post of Information Commissioner and Chair of the Information Commission with immediate effect. This follows an independent investigation that took place regarding allegations made against him.
“The government expects the highest standards of conduct from all senior leaders in public life. Mr Edwards has acknowledged that his conduct fell below these standards.
“Arrangements are set out in law for the Deputy Commissioners to undertake the functions of the regulator and ensure continuity of leadership.”
Edwards was appointed as Information Commissioner in 2021, taking office in 2022.
“I am proud of the contribution I have made and look forward to continuing to support this important work,” Edwards said.
“I would like to thank colleagues, stakeholders, and supporters for the opportunity to serve in the role of the UK’s Information Commissioner, and I wish the organisation every success in the future.”
Councils hold highly-sensitive, confidential data on even the most vulnerable of individuals, yet a new investigation from compliance training provider Skillcast has revealed that the vast majority are failing to adequately train staff against the ongoing threat of cyber-attacks.
To understand how councils across the UK approach cybersecurity training, Skillcast issued Freedom of Information requests to local councils, before analysing their respective cybersecurity awareness training policies.
Questions focused on the quantity of staff members who have taken part in training over the past year, whether the training is mandatory or not, and the frequency of refresher training.
These answers were then scored against a ranking system to create an index evaluating the degree to which training is mandatory, refresh frequency, and council enforcement. Councils were then attributed as either Tier A (top performers), Tier B (mid performers), Tier C (needs improvement), or Tier D (poor performers).
Only 10% of UK councils were found to have robust cybersecurity training policies, with only four out of the 37 who responded achieving top-tier ‘A’ status.
These are Belfast City Council, Buckinghamshire Council, Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP Council), and City of Edinburgh Council. These high achievers only represent a distinct minority though, with the majority of audited councils failing to secure the top-tier ranking.
Worst performing councils
Exeter City Council emerged as the lowest-scoring authority in the index, having only introduced mandatory cybersecurity training this year. Given this, Exeter City Council could not be compared against the other factors in the index, such as the frequency of refresher training or requirements of elected members.
In direct contrast to the Tier A councils, Dacorum Borough Council and Maidstone Borough Council only provide refresher training once every three years, creating a risky knowledge deficit. Similarly, a critical blind spot was identified at Eastbourne Borough, Maidstone, and Kirklees Council, where cybersecurity training is entirely optional for elected members. Because these officials typically serve four-year terms and manage highly confidential data, this training exemption can create a huge vulnerability.
Structural tracking failures further deflated index scores across the board. Kirklees Council was unable to specify its training frequency, while Crawley Borough Council failed to disclose its refresher policies, dropping both authorities into the lowest performance bracket, Tier D.
Top performing councils
Belfast City Council, Buckinghamshire Council, BCP Council, and City of Edinburgh Council were all deemed to have rigorous, frequent, and fully inclusive cybersecurity training with a confirmed enforcement mechanism, placing them all in Tier A.
The difference between the top performers and the others in the index is the frequency of the refresher training, with all four boasting monthly training sessions to combat evolving cyberthreats. To challenge training fatigue and optimise employee engagement, Buckinghamshire Council utilises an innovative approach, delivering cybersecurity refreshers through concise e-learning modules and quizzes.
By combining regular, mandatory compliance with bite-sized learning formats, these Tier A councils provide a vital training outline for reducing human error and keeping sensitive public data secure.
According to the government’s cybersecurity breaches survey, over four in ten businesses and three in ten charities reported having experienced any kind of cybersecurity breach or attack in the past 12 months alone.
With cyberattacks so prevalent within our society, aided by advancing technologies and the rapid development of AI, it places every organisation across both public and private sectors at risk.
Recent research has found that human error contributes to 95% of cyber breaches, proving that cybersecurity training is a necessity for all organisations to help employees identify potential threats and feel confident to report them.
Because local authorities often manage integrated databases with extended public reach, hosting essential services from council tax and welfare benefits to parking and transport, the stakes are uniquely high. Councils therefore risk not only leaking constituents personal data but also grinding necessary services to a halt for an unforeseeable period of time.
Vivek Dodd, CEO of Skillcast, commented on the research, saying: “Local councils are the custodians of our most sensitive and personal information, so it is alarming to see that while cyber-criminals are becoming increasingly smarter, our research shows a massive disparity in how local authorities are defending themselves.
“The Tier A councils demonstrate that monthly, digestible training is achievable, while others are leaving dangerous knowledge gaps or completely exempting elected councillors from mandatory training.
“With research showing that human error triggers 95% of all data breaches, councils need to reform how they approach cybersecurity training, as the threat and intelligence of cyberattacks grow rapidly.
“Under the new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, the regulatory landscape is changing and underperforming councils can no longer afford to wait and must now focus on building a culture of digital vigilance.”
The Competition and Markets Authority are introducing two new requirements for Google in an effort to make its search engine more fair to UK businesses.
The first requires that Google improve transparency and fairness in how search results are ranked.
The second requires Google to allow users to port their search data to authorised third parties such as rewards platforms or companies offering personalised offers or discount codes.
UK businesses rely on Google search to reach customers but have told the CMA that current ranking practices are neither fair nor transparent – and that this uncertainty holds them back from investing in and growing their businesses.
They also told the CMA that changes are made without sufficient notice, and when these changes impact their businesses, they do not have effective ways to raise concerns.
The CMA is attempting to address these conerns with these Fair Ranking requirements, which will require Google to rank search results using objective, non-discriminatory criteria, provide tranparancy on how these rankings work and give notice of changes, and introduce lear process for buisnesses to rais concerns regarding rankings.
The rules will apply to AI Overviews, but not sponsored results.
The CMA is introducing a separate conduct requirement to support greater choice and innovation for consumers.
Third-party firms are keen to offer people new products and services based on their Google search data but need to be able to access it with confidence.
Using this data would allow third parties to offer people more personalised features – like tailored travel suggestions, more relevant shopping deals, and rewards (including cashback and discounts).
The requirement puts the voluntary process already in place through Google’s UK Data Portability Application Programming Interface on a legal footing.
The rights of UK users will now be on a par with those in the EU (under the EU’s Digital Markets Act), and innovative businesses will have the certainty they need to invest in new products and services for consumers.
“Step by step, we’re ensuring that Google’s search services work better for businesses and consumers across the UK,” Will Hayter, executive director for digital markets at CMA.
“Search is a vital gateway for businesses in the UK to reach customers, and clearer, predictable and more transparent ranking systems could give them greater scope to expand and invest.
“These new measures will ensure search results are ranked fairly and objectively, with clearer information about changes and effective routes to raise concerns. At the same time, innovative businesses will have the confidence that they can access search data in practice, unlocking investment and innovation in new products and services for users.”
Google will now have six months to implement that fair ranking requirement, and three months for the data protability requirement.
More than one in 10 enterprises will be AI-first by 2030, outperforming competitors in the adoption of AI agents, semantics and converged data and analytics platforms, according to Gartner, Inc. These three areas are the driving forces behind the top trends for data & analytics .
“Organisations are moving rapidly toward an AI-first operating model, where AI is now a core consideration in every business decision, workflow and investment,” Carlie Idoine, VP Analyst at Gartner, said.
“Without a clear, enterprise-wide commitment, organisations will struggle to consistently realise its full potential across the business.”
Gartner recommends organisations factor the following data & analytics trends into their strategies over the next two years.
Trend 1: Sovereign AI Accelerates
As AI becomes key to economic strength, nation states are prioritising control over their own AI capabilities, minimising reliance on foreign countries to advance sovereign objectives. Localising data & analytics control is an important part of this process. This is an external geopolitical reality that many organisations must manage on their roadmap to becoming an AI-first enterprise.
“Sovereign AI is fundamentally changing how organisations think about control, innovation and resilience in their AI strategies,” said Idoine. “To respond effectively to the opportunities and threats presented by sovereign AI, organisations must modernise data & analytics roadmapping, advancing AI use cases from utilisation to competitive advantage.”
Trend 2: Reducing AI Agent Risk with Decision Governance
AI agents are executing more strategic, tactical and operational decisions, meaning ungoverned decision-making increases exposure to legal, operational and reputational risk. Decision governance applies governance principles to decision intelligence so automated decisions are explainable, auditable and aligned with outcomes.
Gartner predicts explicitly modeled business decisions will be five times more trusted and 80% faster than ungoverned decisions by 2029, enabled by decision intelligence platform adoption.
Trend 3: Driving Trust with AI Governance Platforms
Standard assurance methods are no longer sufficient for implementing effective AI governance as global AI regulatory complexity increases, new AI risks emerge and adoption of autonomous AI agents accelerates. AI governance platforms help organisations adhere to corporate policy, regulations and industry standards across common responsible AI principles.
Gartner recommends data & analytics leaders adopt AI governance platforms to operationalise governance, which will provide centralised oversight, apply risk management frameworks and enforce necessary controls.
Trend 4: Agentic Data Streaming Powers Real-Time Intelligence
Unlike traditional batch-based data processing, which can be too slow, agentic data streaming is critical for organisations that want to create and use AI agents. Continuous, event-driven data flow enables data & analytics leaders to deliver data faster, empowering AI agents to take on more tasks with speed and accuracy.
Gartner predicts disruptive pressure for real-time responsiveness will drive adoption of data streaming for agentic AI beyond 60% by 2028, from under 15% in 2025. Organisations must prioritise use cases requiring real-time data, such as decision intelligence, autonomous operations and digital twins.
Trend 5: Streamlining Operations with Agentic Data Management
Data & analytics leaders face ongoing challenges in managing increasingly complex data, which strains traditional data management processes and complicates efforts to achieve AI readiness. The use of AI agents for data management enhances core data processes by enabling real-time actions, identifying pattern detection and recommendations to drive agility and faster responses.
“Integrating AI agents into data management workflows enables data teams to operate more adaptively using self-learning systems,” said Idoine. “Establishing strong governance and continuously monitoring performance will be essential to ensure these capabilities deliver consistent, business-aligned outcomes.”
Trend 6: Handling Complex Use Cases with GraphRAG
Many enterprise AI applications require high accuracy and reliability, yet traditional retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) approaches cannot handle complex, context-rich queries. GraphRAG combines knowledge graphs with LLMs to improve how AI systems retrieve and connect information, apply contextual meaning and deliver more accurate results for complex use cases.
Gartner predicts 40% of enterprises will have leveraged GraphRAG techniques by 2029 to improve factual accuracy of responses and reasoning capabilities of LLMs.
The UK’s National Physical Laboratory is set to establish the National Quantum Standards Network (QSN) to bring together common standards for quantum technology.
Supported by £10 million from the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology, it will bring together government, industry, and academia to engage with UK companies – ensuring their products are developed to internationally recognised standards.
The QSN will oversee everything from the linewidths of the ultra-narrow lasers needed to control qubits inside a quantum computer, to the size, weight and energy-efficiency requirements that will ensure one quantum sensor’s reading can be trusted against another’s.
It will bring together government, industry, academia and standards bodies, including the British Standards Institution and UKRI’s National Quantum Computing Centre.
Standards already underpin services we rely on, like using our mobile phones abroad and sending data securely. Doing the same with Quantum will help speed up adoption of the technology, and could help with everyday tasks like supporting sensitive transactions for banks all over the world.
“Quantum could bring benefits to our society as significant as what we are seeing with AI, with the potential to deliver new medicines, better public services, and protect our finances,” science minister Lord Vallance, said.
“The UK’s quantum sector is already a global leader. With the National Quantum Standards Network we will accelerate its growth, meaning more British jobs and investment into our economy from all over the world.”
As key decisions are taken in international quantum standards-setting bodies over the coming years, the UK will now lead the way globally with its own dedicated network. The QSN will give British companies a voice in standards over the long term in a sector which has the potential to add £212 billion to the UK economy and add 100,000 jobs.
The government’s £2 billion investment into quantum announced earlier this year – building on existing strengths of leading companies and world-class talent – is already keeping the UK at the forefront of quantum innovation.
This includes £1.2 billion towards the procurement of large-scale quantum computers, so companies can have confidence bringing technologies from the lab to market.
“We are delighted to be leading the establishment of the Quantum Standards Network which marks a major step in ensuring the UK can lead the global conversation on quantum. Standards are the backbone of responsible, scalable innovation,” Dr Peter Thompson, CBE, CEO at NPL said.
“By coordinating expertise across the UK quantum ecosystem, the network will accelerate technology adoption, boost UK competitiveness and support the safe and ethical development of quantum technologies.”
The UK is a big quantum player. In a recent vote of confidence, Vescent – a leading manufacturer of quantum tech – recently chose NPL as the location for its first office outside the US.
By positioning itself at the heart of common standards for quantum, the UK will secure competitive advantage, attract investment, and ensure British innovation underpins the technologies of the future.
Demand for AI workers has risen sharply across all sectors in the UK, according to research from PwC, which tracked the transformation of the UK labour market as a result of AI.
Interest for specialised AI-skilled workers bounced back in 2025, reaching levels not seen since 2022, signalling renewed growth in the UK, enabled through AI.
Research, however, also shows that human skills continue to be important, even to AI-exposed firms. Junior AI-assisted roles are now seven times more likley to require human-intensive skills, like leadership and face-to-face interactions.
PwC describes the current AI-impacted job market as “two-track” — dependent on if AI is automating more or less expert tasks as AI adoption and deployment continues.
The research shows 39% growth for roles where AI is removing routine tasks allowing workers to focus on higher-value tasks, compared to a 17% increase in roles where AI is simplifying tasks.
The level of a firm’s AI adoption is positively influencing the level of labour productivity growth – the top 20% of global firms integrating AI at scale are seeing a labour productivity growth rate of 163%, about five times higher than most other AI-exposed firms.
“After a period of slower growth, this increased demand for AI skills is encouraging and, whilst still a relatively low proportion of the job market, it signals a step change in how organisations are adopting AI,” Claire Reid, chief technology and innovation officer at PwC UK, said.
“The experimentation phase is over and businesses want to scale and embed the technology properly. This requires specialists who understand the art of the possible, where AI can create value in different situations, and help others do the same. There’s a difference between building an AI-literate workforce and expecting everyone to become an AI specialist overnight.”
Overall, the research found a positive correlation (0.33) between a firm’s exposure to AI and shifts in skills requirements.
In the UK, the share of jobs requiring AI skills reached 2.2% last year.
According to the firm’s AI Jobs Barometer, AI-exposed organisations have growth headcount rather than reduced it. AI companies most exposed to AI across the world seaw their headcount increase 52% compared to 2018, compared to 36% among companies with less AI integration.
AI-skilled workers are also experiencing a premium in their wage, seeing it rise 34.2% in 2025, up from 11% in 2024.
Pete Brown, global workforce leader, PwC, said: “The traditional relationship between experience and expertise is changing.
“AI is removing some of the routine work that once acted as an apprenticeship, while increasing demand for judgement, leadership and adaptability much earlier in careers.
“Organisations need to rethink how they develop talent if they want people to thrive in this new environment.”
Young people in Scotland are increasingly turning to AI tools and social media to guide their careers, and in some cases replacing advice traditionally provided by parents and teachers, according to a new report published today by accountancy and business advisory firm BDO.
BDO’s ‘Young Minds 2026: The Unequal Advantage’ report, based on a survey of 2,000 18–25-year-olds, highlights a growing shift towards digital sources of guidance amid widening inequalities in access to opportunity.
The research shows that over three quarters (78%) of young people in Scotland now use digital sources to inform their career decisions, including AI tools (31%), social media influencers (22%) and other online research (25%).
Worryingly, UK-wide, those from a lower socio-economic background are more likely to rely on these tools than they are on family networks and teachers, underlining a structural gap in access and advice. It also highlights a growing risk that technology is substituting, rather than complementing, structured careers guidance.
Systemic unequal advantage shaping early career outcomes
The research points to what BDO calls a clear systemic “unequal advantage” in access to opportunity, with disparities evident across socio-economic backgrounds, neurodivergence and geography.
Across the UK, fewer young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds have taken part in structured careers preparation, such as CV workshops or mock interviews, compared to their more advantaged peers.
At the same time, nationally only 27% of neurodivergent respondents have received support from their personal networks to find relevant work experience, compared to 38% of neurotypical respondents.
Geographic disparities reinforce this pattern of unequal advantage, with young people in Scotland being almost one and half times less likely to have established professional connections than those in the South East.
Opportunities to engage with employers also vary across regions. In Scotland (48%), young people are far more likely to have had meaningful interactions with businesses during education compared to those in the North East (33%) and North West (37%).
“The findings tell us that almost all young people believe at least one barrier is preventing them from getting a job or advancing in their career,” Chris Meyrick, partner and head of audit at BDO in Scotland, said.
“It’s clear that too many are still being held back by what they were born into, whether that’s where they live, their social capital or the support they have access to.
“While technology is creating new ways for young people to explore careers, it cannot replace the value of meaningful, personal guidance. The findings expose deep and persistent inequalities in access to opportunity across the UK.
“If we are serious about improving social mobility, we need to ensure that access to opportunity is not determined by background but shaped by talent and potential. That requires coordinated action from employers, educators and policymakers to create pathways that are visible, accessible and fair for everyone.”
Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his company made “mistakes” when it comes to Meta’s AI-driven transformation, in an internal memo to staff viewed by Reuters.
“Given the complexity of these changes, we’ve made mistakes and will almost certainly make more,” Zuckerberg wrote in the memo, addressing the billions of dollars Meta has invested in AI as well as the workforce transformation that saw thousands of workers lose their jobs.
He said that while he doesn’t “want to overpromise” his company is “focused on providing as much stability as possible” organisationally. The firm is not expecting further staff reductions this year.
Zuckerberg affirmed his commitment to finding new roles for staffers that have been assied to train AI models, part of his workforce changes that laid off 10% of hsi employees and transferred 7,000 to new AI initatives.
“By creating important new roles for people, this also allowed us to shrink the size of teams knowing that if we make mistakes in some places, then we could transfer some people back,” his memo said.
The memo also said that the firm intends to spend more on team-building exercises, investing in events and a hackathon to foster collaboration.
Finally, Zukerberg addressed the controversial tracking order he had put in place to keep tabs on worker’s behaviour during their day to train AI – the memo said this would be scaled back.
The UK will ban social media for children under the age of 16 in a landmark move from the country following debates, a public consultation, and previously turned down amendements.
The UK government plans on using the same model for social media bans as currently in use in Australia, capturing user-to-user platforms that enable social interaction online, allows posts, and uses algorithms.
This includes Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube. The ban will not include messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal.
The proposed ban will go further, however, and aims to prevent livestreaming and stranger communication for children under 16, which will apply to a range of sites, including gaming services.
Restriction on these functions will also be on by default for all those under 18, in order to prevent a cliff-edge at 16. The government will also be looking in more detail at overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18-year-olds and will set out more detail in July.
“Parents want to keep their kids safe and happy, but the online world has made that harder than ever,” prime minister Kier Starmer said.
“I’ve heard first hand from families crying out for change and we will do right by them.
“That’s why we’re going further than any country in the world by banning social media for under-16s and putting wider protections in place to give kids their childhood back.
“This is a line in the sand. Tech giants had their chance and failed, but we’re stepping in to protect children, back parents and set a new normal for future generations.”
In a press conference announcing the ban, Starmer said that him and other parents can “see if with their own eyes. Social Media is making children unhappy.”
He descibed social media as “designed to be addictive – of course it is.”
The new social media rules will also extend to AI ‘romantic companion’ chatbots, that will have to enforce a minimum age of 18. Similar intimate functionalities will be restricted for under-18s on AI chatbots more widely
Leaning from Australia’s ban, the UK will introduce more highly efective age assurace measures to support compliance, making it harder for children to bypass safeguards.
To produce this, Ofcom has been tasked with creating a rapid study on what effective age assurace for verifying age could look like.
The government currently is taking the first steps to implement the ban, with regulation by the end of the year, and the full ban in place by next spring.
UK workers are adopting AI faster than their US peers but most organisations are still not seeing the business gains AI was expected to deliver, according to new research from the Work AI Institute, a first-of-its-kind research collaborative from enterprise AI leader Glean.
The Work AI Index: UK 2026, based on a survey of 6,000 full-time digital workers across the US, UK and Australia, including 1,500 in the UK, finds that 90% of UK digital workers now use AI at work, compared with 84% in the US.
Seventy-seven percent say AI makes them more productive, saving roughly 12 hours a week through AI automation alone, yet only 18% say it has significantly improved their organisation’s performance.
The report points to a distinctly British version of the AI productivity paradox.
The UK has moved quickly on adoption, workplace policies, and guidance around AI use, but that institutional readiness is not yet translating into stronger verification, better context, or measurable business impact.
Instead, workers are absorbing a growing layer of hidden labour to make AI usable: feeding it missing context, checking outputs, rerunning prompts, and cleaning up errors downstream. The report calls this “botsitting” and finds UK workers spend 6.3 hours a week on it.
The Work AI Index also identifies a related behaviour it calls “botshitting”: shipping AI-generated work that employees have not verified, do not fully understand, or cannot confidently stand behind. Seventy percent of UK AI users admit to at least one form of botshitting, meaningfully higher than the 64% reported in the US.
The UK is ahead in AI adoption, but not yet converting usage into business impact. Ninety percent (90%) of UK digital workers use AI at work, 78% say it makes them more productive, and 42% say their workplace is either AI-integrated or AI-first. Yet only 18% say AI has significantly improved organisational performance.
UK workers are spending more than a third of the work week in AI, but much of that time is hidden labour. UK workers save roughly 12 hours per week with AI automation, but 6.3 hours of the saved time is spent botsitting.
Despite higher AI adoption and reported productivity gains than in the US, UK workers spend a larger share of their AI time botsitting (38% vs. 36%), which is also more than the 36% spent actually using AI to do the work.
The cleanup bill is growing. More than a third of AI sessions fail outright, requiring a full restart or substantial rework. Seventy-seven percent of UK workers say they have corrected or redone AI-assisted work in the past month, and 26% say they do that at least weekly.
The hidden labour is becoming a quality-control problem. Seventy percent (70%) of UK AI users admit to at least one botshitting behaviour, meaningfully higher than the 64% reported in the U.S. Forty percent (40%) say they sometimes deliver AI-assisted work they could not explain if asked.
UK workers are more comfortable with AI in high-stakes workplace decisions. Fifty-four percent (54%) of UK workers are comfortable with AI playing a role in performance evaluation, compared with 42% in the U.S. Forty percent (40%) are comfortable with AI in hiring decisions, 40% in promotion and compensation decisions, and 31% in termination decisions.
AI has already moved beyond content generation into the operating rhythms of work. More than half of UK workers have sent an AI digital twin to a meeting on their behalf, compared with 50% in the U.S.
Sixty-two percent (62%) say AI helps them more with their day-to-day work than their manager does, and 52% say it is easier to collaborate with AI than with human coworkers.
Tool sprawl is making employees the integration layer. Eighty percent (80%) of UK AI users juggle multiple AI tools each week, and 39% use four or more. Sixty percent (60%) rerun the same prompt across multiple tools because the first output was not good enough.
Context remains the missing layer, with half of UK workers say important information they need to do their job is not accessible through their AI tools.
In context-poor AI environments, workers are 3.3x more likely to feel worn out by AI (46% vs. 14%). They are also more likely to ship work they cannot explain, use unapproved tools, and hide their AI use from the organisation.
“Too many companies are treating AI adoption like a vanity metric: more seats, more prompts, more usage,” said Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean.
“But the UK data shows why that is not enough. British organisations have moved quickly to put structure around AI, and that is a real advantage. The next step is making sure AI is grounded in the right enterprise context, governed in the flow of work, and measured by whether it actually improves outcomes.”
The report suggests the next gap in enterprise AI is not adoption, but the human infrastructure around it.
The UK is ahead of many peers on institutional readiness: more workers have read their organisation’s AI policy in full, more describe their workplace as AI-integrated or AI-first, and more are comfortable with AI in high-stakes decisions. But the next phase will require more operational discipline at the desk, on the team, and across the organisation.
“The UK data shows a workforce that is not hesitant about AI – in many ways, workers are already ahead of their organisations,” said Jen Rhymer, Professor of Business Strategy, University College London.
“The issue now is whether companies can build an organisational infrastructure around AI fast enough: redesigning workflows around genuine human-AI collaboration, better access to organisational context, and judgement about AI’s role in supporting work, verification norms, and when human expertise needs to lead.
“Without that, adoption can create the appearance of progress while quietly increasing the amount of cleanup work employees have to do.”
The University of Nottingham confirmed that a cyber-attack hit its student record, which was claimed by infamous ransomware group ShinyHunters.
The cyber gang claimed it stole around 40 gigabytes of student data in the breach.
The University says that it is working with government bodies and third party agencies to mitigate the damage of the attack.
We are working to understand the data that has been accessed and have contacted those students and alumni affected directly. We are working closely with Action Fraud, the Information Commissioner’s Office, and other regulatory bodies,” the university said in a statement.
Upon detecting the breach, the Univeristy immediately took action to take affected systems offline.
ShinyHunters claimed that student data affected includes those on the university’s England, Malaysia, and China campuses. The group said that the 40 GB of data likely includes personal payment details from students like finance data and credit card information. Current students and alumni appear to be affected, according to the University, which said it contacted affected individuals.
The group warned that the “inevitable” would happen if a ransom was not paid for the data, though paying ransom is prohibtied for universities in the UK.
It has been reported that the attackers potentially lingered in the University of Nottingham’s systesm for over a week before they were detected, drawing scrutiny from cyber experts considering continued warnings to major insitutions to shore up their defences.
Following ShinyHunter’s announcement of the cyber-attack on Tuesday, Have I Been Pwned, the data breach tracker, shared the 10GB dataset that Shiny Hunters leaked, which included around 455k university email addresses.
“Tens of gigabytes of data were subsequently published online and included 455k unique email addresses along with extensive personal information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, ethnicities, disabilities, passport numbers, and information relating to academic enrolments and fee payments,” Have I Been Pwned said.
Elon Musk’s rocket, AI, and satellite outfit, SpaceX, had the biggest-ever initial public offering in the US on Thursday at $135 per share.
The space firm is now one of the world’s most valuable companies, raising a record $75 billion on its sale of 555.56 million shares. This has valued SpaceX at $1.77 trillion.
The company set aside 30% of shares for retail buyers, a large percentage on the stock market. Just 4% of SpaceX’s shares will be available to the public.
SpaceX will begin trading today on the Nasdaq, where it rank seventh in terms of value. It beats out other tech companies such as Meta and Musks’s Tesla, as well as Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan CHASE.
This high ranking is despite the firm losing more money than it made last year and its revenue not yet outpacing its expenditure.
Analysts remain skeptical about the record-breaking valuation. Morningstar researchers say that the valuation, which approaches $2 trillion, would only make sense in a best-case scenario for Musks’ company.
This would see SpaceX data centre satellites orbiting the earth, making a profit; the firm’s spacecrafts would have to not combust, and be reusable.
This optomistic “moonshot” outcome would require true feats of engineering the likes of which we have yet to see, and are not estimated to see until at least 2028.
Still, with any AI company, the hype has carried the firm a long way. Musk’s international reputation – however one might personally feel about it – certainly does turn heads and gets his firms noticed.
Threat actors are not just taking advantage of AI to spruce up their social engineering tactics or phishing emails – they are increasingly using well-known AI brands in their attacks.
Cyber-criminals have been using AI’s fandamonium against users, leveraging AI brands as a lure to unsuspecting victims seeking out popular AI chatbots and services.
This is according to Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence group, which tracked the rise cyber campaigns impersonating popular AI platforms like ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, DeepSeek, and Microsoft’s own Copilot.
While the campaigns do not mean that these servicces were compromised, they did lead to phishing, malvertising, and SEO-driven attacks, which resulted in credential threft, fraud, or malware infection.
The team at Microsoft identified various incidents where threat actors utilised fake-AI services as lures, even observing an initial access broker using AI-themed malvertising in payload delivery operations.
“While traditional lures like invoices, payment notifications, or delivery alerts remain effective and continue to be widely used, AI-themed lures reflect a shift in social engineering that is likely to persist as a long-term tactic used by threat actors, from cyber-criminal groups to nation states,” the threat intelligence group’s blog said.
Microsoft viewed a ChatGPT-themed phishing attack that using malicious URLS to direct users to phishing pages for credit card and personal information collection. The email-based attack used ChatGPT in the sender display name, with the subject reading: “To ensure your ChatGPT Plus continues to work – please update your payment method”.
Targeted users were urged to update their payment method as soon as possible, with the email using a prominent ChatGPT logo. The “update payment button” redirected users to one landing page first with a fake CAPTCHA, then a page to confirm personal details, before finally a page to input credit card information.
Microsoft also saw a Claude-themed attack campaign, with phishing emails requiring updated to Claude accounts. The emails impersonated Anthropic’s service teams convicing targets that an account violation needed to be addressed, directing users to a PDF meant to look like an actual Claude document.
A fake Cloudflare landing page likely acted as a way to impede automated analysis for security, with further landing pages resulting in a no-longer available page that the Micorosft team identified as a fake Microsoft sign-in page.
While Microsoft identified other attacks using AI-themed lures, these expemplify two typical tactics that targeted different information – credit cards and account credentials.
The Micorosft Threat Intelligence made some suggestions for mitigating the threat of cyber-criminals using AI brands as lures, including enforcing multifactor authentication (MFA) and using athentication methods such as passkeys.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published its finalised guidance on consumer Internet of Things (IoT) products and services, setting out clear expectations for manufacturers and developers on how to use people’s personal information responsibly.
The guidance reflects feedback from both the public and industry following a 12-week consultation last year. It provides regulatory certainty on areas such as how to ask for informed consent, how to provide transparent privacy information and what tools need to be available for people to exercise their rights over their data.
“Connected devices process some of the most sensitive data about people’s lives, from data about health to daily routines and family life,” William Malcolm, ICO Executive Director for Regulatory Risk and Innovation, said.
“Product and device innovation holds huge potential to make a positive impact in so many areas of people’s lives, but that innovation must work for everyone. It is vital that product developers put privacy at the centre of product design and use data fairly and transparently.
“We’ve welcomed the constructive engagement from industry during the consultation process and now we are calling for action – data protection by design is a legal requirement, not a suggestion.
“We encourage organisations making and developing smart products to review the guidance and ensure they are meeting the standards the public expect.”
The ICO is now turning its attention to connected TVs and how they use people’s personal information. Found in 70% of UK households, smart TVs can collect a large amount of data and use this information to serve targeted advertising – but this must be done transparently and with genuine consent.
The regulator will be engaging with connected TV manufacturers this year to assess whether they are complying with the law and offering consumers meaningful choice over how their data is used.
“For years, Which? investigations have shown that many connected products collect far more personal data than is needed to provide their service, so it’s good that the ICO has incorporated some of our recommendations into its final guidance, helping to set clearer expectations for manufacturers and developers,” Andrew Laughlin, Which? Tech Expert, said.
“The guidance should mark a turning point for the sector. Businesses need to be upfront about the data they collect, explain why they need it and give consumers meaningful control over how it’s used. The challenge now is ensuring the guidance is backed by effective regulation and meaningful industry action.”
The ICO has released expectations for IoT manufacturers and developers:
Privacy must be built in from the start, not bolted on afterwards – with protective settings on by default and data collection limited to what is strictly necessary.
Consent must be real, specific and freely given via a clear opt-in – and it must be just as easy to withdraw.
Genuine transparency is more than a privacy notice – users must be clearly informed about how their data is used, in plain language and at relevant points across the whole product.
Most firms will have to do a Data Protection Impact Assessment – due to the sensitive nature of the data they collect, with an even higher bar if children may use the product.
Security is an ongoing legal obligation, not a one-time consideration – it requires regular updates, encryption, and multifactor authentication throughout the product’s lifetime.
In the context of the recent civil unrest in Belfast which permeated to other UK cities this week, Ofcom has penned an open letter to online service providers in the UK about the increased risk of their platforms being used to stoke tensions, hatred, and violence.
“Following a serious knife attack that took place in Belfast on Monday night, we have seen civil unrest in the city, some of which appears to have been incited online. This has included racially motivated incidents of violence, arson attacks on homes and vehicles, and attacks against police,” the letter read.
Ofcom is reminding service providers of their duties unter the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 to assess and mitigate the risks of illegal activity occuring on their sites and apps.
The regulator says it is closely monitoring the situation in Northern Ireland, including the role content plays.
“We are already contacting individual providers where we believe there are specific risks around the presence of illegal content relating to the civil unrest,” Ofcom said.
Ofcom just yesterday published new measures – which still need Parliamentary approval – for service providers to take in times of crisis to quell and prevent the spread of harmful misinformation.
While lawfully, organisations are not help legally held to these new standards, Ofcom is urging service providers to implement new measures now to deal with times of crisis.
Online service provider’s are still required to act quickly to remove illegal content when they become aware of it.
In previous times of crisis in the UK, such as the riots in summer 2024, social media misinformation played a major role in stoking tensions.
Social media posts acted as viral vectors of disinformation, spreading falsehoods as well as hateful content and calls for violence. It was found that X in particular played a great role in spreading false information about murders in Southport that lead to the hateful riots in summer 2024.
Politicians and people of influence, including X owner Elon Musk himself, took to the internet following news of the knife attack in Belfast, reposting messages wtih anti-immigration rhetoric.
Misinformation about the origins of the attacker, and anti-immigration rhetoric, also spread rampant across social media, prior to police identifying the perpretator.
While AI is now embedded in nearly every workplace, most employees are not prepared to use it effectively, research from Skillsoft shows.
Although 86% of employees surveyed use AI tools at work, only 24% feel fully equipped with the skills required to use them effectively and drive results.
At the same time, 77% of leaders believe their organisations have set employees up for success, revealing a 53-point gap between how leadership perceives readiness and the reality for employees.
Beyond the perception gap, the data points to three structural shortfalls that help explain why readiness is lagging: limited skills visibility, training that follows adoption rather than leading it, and inconsistent governance.
Skills training visbility is deeply lacking, the research found. Only 11% of employees report receiving formal skills assessments, leaving most organisations without a reliable picture of what their workforce can actually do.
Just 16% of employees receive training before new AI tools are introduced, showing that training and deployment are out of sync.
Less than 1 in 10 employees say their organisation has comprehensive AI governance in place, while 21% say their organisation provides no AI guidance whatsoever.
Without these foundations, leaders are making workforce decisions based on assumptions rather than data.
“Organisations cannot afford to confuse AI adoption with AI readiness,” said Ciara Harrington, Chief People Officer, Skillsoft.
“When leaders and employees are operating from fundamentally different views of preparedness, performance becomes inconsistent at best and untrustworthy at worst.
“Closing that gap starts with treating skills as a business discipline and building the systems to align skill supply with evolving demand across the organisation.
“Most organisations have established processes for hiring, onboarding, and performance management, but our research shows many still struggle to bring that same rigour to understanding what skills they have, building the ones they need, and deploying them where demand is greatest.”
A lack of skills visibility is creating guesswork in workforce readiness. Without clear visibility into where skills exist and what’s needed, organisations cannot align learning to outcomes or connect skills to performance.
Only 11% of employees report the use of formal skills assessments or benchmarks, while 69% of employees are “somewhat” or “not very clear” on which skills matter. 43% of leaders say they are very clear on which skills matter.
Only 28% of employees strongly agree that their job description accurately reflects their day-to-day work.
Learning is available but out of sync with the pace of AI adoption, undermining confidence and performance. The biggest obstacle is not outdated content but time and prioritisation.
Only 16% of employees and 23% of leaders receive training before AI tools are rolled out. About six in ten (59%) employees cite a lack of time as the primary barrier to building new skills.
A fifth of empoyees are cautious about or do not trust AI tools. About three in ten (31%) employees say AI guidance varies by team or manager, rather than reflecting a company-wide standard.
Respondents say AI is influencing the nature of entery-level work – increasing expectations and enabling more time spent on higher-value tasks.
Nearly a third (29%) of employees expect AI to reduce entry-level positions with 36% of employees and leaders anticiapte a shift toward problem solving and collaboration, with similar shares expeting faster advancement.
Nearly half (45%) of employees and 46% of leaders say training is primarily about building confidence in their current role, reflecting a workforce focused on keeping pace with AI.
As AI reshapes how work gets done, these findings make clear that the readiness gap isn’t a technology problem. It’s a workforce strategy problem. When organisations lack visibility into capability, fail to connect learning to business priorities, or operate without governance at scale, AI adoption outpaces their people.
“The organisations that pull ahead won’t be the ones that adopted AI first. They’ll be the ones that redesigned work and built a system to continuously develop the skills required to leverage AI in a way that drives purposeful business outcomes,” Harrington said.
“Traditional workforce systems help organisations manage employee records and workforce processes. What’s often missing is a continuous view of workforce capability, including what skills exist, what skills are needed, how quickly those gaps can be closed, and the impact they have on the business.
£Without that visibility, leaders are forced to make workforce decisions based on assumptions rather than evidence. That means moving from one-time training to continuous capability development and from ad hoc governance to a company-wide standard.”
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), in partnership with NHS England (London) and the London Health Innovation Networks (HINs), has announced a new AI regulatory sandbox to boost AI innovation in health.
The initiative, known as London Region I, will create a real-world environment to safely deploy AI-enabled medical devices while generating additional evidence of benefit across NHS settings, helping ensure patients can access new technologies earlier while maintaining the highest standards of safety.
By bringing together regulators, healthcare providers and innovators, the sandbox provides a controlled environment so cutting-edge technologies can be safely and securely deployed.
The programme will support delivery of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan by enabling faster adoption of technologies that improve patient outcomes, expand access to care, and reduce health inequalities.
Up to 10 AI medical device manufacturers will be selected to participate in the initial phase, working alongside NHS providers across London to deploy technologies in live clinical settings under MHRA oversight.
MHRA will be inviting expressions of interest from both NHS providers and AI medical device manufacturers interested in participating in London Region I next month.
The programme will support collaboration between providers and innovators, helping to match technologies with real system needs and enabling rapid, evidence-led deployment in practice.
“This initiative demonstrates that regulation can be an enabler for innovation, not a barrier,” Lawrence Tallon, MHRA Chief Executive, said.
“We need to work faster to keep pace with developments in AI to ensure that patients can safely benefit from cutting-edge technologies as they become available.”
Dame Caroline Clarke, Director NHS London, said: “Londoners deserve the best that modern medicine has to offer. This programme is about making sure the NHS in London can adopt the latest technologies quickly, safely and in a way that genuinely improves care for patients.
“We want London to lead the way in developing and scaling-up innovation, demonstrating its value in the real world for Londoners and making London even more attractive for the Life Science sector.
Electricity consumption for data centres worldwide is projected to grow 26% in 2026, according to Gartner, Inc.
Gartner forecasts global data centre electricity consumption to reach 565 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2026, up from 447TWh in 2025.
“Surging demand for compute-intensive AI workloads is driving unprecedented data centre power growth, while AI capacity is now constrained by power availability, making data centre power security the new battle ground for scaling and protecting margins in the global AI race,” said Linglan Wang, Director Analyst at Gartner.
Worldwide data centre power demand is expected to rise 27% in 2026 and reach 132 gigawatts (GW), up from 104GW in 2025. It is estimated to attain 290GW by 2030, which reflects the unprecedented scale and pace of GenAI boosting demand.
AI-optimised servers continue to fuel the increase in data centre power consumption. Gartner estimates AI-optimised server adoption will account for 31% of data centre power consumption in 2026, and that by 2027 their power consumption will surpass that of conventional servers.
Figure 1:Data Centre Electricity Consumption by Segment, Worldwide, 2025-2027 (Electricity Consumption – TWh)
Segment
2025
2025
Growth (%)
2026
2026
Growth (%)
2027
2027
Growth (%)
Conventional Server
193
0.9
195
1.2
200
2.4
AI-Optimized Server
95
83.6
175
84.2
258
47.8
Cooling and other Infrastructure
159
10.5
195
22.6
243
24.6
All Data Centre Power Consumption
447
15.5
565
26.4
702
24.1
The numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.
With data centre power electricity consumption estimated to reach over 1,200TWh by 2030, grid supply will be insufficient to meet the demands of future data centre construction, affecting all data centre users.
“Infrastrucutre and operations (I&O) leaders must prioritise efficiency upgrades and secure grid access,” said Wang.
“They also need to invest in high-efficiency cooling systems and edge computing to mitigate power constraints and ensure sustainable, scalable growth.”
AI-relate global debt issuancce is set to more than double in 2026, reaching almost $570 billion, according to analysis from Morgan Stanley.
The findings point to increases in credit market and bond supply activity, as AI firms turn away from traditional invesment to fuel their high expenditure.
In May 2026, global debt issuance related to AI was at nearly $236 billion, according to Morgn Stanley.
Debt issuance is a financial obligation that allows a company to raise investment by promising to repay the lender, often an investor, at a future point depending on agreed terms.
It allows organisations to borrow directly from an investor rther than going through a bank, and also means a firm can raise capital without diluting ownership or voting rights to an investor.
Top AI firms, spurred on by the AI race, global demand, and heightened costs, have announced major spending plans. Hyperscalers require intesive infrastructure to make their AI systems possible, requiring mass amounts of capital influx.
OpenAI and Anthropic, despite both intending to go public on the stock market, have yet to turn over a profit on their AI.
Anthropic has released a version of Claude Mythos – its advanced cybersecurity AI model – to the public despite previously saying the model was too powerful for public release.
The AI firm announced on Tuesday that it would release Claude Fable 5 to the public with safeguards and limitations set for users, though it did admit “releasing a model this capable comes with risks.
The models’ “capabilities exceed those of any model we’ve ever made generally available,” Anthropic said.
Fable and Mythos are essentially the same Claude model in terms of sophistication, but have different guardrails and access levels. Both models have the ability to work on given commends unattended by a human for longer periods than previous Claude models.
Upon its limited release, Mythos sent shockwaves through the cybersecurity ecoystem as it boasted the ability to discover hidden vulnerabilities and security flaws – an opportunity for firms to shore up their security defences, but equally an opportunity for threat actors to exploit unpatched vulnerabilities.
Anthropic gave preview access to Mythos to about 150 organistions, which will now have access to Claude Mythos 5, which lacks guardrails when it comes to cybersecurity or biology, depending on the organisation’s needs.
Firms using Mythos already reported finding over 10,000 critical security vulnerabilities across their systems.
The small release of Anthorpic’s Mythos had firms and countries scrambling to get a look – despite a coinciding lawsuit with the US Department fo Defense, US government agencies managed to get access to Mythos.
However, many UK banks reported that they were blocked from accessing the Mythos preview despite intents to test their own systems for vulnerabilities.
OpenAI has issued its own cyber model, GPT-5.5-Cyber, and provided some major UK banks access.
It remains unclear how much of a true risk these models bring, or if it is simply a clever marketing strategy to boost interest in the cyber models.
Still, if a model comes with inherent risks, it begs the question on why this would be released to the public which likely does not have the same need for cybersecurity flaw discovery and testing as large organisations.
Tech firms need to implement protocols in place to respond to spikes in illegal contend during crisis, Ofcom has ordered.
The push for regulation comes after the riots that broke out across England following stabbings in Southport in 2024 – a flurry of mis and disinformation circulated across social media, sparking racist riots across several cities in England.
Ofcom warned that if illegal content is allowed and enabled to be spread rapidly online, it can pose a serious threat to public safety. A real-world crisis can cause a surge in illegal content online, as exemplified in the UK in 2024.
Ofcom said that such crises are exceptional and occur infrequently, which means that tech firms’ usual moderation processes may not be sufficient in these circumstances.
The regulator is therefore adding new measures to its online safety codes of practice, under which platforms should have protocols in place to respond to spikes in illegal content during a crisis.
Ofcom’s new safety measures means that tech firms should act promptly and effectively during a crisis, to manage a significant increase in illegal content appearing and address the risk of their platform being used to commit or facilitate criminal offences.
The regulator would expect providers to deploy a temporary response team as soon as possible when a crisis occurs. They should also conduct a post-crisis analysis and keep a record of this, which we can formally request. This should include key decisions and evaluate the protocol’s effectiveness, so that lessons can be learned each time.
Additionally, large platforms should establish a dedicated communication channel through which crisis-related information may be shared by law enforcement agencies, to support faster and more coordinated public safety efforts.
These new amendments still need to go through the parliamentary process prior to coming into effect.
It is currently uncertain where in the government and parliamentary timetables these amendments will fall, and when the legislation will come into effect.
A review of the riots resulting from the Southport murders found that social media posts, particularly X, played an integral role in spreading the misinformation and disinformation that fuel the riots.
Multiverse, the upskilling platform for AI and tech adoption, announced the opening of a new technology hub in Edinburgh.
Following its recent $70m funding round, the hub marks an expansion of Multiverse’s engineering footprint, placing an additional centre of technical excellence outside of London.
Former Amazon leader Colin Mackenzie has been appointed as the company’s first VP AI Engineering to lead it, and will focus on developing agentic products.
Mackenzie brings more than a decade of engineering leadership experience to the role, most recently spending six years at Amazon.
For the last three years he has built the generative AI platform that powers Amazon’s AI advertising products. Prior to this he held senior engineering roles at Virgin Money and Clydesdale Bank, saw a startup through to a successful exit, and founded his own business.
Throughout his career he has had a focus on developing high-performing, high-agency teams that innovate around the latest technologies. He will oversee the Edinburgh hub’s growth and bring his expertise to Multiverse’s AI talent development programme.
As part of its broader expansion, Multiverse will create 200 jobs in the next year across the new office and its London HQ, while continuing to grow revenue per employee. This will fuel its mission to translate AI’s potential into practical outcomes for employers across the UK and Europe.
“AI is changing how people work faster than they can retrain for it, and without equitable access to AI skills a lot of people get displaced and left behind,” Colin Mackenzie, VP AI Engineering, Multiverse, said.
“We need to innovate at pace to solve this problem, and thankfully Scotland has the world-class AI talent required to help us do it. When we get it right, we change lives at a national scale.”
For incoming and existing tech talent, Multiverse is also launching an internal upskilling model, pairing high-agency junior AI engineers with senior engineering leaders. This approach treats mentorship as a core engineering function, accelerating the development of practical AI skills through on-the-job learning alongside experienced practitioners.
Paired with delivering its AI product and data engineering apprenticeships, this reinforces the company’s commitment to equipping the whole workforce to win in the AI era, from frontline workers to frontend engineers.
“We’re building the AI adoption layer for UK and European employers. That requires depth in the product, and in the team building it,” Jay Richman, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Multiverse, said.
“The market problem is significant: AI capability is advancing faster than workforces can absorb it, and employers are under real pressure to close that gap.
“Edinburgh gives us access to additional world-class engineering talent, Colin brings the track record to lead it, and our model of pairing high-agency junior engineers with senior practitioners means we’re building capability as well as headcount.”
The announcements come as the governments and employers intensify their focus on AI adoption as a driver of productivity and economic growth. Multiverse’s model, combining employer partnerships with structured, outcome-focused learning, is directly aligned with that agenda.
Across the UK economy, businesses, public sector organisations and universities are driving ahead with AI adoption, supported by the skills delivered through Multiverse programmes. In the past six months, BT, Pan Macmillan, Capita, Keltbray, Evri and Addison Lee have launched significant upskilling efforts, rolling out over 750 AI, data and engineering apprenticeships between them.
AI has seen UK tech surge, with the tech responsible for a third of the UK’s tech sectors total value which reacjed $1.6 trillion in 2026.
This is according to Tech Nation’s latest report for 2026, which tracked the top trends in the UK tech sector over the past year.
AI’s share of the total UK tech market value mre than doubled over the last five years, reaching 32%, and amassing a combined market value of $518bn in the first half of 2026.
The UK’s AI sector is expanting at a compound annual growth rate of 32%, far outperfoming the rest of UK tech, which saw growth of 10% overall.
In the UK, three in four venture dollars invested in the first half of 2026 went to AI companies, which raised more in the past 18 months than in the previous four years combined.
But AI is having a more transformational effect on UK tech as well, with 30% of tech founders claiming their business would not exist without AI, as major models reshape the tech ecosystem.
One in two founders say that the rise of AI is creating new opportunities in their industry, with 40% saying that they have introduced new products or services becuase of the tech. Further, about a third (32%) have built domain-specific AI agents.
Only 9% of UK founders said they made redundancies due to AI, the report found.
In 2025, 680 AI startups were launched in 2025, but 2026 will likely see a focus on finance, pharma and biotech, and defence as the central areas of AI growth.
Still, while UK AI is growing, is this truly a home-grown phenomenon?
About 57p per ever exit pound flows back to the US, with one in two VC dollars coming from USA.
About half of UK founders say tax changes to incentivise AI investment would most suppor their business in the future.
“The UK is Europe’s number one AI ecosystem, ranks third globally for AI talent, and our AI sector is growing twice as fast as than our European counterparts,” Carolyn Dawson OBE, CEO of the Founder Forum Group said.
“However, this new AI era also poses real challenges for UK startup founders. Even with all our momentum, without the right infrastructure – the energy and compute to power our AI-led growth – the UK risks falling behind.”
OpenAI has revealed plans to enter the stock market and list its shares publicly, the latest AI company to do so.
The ChatGPT makers’ decision to go public is much anticipated, but follows on from Anthropic’s announcement to go public from just last week.
OpenAI made a confidential filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, aiming to get an initial public offering (IPO).
The AI firm adds to the roster of big ticket IPO filings, from rival AI firm Anthropic as well as Elon Musks’ firm SpaceX, which expects to hit the Nasdaq this week.
While OpenAI announced its filing, it does not have a set timeline for its stock market debut: “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company,” the firm said.
The AI firm reached $852bn at its most recent valuation from private investors, but has been beat out by Anthropic, which saw its valuation reach $965bn.
The two firms are continually pitted against eachother, in no doubt due to recent contract swaps with the US defence department, and with new rival cybersecurity models.
Both firms are still losing more revenue than they are making due to high operational costs, but this does not appear to stop their high evaluations as the AI bubble expands with no sign of contraction.
AI investment has transformed however, as governments and organisations look to fuel the underlying technology and infrastructure that makes AI possible – new data centres, improved chip design, higher compute capabilities.
OpenAI only revealed its plans to trade publicly because “we expect it to leak” the firm said, saying the decision “is a complicated set of tradeoffs.”
After its filing, the firm is now given “the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”
Investors highly anticipate how both OpenAI and Anthropic will do on the publci arena, as it could indicate how other AI firms may perform.
Organisations representing businesses across the energy sector in Scotland have launched an industry charter ‘Deliveringgreen data centres in Scotland’ which sets out five core principles they believe should underpin the design and development of all new data centres in Scotland.
The charter directly addresses potential opportunities around data centre development, with principles on renewable energy, energy efficiency, water consumption, district heat and community benefits, and has the support of a range of organisations including Prosper, the Renewable Energy Association, Ravenscraig Ltd, Heat Network Scotland and Apatura Energy.
Crucially, the report highlights benefits that well-sited data centres can bring to an overstretched electricity system, plus looks in detail at the predicted water use of a modern data centre built to the highest environmental standards.
“Data centres are an established and essential feature of daily life, underpinning the way we shop, communicate and learn, to lifesaving medical research, climate modelling, and the systems that support banking, transport, and telecommunications,” Giles Hanglin, Chief Executive of data centre developer Apatura Energy said.
“The UK Government recognises data centres as ‘Critical National Infrastructure’, putting them on a par with energy, water, and emergency services; whilst the Scottish Government views green data centres as ‘essential infrastructure’ which, if designed sustainably, can deliver secure, low-carbon operations, support local communities, boost employment, and drive economic growth.
“However, at present, we rely heavily on data centres in locations outside Scotland, from the USA and Norway to England, Dublin and Dubai,” Hanglin said.
Data centres have already been identified in the Scottish Government’s Green Industrial Strategy as a target industry for investment. They are also highlighted in Scotland’s Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4), which identifies green data centres as a National Development that are a ‘fundamentally important utility’ supporting Scotland’s economic and social needs.
“In the last year there has been a significant increase in proposals to develop data centres in Scotland, driven by global demand and the country’s natural advantages including a cool climate, abundant renewable energy and availability of land,” Hanglin said.
“Fortunately, Scotland has some of the most rigorous planning and environmental regulations in the world, meaning data centres developed here will have a lower impact than those built elsewhere. Plus, they can bring significant inward investment, jobs and community benefit.
“This charter sets out five core principles which we believe should underpin the development of all data centres in Scotland – ensuring they are built to the very highest sustainability standards,” Hanglin said.
The charter also addresses common misunderstandings head on, such as the quantity of water a data centre will use.
“A lot of the information on water use is based on historical US data where evaporative cooling has been used in some locations. However, a modern green data centre in Scotland, using a closed loop cooling system, would have a ‘first fill’ equivalent to the annual water use of 44 homes, with less ongoing water use thereafter,” Hanglin says.
“I would encourage anyone interested in data centre development to read the report, where they will find well sourced, current industry information,” Hanglin concludes.
The five core principles are:
Renewable energy. Data centres should maximise the use of low-carbon electricity, including direct connection to renewable generation where feasible.
Energy efficiency. All data centres should be built to high energy-efficiency standards and comply fully with the Building (Scotland) Regulations, including Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) on completion, with a commitment to continuous lifecycle monitoring, evidenced improvements, and accountability.
Water consumption. Data centres should be located in water-abundant areas, utilising closed-loop cooling systems where possible that minimise water use and reduce demand impacts.
District heat networks. All new data centres should be ‘district heat ready’, built with the necessary offtake technology to enable local businesses, communities and nearby land users to connect efficiently to heat network infrastructure.
Community benefits. Data centre deployment should aim to maximise net economic benefit, including local and community socio-economic benefits such as employment, associated business and supply chain opportunities.
The UK announced a £1.1 billion plan to boost the country’s AI technology with a new AI Hardware Plan.
The plan sets out how the government will back UK companies developing the chips and semiconductor technologies behind AI, while also investing in the scientits, engineers, and technicians required by these AI ambitions.
“AI is the defining currency of economic and hard power in today’s world and the countries that control the hardware behind it will hold the keys to the future,” technology secretary Liz Kendall said.
“The UK is already a global leader in chip design, and I believe this is a race Britain can win. To do that, we must back more British AI – and that means investing in the chips, computing power and skilled people behind it.
“That is exactly what this plan does, backing the British firms developing the next generation of AI hardware, so we get more jobs, more growth, and more control over the technologies our future depends on. We are backing Britain because we believe in Britain.”
The AI Hardware Plan includes several main points:
£750 million for a national AI supercomputer, which aims to be deployed by 2030.
£400 milion wil go towards next-generation chips for the supercomputer. £150m of this will be used to buy next-generation inference chips, while a further £250m will go towards more specialised chips
£120m will fund new AI Hardware Innovation Programme, giving British companies the funding to design, develop, and test new chips.
At least £20m will go towards expanding the Scaling Inference Lab, delivered by ARIA and CommonAI, to help companies improve their tech. Oriole Networks, working AMD and the Lab, will deploy a large-scale AI ystem that uses light rather than electrical signals.
£45m will go towards new support for skills training, from engineers and chip designers to doctoral trining and undergraduate bursaries
Further, a new fund led by Silicon Valley investors Playground Global – whose partners include Pat Gelsinger, former CEO of Intel – and backed by up to £150m from the British Business Bank, will invest in UK-based AI hardware companies. This mars the single largest investment the British Business Bank has ever made.
AMD is investing up to £2 billion into the UK over the next five years to boost AI research and innovation with expanded compute resouces.
AMD CEO and chair Dr Lisa Su announced a series of investments into the UK at London Tech Week, as well as collaborations aiming to support the UK’s AI ambitions with access to the foundational computing this transformation requires.
“The United Kingdom has the talent, research excellence and ambition to help lead the next era of AI,” Su said.
“AMD is proud to deepen our commitment to the UK and work with partners across government, academia and industry to expand access to the compute infrastructure needed to advance sovereign AI, accelerate discovery and drive long-term economic growth.”
The funding and collaborations will accelerate research and public-sector innovation with advanced computing power.
UK government leaders welcomed the announcement as it would support its overall AI ambitions.
“This investment is a major vote of confidence in Britain’s place as a global AI superpower. We’ve got the talent, the world-class universities and the ambition to lead, and partnerships like this help turn that potential into real progress,” chancellor Rachel Reeves said.
“It will drive more cutting-edge research here in the UK, open up opportunities for people to build the skills they need for the jobs of the future, and speed up breakthroughs that can improve people’s lives and grow our economy.”
The UK government has continued to strike deals and partnerships with large tech conglomerates central to AI expansion, from computer chip firms to data centre developers, in order to supercharge its AI ambitions.
UK Prime Minister is set to announced a ban on “harmful” online platforms for under 16s while access to some “safer” forms of social media will be maintained, according to reports.
The PM is slated to make a speech later on Monday which will reveal the government’s next move on social media following the closing of social media ban consultation.
Government ministers also met with bereaved parents and advocacy groups, and considered evidence following Australia’s under 16s ban.
According to reports from Reuters, a Downing Street source said: “The prime minister is not afraid about taking on the tech companies and their bosses to protect young people.”
It remains unclear what the new social media policy will look like, or when it will be officially announced. However, it seems likely Starmer will make the announcement prior to 18 June, when a by-election is Makerfield is set.
An outright or formal ban on social media for under-16s is unlikely to come today, a source close to the matter told Reuters. However, the government may make more immediate moves on actions to prevent children falling prey to sextortion attempts or to creating sexualised images online.
The UK’s social media ban consultation, which focused on the mental health and wellbeing effects of social media on teens, closed on 26 May, and is pending an official review from the government.
It asked the public for their opinions on social media curbs like time limits and curfews for teens, as well as how they felt about some of social media’s more addictive aspects.
The PM is set to discuss how the UK government can ensure tech has a positive impact on society, according to his office.
While countries like Australia and Greece have introduced bans to deal with the scourge of social media harms affecting young people, other European countries may soon fall suite, with France, Poland, and Denmark all considering bans.
It remains unclear what the UK government has learned from the social media consultation, and if the country, which continues to try and curry favour with big tech for major AI deals, will put its foot down when it comes to teen access.
Lloyds Banking Group and Microsoft have announced a new multi-year agreement that will see the tech giant supporting the finance firm with its next stage of AI deployment.
The agreement follows the roll-out of 40,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licences across the Group, with 97% of colleagues with a licence classed as active users.
The rollout will support Lloyds with its continued deployment of agentic AI systems across its network and offerings, while providing assurances in governance, security, and identity mangement.
Lloyds says the deployment of agentic AI across its operatons will free up colleague time and improve processes, whilst supercharging innovation and customer expereince.
Further, Lloyds will use the deployment to introduce a colleague assistant – an all-colleague-facing, self-service agent across the bank, helping employees access the systems, information and answers they need in one place.
Lloyds Banking Group is also developing additional agents to address specific colleague and customer journeys, all underpinned by Agent 365 capabilities for agent control and orchestration.
The agreement also extends the bank’s use of GitHub Copilot, building on deployment to more than 10,000 Lloyds Banking Group engineers.
“We’re embedding agentic AI across Lloyds Banking Group to make banking simpler, faster and more personalised for customers,” Ron van Kemenade, group chief operations officer, Lloyds Banking Group, said.
“It means quicker answers and more intuitive services, while helping our colleagues spend more time on the things that matter most.
“Over time, this will help us deliver more seamless experiences for the millions of customers we serve every day.”
Darren Hardman, CEO, Microsoft UK & Ireland, said: “Lloyds Banking Group has long been a pioneer in financial services, consistently using technology to serve their colleagues and customers better.
“The adoption of Microsoft 365 E7 across the Group will help them deliver on their bold vision, and we look forward to working closely with them to help their colleagues and customers maximise the benefits of agentic AI at scale.”
The UK government has launched a new project to explore how better data-sharing can help ensure kids are school ready, which will see local authorities and healthcare professionals gauging parents’ views and experiences of accessing early learning support.
Nearly a third of children (32%) are starting school without the basic skills they need, which rises to almost half of children eligible for free school meals (48%). This has a direct impact on their educational outcomes.
Currently, services can operate in isolation with paper-based processes, meaning support is less well-coordinated and too often doesn’t arrive in time, if at all.
Sometimes, children’s needs are being missed because the services around them can’t see the full picture.
“Too many children are arriving at school without the skills they need, and too many parents have had to fight through a complex, disconnected system to get their child the support they deserve. That burden falls hardest on disadvantaged children,” technology secretary Liz Kendall said.
“We are determined to change old fashioned public services where assessments are recorded by paper and children’s needs are missed.
“Parents, carers and children deserve better and our hard-working early years and healthcare professionals deserve the tools they need to do their jobs – not blockers. The more connected we make our services, the greater the difference we can make for children and families.”
As the project develops, the data gathered from local authorities, education practitioners and health visitors on early years could help inform the development of a new collection on the National Data Library (NDL), following best practice and with appropriate safeguards on data sharing. Right now, only non-personal, aggregated data such as information on traffic levels is available on the NDL.
“As parents across the country prepare to send their little ones off to school for the first time in September, I know it can still sometimes feel far too hard to get help with things like speech and language or potty training,” education secretry, Bridget Phillipson, said.
“That’s why I’m so proud of what we’ve already achieved through Best Start Family Hubs – with hundreds already launched, we’re well on our way to reaching every community with more SEND support and free stay and play sessions that can save families up to £200 a year.
“This work will build on those foundations, ripping up red tape so every child gets the best start in life.
The Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), the UK’s centre of excellence for innovation in technology to efficiently meet financial regulation requirements, has secured £3.18 million from Scottish Enterprise to deliver three years of the award-winning programme.
The funding will deepen collaboration amongst academia, industry and regulators, and further accelerate the adoption of responsible technology-driven innovation in financial services, supporting the sector’s competitiveness and that of the economy.
Led by FinTech Scotland in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, FRIL will accelerate the adoption of new solutions enabling fairer financial futures and supporting technology innovators to scale their businesses.
The types of industry regulatory challenges that FRIL will address include ensuring AI is adopted by providers in a way that is responsible and explainable to ensure fair financial outcomes for businesses and consumers. It will also focus on finding solutions that strengthen the effectiveness, integrity and efficiency of financial crime controls.
Agile prioritisation during the programme will address industry needs and emerging regulations around the use of AI, open data and digital assets.
By uniting industry, academia, technology innovators, government and regulators, FRIL will turn shared insight into products, partnerships, investment and real‑world adoption.
To date, FRIL has successfully supported 120 fintech SMEs to accelerate solutions, enabled £28 million in committed private investment and delivered a projected 6:1 economic return on investment for every £1 of public funding.
Jane Martin, Managing Director Innovation and Investment, Scottish Enterprise, said: “FRIL is a shining example of how collaboration between industry, academia and regulators can make a real impact, utilising the development of advanced technologies to create high‑value jobs and attract private investment.
“This funding underscores our commitment to fintech innovation and our support for innovative businesses, helping them to scale with confidence and build the global competitiveness of Scotland’s financial services sector.”
Aleks Tomczyk, Chief Executive, FinTech Scotland, added: “The opportunity from the current and forecast future growth of fintech is huge. We are proud of FRIL’s impact to date. FRIL’s success evidences the strategic value of innovation to the our fintech cluster in simultaneously delivering growth and better outcomes for consumers. Scottish Enterprise’s investment will use FinTech Scotland’s proven Innovation Labs model to accelerate innovation in large companies and speed growth in fintechs.”
There are four critical and unpredictable threats where attackers hold a significant advantage to successfully exploit weaknesses in targeted organisations according to Gartner.
These include deepfakes, AI application compromise, prompt injection and software supply chains.
“The introduction of security initiatives by frontier AI companies creates significant noise to an already noisy threat landscape,” said John Watts, VP Analyst at Gartner. “Cybersecurity leaders must be able to find the threat signal in all the noise in order to respond to shifts in the threat landscape.”
AI Application Compromise
AI application compromise is in the critical threat section as attackers target the growing number of production-ready public-facing and internal enterprise AI tools. The attack surface has grown to include custom-built agents, third-party integrations and employee-only applications, often exposing sensitive data or credentials when controls are weak.
“Cybersecurity teams need to expand their programs beyond traditional software protections by mapping new attack surfaces introduced by GenAI models or agentic tools,” said Watts.
“Using Gartner’s trust and risk in security management (TRiSM) framework allows cybersecurity teams to know where to embed AI-specific threat mitigations directly into the AI application development process.”
Securing an AI application does not always mean starting from scratch. There are many AI security startups that offer broader and deeper capabilities as organisations mature and need more security around their use of AI. To address this threat, CISOs should apply secure development life cycle and threat modeling best practices to AI applications. They should also strengthen data security by improving data classification, adopt purpose-based access control (PBAC) and implement runtime monitoring.
Identity Impersonation Using Deepfakes
The advent of GenAI has dramatically increased the volume, fidelity and accessibility of deepfake creation across voice, video, and images, both as pre-recorded artifacts or generated in real-time. This has expanded the opportunity for attackers to impersonate identities across a range of attack surfaces. Deepfakes can be used to attack biometric authentication processes, can be combined with social engineering in real-time attacks on employees and can be used to subvert recruitment processes.
“Attacker use of deepfakes continues to advance and is now commonplace to make fraud and phishing scams difficult to detect,” said Watts.
“There is no one cybersecurity control that will protect you. Instead organisations should use a combination of strengthening business processes, improving awareness, and deploying available deepfake detection technologies where possible.”
As a result, cybersecurity teams must look beyond deepfake detection and strengthen controls to protect the integrity of real‑time communications, as well as biometric authentication and verification processes by considering the following:
Build a robust mitigation strategy by recognising that deepfake detection alone is not sufficient to detect and prevent deepfake identity impersonation attacks. Instead focus on layers of controls that will vary by use case.
Protect biometric identity verification by focusing on presentation and injection attack detection in addition to contextual signals.
Secure online meetings by implementing conditional access policies to enforce strong authentication for call participants and analysis of call metadata.
Software Supply Chain Threats
“The evolution of GenAI offerings will only accelerate the trend of software supply chain attacks through vulnerabilities in open source software,” said Watts. “Organisations must work towards trusted component registries, hardening their CI/CD pipelines and building strong operational anomaly detection and response capabilities.”
Cybersecurity teams should build comprehensive inventories of software assets while integrating strong controls at every stage of development. These measures help defend against emerging threats that target both traditional applications and modern AI-powered pipelines. With this in mind, CISOs should:
Require SBOMs (and AIBOMs) from all vendors; assess every component for risk using tools with up-to-date threat intelligence before deployment.
Use curated repositories for third-party code, container images and AI models; enforce branch protection on code repositories.
Sign artifacts during builds; implement least-privilege access controls on build systems; continuously monitor runtime activity by agentic tools.
Prompt injection is a cybersecurity threat targeting AI systems, especially those using large language models (LLMs). Attackers manipulate prompts to alter the model’s behavior, causing it to leak sensitive information, perform unauthorised actions, or bypass controls. As organisations increasingly adopt GenAI, the risk of prompt injection expands, making it a critical issue for cybersecurity teams.
To effectively counter prompt injection threats, cybersecurity teams should implement a layered mitigation strategy. This involves AI security testing to proactively identify vulnerabilities, establishing strong system prompts to guide AI behavior, and deploying AI runtime guardrails that monitor for and block suspicious activity. Key actions for CISOs include:
Implement input validation and sanitisation to filter out potentially malicious prompts.
Establish monitoring and alerting for abnormal AI behavior that may indicate successful prompt injection.
Integrate prompt injection testing into the AI system development lifecycle.
Leverage the outcomes of the testing to improve runtime controls.
UK publishers have been issued new protections in the AI age by the Competition and Markets Authority, which said Google must offer publishers the option to opt out of AI Overviews.
Google has been given strategic market status in the UK search market, meaning it will be under the remit of stricter regulations by the CMA.
Upon launching its AI Overview, Google was met with stiff rebuffs from publishers which had no way of regulating Google’s access to their published information online.
As a result, websites have seen a continued downturn in traffic as less and less Google users click into websites, often getting the same information from a Google AI Overview.
The CMA will now enable publishers to opt out of having their information on a Google AI Overview.
Further, Google AI search results must also properly attribute any content to its relvant publisher, with links to their site.
Publishers can also opt-out of having their content used for the ‘fine-tuning’ of AI models.
“Today, we have introduced a world‑first requirement on Google’s search services in the UK, enabling fair treatment, greater transparency and meaningful choice for businesses and consumers,” Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, said.
“With features like AI Overviews rapidly reshaping online search, it is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used. At the same time, these measures will help tens of millions of UK search users better understand and trust the information presented to them.
“It’s also important that any action we take in this space can move with the times. Google has recently announced changes to its search business and the requirements we’ve introduced today are designed to respond to what Google is doing now and in the future. We’ll also continue to use the unique flexibility of the UK regime to monitor and address future concerns as they arise and we will be announcing further action in relation to Google’s search business in the coming weeks.”
Meta’s AI support chatbot has been manipulated by hackers to infiltrate the Instagram accounts of famous individuals, Meta confirmed, saying the problem has now been resolved.
Compromised accounts ranged from Barak Obama’s White House account to beauty outlet Sephora.
According to reports from 404 Media, hackers asked Meta’s AI support chatbot to change the email addresses used by the targeted accounts.
Meta has installed AI support across its social sites – Facebook and Instagram – since March, giving the AI support bots the ability to reset passwords and account emails, as well as other account functions.
The methods used to manipulate the chatbots and gain account access were shockingly easy – screenshots from hacking groups and researchers reveal that hackers simply requested the chatbot change the email associated with targeted accounts, which then simply asked for verification code from said email in response.
Hackers were then able to use the chatbot to send a link to their email to change the targeted account’s password. In one video shared by a hacker, a VPN was used to change the hackers’ location and avoid some of Meta’s safeguards.
‘Manipulation’ seems like a strong word to discribe the simplistic and direct conversations hackers had with these chatbots which allowed them access to high profile accounts.
Meta said that the issue has now been resolved, and the firm is securing accounts impacted by the hack. It remains unclare how many accounts were affected in the operation.
The issue does raise concerns surrounding the increased reliance on generative AI systems and chatbots for secuirty and identity management.
Meta continues to lay off workers in favour of integrating AI across more and more of its systems and operations – should this instance give the tech titan pause on how dangerous AI systems can be if give high authority without a human-in-the-loop?
Nine major UK banks have just been offered access to OpenAI’s cybersecurity model GPT-5.5 Cyber after they did not gain access to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos models’ latest preview.
The release of Claude Mythos sparked international curiosity and concern from world leaders and organisations, who scrambled to get a look at the yet to be publicly released model.
The model boasts enhanced cybersecurity capabilities, particularly in vulnerability detection, making it a major risk if found in the wrong hands.
To stay competitive, OpenAI released its own cyber-specific model, GPT-5.5 Cyber – The AI Security Institue says that both AI tools show “a similar level of performance” in simulated tasks upon testing.
Upon its announcement, Anthropic released Claude Mythos to 42 companies and organisations, most of which included US tech firms.
Major banks were left out of the release, which meant they could not use the AI tool to test and detect their own systems for vulnerabilities.
OpenAI, however, has offered access to GPT-5.5 Cyber for UK banks, as well as financial organisations in the EU, Japan, and Canada.
UK banks that now have access to 5.5 Cyber include Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, and HSBS.
Santander and NatWest had access to the model through existing agreements with OpenAI.
Anthropic is reportedly looking to make access to its Claude Mythos model public in weeks, sparking concern from the wider cybersecurity community as fears that AI technology could end up in the wrong hands mount.
Welcome to May 2026’s edition of Movers & Shakers.
This month closed out our event season until the Autumn, and welcomed some stellar weather as well as a bountiful round of appointments, partnerships, and awards.
May saw a range of partnerships, from health tech and retail to cybersecurity and international startups.
The month also rang in a range of appointments as Scottish tech welcomed new heads of offices and security leaders.
With the sun finally shining, Scottish tech is set for a luminous summer!
All that and more coming up.
Partnerships
Glasgow-based Phlo to Power Holland & Barrett Weight Management Service
Holland & Barrett has announced a new partnership with Glasgow-based digital health service provider Phlo to provide customers with access to clinically-led weight management services across its stores and online.
The UK health and wellness retailer said the partnership is designed to support a more sustainable and holistic approach to weight management, combining Holland & Barrett’s existing nutrition and wellness range with additional clinical support provided by Phlo.
Under the partnership, Phlo’s clinical weight management services will be featured across Holland & Barrett stores and online, signposting customers to additional support alongside the retailer’s existing product range. Holland & Barrett said it will also continue to invest in its own-brand weight management ranges, with new launches planned throughout 2026 and beyond.
HMRC Partners With AI Unicorn Quantexa For Data Modernisation
Quantexa has been awarded a £175 million, 10-year partnership by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to modernise its data foundation and enable sovereign, governed AI at national scale in one of the public sector’s largest Decision Intelligence deployments.
The initiative will seek to drive efficiency across key workflows, protect public funds, and enhance the customer experience for the UK taxpayer. HMRC has also seen an uptick in dissatisfaction from the public; 2024-2025 saw the tax collector gain 93,000 complaints according to a Freedom of Information request.
This programme will support the modernisation of HMRC’s core data infrastructure, giving the UK’s tax authority a clearer, connected view of its data to improve performance, help identify tax at risk, and strengthen control.
CodeBase Partners With Cork-based Republic of Work
CodeBase has partnered with Cork-based Republic of Work to drive cross-border startup growth.
The ‘Celtic Link’ pilot programme launched this week aims to help tech companies from Scotland and Ireland scale beyond their own home markets, opening the door to new investors, workspaces, networks, and mentors, while creating a fast, accessible pipeline for talent, collaboration, and innovation between the two regions.
Located in the centre of Cork, Republic of Work is a leading international innovation hub.
As a gateway for international companies entering the EU, it provides comprehensive infrastructure and access to national and international programmes.
The UK and Australia will deepen cooperation on AI security and safety when Ministers meet in Canberra as both nations move to stay ahead of emerging threats from powerful AI systems.
Under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the UK AI Security Institute and Australian Safety Institute will work together to track the latest developments in frontier AI – including how these systems could be used in cyber-attacks, as well as how they can strengthen defences.
The partnership will see both countries share insights on AI capabilities, carry out research into emerging risks, and work together to develop international best practice for testing and evaluating AI systems – principles to help guide those working to ensure AI behaves as intended.
Acumen Cyber Partners with AttackIQ to Strengthen Threat Exposure Management
Glasgow-based cybersecurity firm Acumen Cyber have announced a strategic partnership with AttackIQ, a leader in adversary-informed Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). Together, the companies will help organisations identify, validate, and break the attack paths that create real adversary opportunity across modern enterprise environments.
As AI accelerates the speed of exploitation and adversaries increasingly weaponise exposures faster than organisations can remediate them, traditional approaches built around vulnerability counts, severity scores, and point-in-time assessments are no longer sufficient. Modern cyber defence requires organisations to continuously understand which exposures actually matter, how adversaries could leverage them to reach critical assets, and whether existing security controls have been proven capable of stopping those attacks.
The partnership brings together Acumen Cyber’s engineering-led security operations capabilities with AttackIQ’s adversary-informed CTEM platform to help organisations operationalise continuous validation and threat-informed defence. Together, the companies will enable customers to continuously test defensive effectiveness, prioritise the attack paths that matter most, and measure whether adversary opportunity is being systematically reduced over time.
Commsworld, one of the UK’s largest independent network providers, has moved to strengthen its senior leadership team with the appointment of Melony Buchanan to the new role of Chief Revenue Officer.
Melony will lead the Edinburgh-headquartered company’s revenue strategy, with a clear focus on geographical, proposition and partnership expansion as part of a UK-wide growth roadmap. This roadmap will be centred around the continued evolution of the company’s portfolio to meet the changing needs of its customers in both the public and private sectors.
By aligning solutions more closely with sector-specific challenges, Mel intends to drive greater value for customers, citizens and consumers, whilst reinforcing Commsworld as a market-leading, trusted connectivity partner.
Cyacomb announces three new hires to support continued global expansion
Cyacomb, the UK’s leading expert in digital triage, today announced it has appointed three new team members as it continues to grow globally. The new appointments will support Cyacomb’s efforts to deliver its technology to more organisations and law enforcement agencies to improve the safety of the digital world.
The appointments reflect the continued momentum across the business and the growing demand for technology that helps organisations identify offenders, protect victims and reduce exposure to harmful material.
Cyacomb helps law enforcement and organisations rapidly identify illegal and harmful content on digital devices. The platform is used by organisations and law enforcement globally to detect and protect against Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Cyacomb’s technology allows organisations to rapidly scan devices for CSAM, ensuring illegal material is identified and offenders have no place to hide.
Cyacomb is currently going through a period of global growth, with it recently announcing a new partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation to offer its services to the private sector.
The appointments come in the wake of Chris Johnson being appointed as the company’s CEO in August 2025, and they also coincide with Alan McConnell, Cyacomb’s Head of Customer Success, being promoted to Chief Operations Officer.
Morgan Stanley appoints Angela McCann as Head of Glasgow office
Morgan Stanley confirmed the appointment of Angela McCann as Head of Glasgow.
In her new role, Angela will be responsible for overseeing Morgan Stanley’s Glasgow office, which supports a wide range of business functions and plays a key role in Morgan Stanley’s global operations. Having joined Morgan Stanley in 2006, she brings over two decades of experience across a broad range of Finance leadership positions.
In addition, Angela will continue to serve as Head of Glasgow Finance, a role she has held since 2022. She is also a senior champion of Morgan Stanley’s socio-economic inclusion strategy and serves on the Firm’s EMEA Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures Committee.
AND Digital Appoints of Tim Bass as Head of Snowflake
AND Digital has appointed Tim Bass as Head of Snowflake, working across the UK, Europe and the US. This strengthens AND’s data, cloud and AI capabilities as clients accelerate their move from experimentation to measurable impact.
The appointment comes as AND Digital continues to expand with reported growth reaching more than 400% year-on-year.
Bass brings more than 15 years’ experience across data science, GenAI, analytics and digital transformation, with a strong track record of helping enterprise teams turn complex technology into practical, scalable outcomes.
In his new role, Bass will support AND Digital’s mission to Guide, Build and Equip clients for digital independence, combining hands-on technical depth with strategic consulting leadership to help organisations unlock value through modern data platforms and AI-powered delivery.
Systal Appoints Deryck Mitchelson as Strategic CISO
Systal Technology Solutions today announced the appointment of Deryck Mitchelson as Strategic Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), strengthening the company’s leadership team and reinforcing its commitment to helping organisations address increasingly complex cybersecurity and operational resilience challenges.
Deryck brings more than 30 years of experience in cybersecurity, digital transformation, enterprise technology strategy and resilience across highly regulated and critical infrastructure sectors.
Prior to joining Systal, Deryck held senior executive roles at Check Point Software Technologies, where he led the Global CISO Programme and Executive Business Centre. In these roles, he evolved both functions into strategic customer engagement platforms, helping organisations align cybersecurity strategy with business growth, operational resilience and executive decision-making.
Expansions
NZTC to Launch Energy Technology Testing Hub in Aberdeen
Aberdeen is set to gain a major new energy technology testing hub, with the Net Zero Technology Centre preparing to reopen the former Weatherford Evaluation Centre at Aberdeen Energy Park in Bridge of Don.
The site, which closed in 2020, will be brought back into use under a long-term lease agreed between NZTC and AM Sci Tech, a Manchester-based subsidiary of Hurstwood Holdings and owner of Aberdeen Energy & Innovation Parks.
The move represents a major milestone for Scotland’s energy transition sector and will see the former Weatherford site repurposed as a testing facility for technologies used across offshore deployment, decommissioning, well operations, asset integrity, and emerging low-carbon energy applications.
Outer Hebrides Firm Closed Door Security Wins National Cyber Excellence Award
Closed Door Security, the only cyber security company based in the Outer Hebrides, has been crowned winner of the Cyber Excellence Award at the ScotlandIS Digital Tech Awards 2026.
The award recognises organisations that have developed ground-breaking solutions that significantly enhances the ability to defend, disrupt, or support organisations in preventing, responding to or recovering from cyber attacks.
Closed Door Security was specifically recognised for the speed and simplicity it delivers its services to its customers, and for the company’s growth from a one-person operation to a global service provider.
For a company headquartered in one of the UK’s most remote regions, the win marks a
significant milestone, not only for the Closed Door Security, but for the growing role of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland’s tech and cyber security landscape.
“This recognition is hugely important for us,” said William Wright, CEO of Closed Door Security. “We’ve always believed that geography should never be a barrier to delivering world-class cyber security services. To be recognised at a national level reinforces that talent and innovation exist right here in the Outer Hebrides.”
UK and G7 partners have for the first time agreed a common approach to shielding children and young people from harm online.
G7 countries have agreed to a set of new shared principles to help tackle the growing risks children face in a digital world, from harmful content to exploitation.
These are centred around promoting digital literacy, addressing risks to children from AI chatbots, and pushing digital services providers to take a robust approach to online safety.
The landmark G7 agreement sets clear expectations that children’s safety should not be an afterthought, but built into digital services from the start, underpinned by effective age assurance. There is also a commitment to closer cooperation between digital service providers and children, parents and guardians.
The agreement comes just a few days after the UK’s consultation on protecting children from online harms closed.
As part of the discussions at the G7, countries also agreed that data sharing between online platforms, parents and researchers should be improved, to better understand how digital services impact children’s wellbeing.
“AI and other technologies have the power to transform our economies and create prosperity for people across all our nations,” science and technology secretary Liz Kendll said.
“But ordinary citizens and businesses will only see those benefits when they have trust that these technologies are being developed safely and responsibly — and when children can grow up in a digital world designed with their wellbeing in mind.
“The agreements we have reached today are an important step on that journey: outlining a shared approach to protecting our children, backing our small businesses to adopt AI, and ensuring AI is developed safely and responsibly.”
The G7 countries affirmed their commitment to ensuring AI is developed safetly, while highlighting the importance of staying ahead of evolving cyber-attacks.
Prior to the G7 meeting, the UK and France signed a new science and technology deal that will see funding provided for research team partnerships between the countries.
AI firm Anthropic raised $65 billion in private funding this week, the firm said, seeing its valuation rise to $965bn.
The increase means the Claude creator is now one of the most valuable start-ups in the world, overtaking top competitor and ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Anthropic’s new funding round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital and Sequoia Capital.
“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens,” Krishna Rao, Anthropic chief financial officer, said in a statement.
Anthropic now outperforms its rivial OpenAI in market value and revenue, which climbed to $47bn as more people and organisations turn to Claude for coding and other tasks.
The firm also released its latest model, Claude Opus 4.8, which claims to have superior coding capabilities.
The release of Claude Mythos, an AI model boasting superior vulnerability detection capabilities, saw the firm reach new levels of fame in its continued competition with AI stalwart OpenAI, as governments and other AI organisations scrambled to get a look at the soon-to-be-released model.
The Claude firm is now expected to become publicly traded, along with OpenAI and Elon Musks’s SpaceX. Despite climbs in revenue and high valuations, all three companies are still losing more money than they are making.
OpenAI, Anthropic’s top competitor, is on its way to a $852bn valuation, the firm said in March, following its fundraising of $122bn. The firm recently overcame a major obstacle to a public
Business confidence in Scotland rose two points during May to 50%, according to the latest Business Barometer from Lloyds.
Companies in Scotland reported higher confidence in their own trading outlook month-on-month, up nine points at 62%. When taken alongside their optimism in the economy, down five points to 38%, this gives a headline confidence reading of 50% (vs. 48% in April 2026).
Scottish firms’ confidence in their own trading outlook was driven by stronger customer demand and expected new contracts or clients (70%), while confidence in the economy was driven by stronger customer or market demand (60%).
Almost a third (31%) of businesses in Scotland also expect to increase staffing levels over the next year, down four points on last month.
Since May 2025, Scotland has had an average overall business confidence of 48% with its largest figure of 59% in August last year and its lowest of 36% in December.
Looking ahead to the next six months, Scotland’s businesses identified their top target areas for growth as investing in their team, for example through training (47%), introducing new technology, such as AI or automation (42%), and evolving their offering, for example by introducing new products or services (39%).
“Scottish businesses are showing momentum, with confidence in their own trading prospects rising and firms looking ahead with optimism,” Martyn Kendrick, Scotland director at Bank of Scotland Commercial Banking, said.
“Businesses are backing that confidence with action, with many planning to invest in training and new technology, demonstrating a clear commitment to long-term growth, innovation and building future capability.
“We’re here to support that momentum, whether it’s financing growth, helping with technology investment, or working with firms to develop their teams and capabilities.”
National picture
Overall, UK business confidence rose three points in May to 47%.
Firms’ trading outlook rose four points to 58% and their optimism in the economy generally rose two points to 35%.
Sixty-six percent expect stronger output over the year ahead, while 8% predict weaker activity.
The main drivers behind businesses expecting a decrease in activity remain the same as in April; economic uncertainty, higher cost pressures and weaker customer demand.
Business confidence rose across seven of the twelve UK regions and nations in May, and decreased in four. Northern Ireland saw notable gains with North East and West Midlands becoming the most confident regions.
“Business confidence edged up modestly in May, suggesting firms are beginning to steady after April’s decline,” Amanda Murphy, CEO for Lloyds Business and Commercial Banking said.
“This month, confidence levels from businesses in the North East particularly stands out. It’s also reassuring to see that increased confidence from the construction sector has brought them more in line with their retail, services and manufacturing counterparts.
“Across the UK, each region and nation presents unique opportunities and drivers of growth – whether that’s clean energy in the North East, advanced manufacturing in the West Midlands or tourism and hospitality in Scotland. We’ve seen first-hand what the right financial support and advice can do for ambitious businesses and are keen to continue supporting our customers as they grow – helping Britain prosper.”
Demand for specialist technology talent is continuing to accelerate as businesses increase investment in artificial intelligence and digital transformation. That’s according to global talent solutions and business consulting firm, Robert Half.
The firm’s latest proprietary job posting database reveals significant growth in hiring for AI-focused roles between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026.
Demand for AI Engineer roles and AI Product Managers has surged by 81% and 80%, respectively, while demand for Data Governance Managers has increased by 79%.
While demand for Machine Learning Engineers has grown at a more moderate 24%, the data suggests that hiring is expanding across the broader AI ecosystem, from technical delivery to strategic oversight.
This reflects a more mature approach to AI adoption, with businesses building structured capabilities rather than isolated use cases.
Beyond AI, organisations are continuing to prioritise data-led performance and infrastructure modernisation.
Cloud and Infrastructure, Business Intelligence and Data Analytics roles made up over 16,800 job postings in Q1 2026. This trend highlights the importance of strong data foundations and scalable systems to support ongoing digital transformation.
The sustained growth across both AI and core technology functions indicates that businesses are taking a long-term approach to capability building, investing in talent that can deliver both immediate impact and future innovation.
“Demand for AI and transformation talent is accelerating as businesses move from exploration to implementation,” Craig Freedberg, Regional Director at Robert Half, commented.
“What we are seeing now is a shift towards a more structured investment in talent, with companies hiring not only technical specialists but also leaders who can embed AI into wider business strategy.
“At the same time, the continued growth in data and cloud roles underlines that AI success depends on having the right foundations in place.
“Businesses are recognising that to unlock the full value of emerging technologies, they need the right mix of skills across data, infrastructure and leadership.”
GCHQ has announced its plans for a new national AI cyber shield as it tries to ramp up defenses amid increasingly tenuious geopolitics.
The system will use AI agents for threat detection, aiming to protect critical national infrastructure such as airlines, telecoms, and other major industries. It is hoped the system will run within the next five years.
GCHQ chief Anne Keast-Butler announced the new system at her annual lecture at Bletchley Park, saying that AI is an “unstoppable force” that the UK must master as the world expereinces a “moment of consequence” due to looming global threats.
“In the past few months, GCHQ has developed the blueprint for a new national cyber defence capability that will hardwire cutting-edge agentic AI into machine-speed cyber defence,” she said.
“And as we draw on decades of expertise in machine learning to reimagine cyber security, we’re also embedding frontier AI deeper into our operations – responsibly and ethically – to enhance algorithms, translate foreign language, and find needles in haystacks quicker than ever before.
“AI is an unstoppable force with great opportunity. But it’s also a force with risks.
“As AI gains increased autonomy, we all have an intergenerational duty to harness and secure it for good; to protect our national security, our economy and our way of life.”
With the announcement, Keast-Butler also urged organisations and the public to take grater care with cybersecurity – “from boardrooms to living rooms.”
She called for collaboration between the tech industry and the national security sector to “anticiapte and drive advancements, together, at the speed of the frontier,” so the UK can compete with global cyber threats.
“The AI revolution is now fully upon us – with ever faster pace of model releases, increasingly sophisticated agents and greater system autonomy – transforming the world with both promise and peril,” she said.
“That’s equally true for intelligence and security, where the latest frontier AI is rapidly unearthing the fault lines in technologies that our society relies on every single day.”
She reminded organisations that cybersecurity is a “critical priority for all businesses.”
Ofcom has today fined pornography provider Youngtek Solutions Ltd £500,000 for not having age checks in place, plus £100,000 for failing to respond to a formal request for information from the regulator.
Under the UK’s Online Safety Act, sites that allow pornographic material must use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from readily accessing that content.
The regulator’s investigation found that, from 25 July 2025 to 22 September 2025, Youngtek Solutions – which runs four adult sites – failed to comply with these duties.
As a result, Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £500,000, which will be passed on to HM Treasury.
The company has since implemented a method of age assurance on all sites which were subject to our investigation.
Ofcom says it will continue to monitor these sites to ensure that their age checking methods are highly effective at preventing children from accessing pornographic content.
The porn company has also been fined for ignoring requests from Ofcom for information vital to its investigation and monitoring of Online Safety Act compliance.
Firms are required, by law, to respond in an accurate, complete and timely way to any informaiton requests made by Ofcom.
During the course of Ofcom’s investigation, it issued a formal request for information to Youngtek Solutions. While the company eventually provided the information, this was only after the deadline had passed.
As a result, the regulator fined Youngtek Solutions an additional £100,000.
George Lusty, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Adult sites must use robust age checks to protect children in the UK from porn online, and we’ve shown we will use the full extent of our enforcement powers to secure this outcome.
“Any company that fails to comply – or misses important deadlines when we demand information – can expect to pay the price.”
Cyber and Fraud Centre Scotland has revealed it delivered more than £3 million of cyber resilience support and community benefit across Scotland during its first full year operating as a social enterprise.
Since transitioning to a social enterprise model in January 2025, the Centre reinvests profits generated through its professional cyber security services – including vulnerability testing, Cyber MOTs and executive education programmes – directly back into initiatives that strengthen Scotland’s cyber resilience and support those organisations most vulnerable to cyber-crime and fraud.
Over the last year, the Centre has provided extensive support to charities, community groups, social housing organisations, SMEs and individuals affected by cyber and fraud incidents, while also investing in the next generation of cyber talent and widening access to careers in the sector.
The investment comes as organisations across the public, private and third sectors face growing pressure to demonstrate robust cyber security standards as part of procurement, partnerships and supply chain assurance, while cyber threats continue to escalate in scale and sophistication.
Among the impact delivered during the first year as a social enterprise:
Cyber training: Delivered more than £1.4 million worth of free CPD-accredited cyber training, supporting over 500 charities and social housing organisations and 200 SMEs across Scotland.
Executive education: Provided over 50 free places – worth more than £25,000 – to third sector senior leaders and board members through the Centre’s Cyber Executive Education programme.
Cyber MOTs: Delivered more than £45,000 worth of free Cyber MOTs to charities and SMEs to strengthen cyber posture and improve resilience.
Incident recovery support: Provided over £500,000 of direct support to help organisations respond to and recover from cyber attacks, including assisting more than 50 SMEs through the Centre’s free National Cyber Incident Response Helpline. Cases included ransomware, phishing and Business Email Compromise attacks.
Early intervention: Intelligence-led interventions helped prevent 10 Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, saving organisations more than £100,000 in estimated business interruption costs.
Fraud support: Through the Cyber and Fraud Hub, more than 700 individuals affected by fraud received practical and emotional support, with over £1.6 million in losses prevented or recovered between 2024–2025.
Alongside its direct cyber resilience and fraud support work, the Centre continued investing in Scotland’s future cyber workforce through its long-standing partnership with Abertay University – offering aspiring ethical hackers paid placements at the Centre. Seventy ethical hacking students have now been employed through the programme over the last six years, with many going on to secure long-term careers in cyber security.
The Centre also continued its “See It Be It” initiative, designed to encourage more young people – particularly women – to consider careers in cyber security. Over the last year, the programme engaged 20 schools and more than 200 schoolgirls through conferences, virtual events and discussions with industry professionals.
Jude McCorry, CEO of Cyber and Fraud Centre Scotland, said: “As Scotland’s only cybersecurity social enterprise, our purpose goes beyond service delivery. We reinvest our time, expertise and resources to support the communities we serve, helping ensure organisations are not priced out of protection and that cyber resilience is accessible to all.
“With organisations under increasing pressure to demonstrate strong cyber security standards to unlock business opportunities, cyber resilience is now an economic imperative as much as it is a security one.
“We are incredibly proud of the impact achieved in our first year as a social enterprise and grateful to everyone who has contributed. As the Centre continues to grow, so too does our ability to give back.
“Over the coming year, we’ll continue expanding our programmes, with a particular focus on evolving our Incident Response Helpline to provide ongoing – rather than just incident-specific – advice. We also remain committed to investing in programmes like See It Be It to help shape the future cyber workforce.”
Scotland must encourage industry to engage earlier with university researchers, spinout and start-up companies if it is to maximise the commercial impact of homegrown innovation, according to entrepreneurial support organisation Converge.
The organisation says stronger early-stage collaboration between academia and industry will be critical to ensure university-led innovation is shaped by real-world market demand and equipped to scale successfully.
The call comes as Converge prepares to support its latest cohort of academic entrepreneurs, following a record number of applications to its 2026 programme.
With more than 120 founders from a broad range of sectors set to embark on its intensive entrepreneurial programme, Converge says the strength of Scotland’s innovation pipeline is clear, but that stronger commercial outcomes in future will depend on industry becoming involved earlier in the innovation journey.
Adam Kosterka, Executive Director of Converge, said: “Scotland’s universities continue to produce world-class research, exceptional talent and hugely promising early-stage ventures.
“The opportunity now is to ensure industry is engaging with those innovations earlier, helping shape ideas, challenge assumptions and guide development towards real market need.
“By bringing industry closer to researchers and university-born businesses at an earlier stage, we can help create stronger ventures, accelerate commercialisation and maximise the real-world impact of Scottish innovation.”
Converge says this approach will form an increasingly important part of how it evolves its support model in the years ahead, with a greater emphasis on sector-aligned partnerships that can provide founders with direct commercial insight, mentorship and market access.
One example of that approach is Converge’s new partnership with Orbital Marine Power (Orbital), pioneers of revolutionary floating tidal energy technology, which is supporting the organisation’s Blue Economy Award.
The prize recognises emerging university-led ventures developing innovations across marine, renewable and blue economy sectors, with Orbital’s backing adding sector expertise and mentorship alongside financial support.
Headquartered in Orkney, the technology developer’s involvement reflects a growing recognition among industry leaders that engaging with innovation earlier can help shape start-up businesses with stronger long-term commercial and practical relevance.
Andrew Scott, Orbital’s CEO, said: “Innovation is central to our business, so supporting the next generation of university-led ventures is a natural fit for us.
“Through our partnership with Converge, we want to help identify and support emerging businesses with strong potential across the blue economy and wider energy ecosystem.
“Equally importantly, it gives us the opportunity to engage directly with early-stage innovators, share practical insights from our own journey and help shape ideas that may have significant future application across marine and energy sectors.”
The announcement comes as Converge continues to expand its focus on supporting ventures operating in strategically important sectors for Scotland’s future economy.
Helen Cross, Director of Investment and Research at the Scottish Funding Council, said: “The Scottish Funding Council has funded Converge over the whole 15 years of its existence and it’s always exciting to see the latest cohort of Converge academic entrepreneurs.
“This year’s record level of applications demonstrates the depth of entrepreneurial talent emerging from Scotland’s universities. By helping academic entrepreneurs connect earlier with industry, investors and commercial partners, Converge is playing an important role in strengthening Scotland’s innovation pipeline and turning world-class research into businesses with real-world impact.”
Recent initiatives include the launch of its new Space Challenge, aimed at helping develop university-led ventures in Scotland’s growing space sector.
Kosterka added: “Scotland has many of the ingredients required to lead globally in innovation-led growth.
“What will determine our success is how effectively we connect research, entrepreneurship, industry and investment around the opportunities of the future.
“Our role is not only to support the creation of new ventures, but to help build the ecosystem around them that gives them the best chance of long-term success.”
Barclays’ Q1 2026 Business Prosperity Index reveals that as geopolitical risk intensifies, businesses are doubling down on technology, with rising AI investment now matched by a sharp increase in cybersecurity spending.
The survey found that 68% of UK business leaders expect to increase cybersecurity investment over the next 12 months, but almost half (46%) believe the adoption of new technologies is increasing their exposure to cybersecurity risks.
Almost seven in 10 businesses plan to increase cybersecurity investment
Resilience is now a key focus, with recent global turmoil putting cybersecurity at the forefront of many businesses’ priorities, with fewer than three in ten (29 per cent) confident in their ability to respond to a major cyber incident. In response, almost seven in ten (68 per cent) are planning to increase their cybersecurity investment over the next 12 months.
More than one third (36 per cent) of large firms have increased cybersecurity investment since the start of 2026, falling to 26 per cent of smaller businesses and 4 per cent of micro businesses. With additional finance, large firms say they would prioritise further cyber security (24 per cent) alongside AI investment (24 per cent).
The average amount decision makers have spent on cybersecurity to date in 2026 is £505,000. This rises significantly to £1.3million for large businesses and falls to £134,000 for small businesses and £15,000 for micros.
Balancing innovation and risk in adopting new technologies
As cybersecurity investment increases, businesses are seeking to find a balance between adoption and exposure. While 82 per cent are confident that their cybersecurity capabilities are keeping pace, almost half (46 per cent) are concerned that these technologies are increasing their exposure to cybersecurity risks.
Businesses are also increasingly aware of the operational and reputational fallout that major cyber incidents can cause. The biggest concerns among firms are damage to customer trust and confidence (28 per cent), operational disruption or downtime (27 per cent) and loss of revenue (26 per cent). Among large businesses, the leading concern is the loss of sensitive data or intellectual property (33 per cent)
Matt Hammerstein, CEO of Barclays UK Corporate Bank, said: “UK businesses are now operating in an environment where uncertainty has become the norm. Geopolitical instability and persistently high costs are feeding directly into cashflows, borrowing decisions and investment plans.
“What’s striking, however, is how businesses are responding. Rather than pulling back entirely, many are adapting to this new reality by tightening financial discipline, managing cash carefully and prioritising investment where it strengthens resilience, productivity and long-term competitiveness.”
Alongside rising cyber investment, businesses are doubling down on AI and automation to improve efficiency and offset cost pressures.
More than half of businesses (52 per cent) believe AI and automation has improved their productivity, with employees now spending less time on administrative tasks (38 per cent), becoming faster at decision-making (34 per cent) and spending more time on higher value work (31 per cent). The way businesses are using AI has evolved too, with over half (61 per cent) now using agentic AI in their operations.
As adoption accelerates, businesses are embedding AI across a wider range of functions. Over the next two years, firms are planning to use AI to improve data analysis and forecasting (38 per cent), automate administrative tasks to improve employee productivity (31 per cent), enhance customer experience (29 per cent) and strengthen cybersecurity (29 per cent). Priorities remain varied, with more than a third (34 per cent) of small businesses planning to use AI to reduce operational costs, while nearly half (46 per cent) of micro businesses have no plans to use the technology at all.
While uptake is increasing, some concerns remain. Over a quarter (26 per cent) cited issues around the accuracy and reliability of AI outputs, while others are worried about data security and cybersecurity risks (24 per cent) and the cost of implementation (24 per cent).
Abdul Qureshi, Head of Barclays Business Banking said: “SMEs are navigating higher costs and ongoing uncertainty, which continues to weigh on day-to-day decisions. While larger firms push ahead with longer-term borrowing, many smaller businesses are focused on building cash buffers and closely managing their financial position. At the same time, AI is starting to present tangible opportunities for SMEs, particularly where it can help improve productivity and make everyday tasks more efficient.”
Big tech and AI firms are earning up to $162,492 in commercial value from each internet user across their digital lifetime through their personal data.
This is according to a white paper from Web3 Foundation, which examind the commercial value generate by personal data harveste and sold by big tech.
Each year, tech companies earn about $2,206 per user in the UK, earning $8,500 from each US user, with an average of $407 per user in the rest of the world.
In the UK, this eqautes to a digital lifetime value of $260,542 (~£194,000) per person.
Web3 Foundation created a benchmark for measuring this economic value, looking across a wider modern data economy, which includes advertising platforms, AI subscription businesses, API providers, enterprise software, data brokers, marketplaces, algorithmic recommendations, hardware-linked ecosystems, and AI-drive cost savings.
While the paper does not claim that each individual internate user is owed an exact sum of money from big tech, it does seek to point out the major imbalances in data collection and the inherent but often hidden contract of internet usage.
The research also points out that it isn’t only big names that are taking advantage of people’s data – 129 companies were assessed in the study, ranging from data brokers to AI subscription firms.
Internet users continue to use major websites, search engines, and browsers without directly paying a price – the paper seeks to make more people aware that they are not just a customer getting a free pass, but a product themselves.
The report found that nine in ten internet users accept privacy policies in less than ten seconds. A tiny fraction – between one and three per cent – read terms and conditions in full.
The paper argues that people therefore have little idea of the contract they enter when they use the internet, from social media to simple internet browsing.
Personal data is allowing tech companies to rake in billions, with people thinking they are benefitting from these services for free. Simply clicking ‘Accept All Cookies’ on any given website gives away massive amounts of data to brokers and advertisers.
This economy is expanding, the paper argues, outside of capital ‘B’ Big Tech and into healthcare, finance, ecommerce – subscriptions services to supermarkets could be building a detailed dataset on your personal preferences, location, and browsing and buying habits.
The paper attempts to shed a light on the shoddy transaction of consumer data to companies, exposing that the ‘free’ internet has a major cost, and a major pay out for tech firms taking advantage of the system they created.
Applying uniform governance to all AI agents, regardless of their autonomy level and scope, can lead to enterprise AI agent failure, according to Gartner, Inc.
Failures are most likely to occur when organisations fail to distinguish between an agent’s ability to act and the scope of access it is granted.
Gartner predicts that by 2027, 40% of enterprises will demote or decommission autonomous AI agents due to governance gaps identified only after production incidents occur.
“Enterprises are treating AI agent governance as binary, either locked down or fully trusted, and that is the root cause of failure,” said Shiva Varma, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.
“Agents operate at different autonomy levels and across different trust boundaries. When the same controls are applied indiscriminately, organisations encounter two common failure modes: over-restriction of simple agents, which slows delivery and drives shadow development, or under-restriction of more autonomous agents, which increases operational, security and compliance risk.”
To mitigate these risks, Gartner recommends applying a proportional governance approach that classifies AI agents across distinct autonomy levels, with each level representing a different trust boundary and corresponding governance requirements.
Level 1: Observe
At Level 1, observe agents are limited to read-only access to defined data sources, with outputs visible only to the requesting user. Common use cases include document summarisation, data or knowledge retrieval, and code explanation.
“At this level, governance should focus on baseline controls such as scoped data access, user authentication, usage logging, and basic functional and security testing,” said Varma. “Because risk is limited primarily to data exposure and output accuracy, controls should remain lightweight and targeted.”
Level 2: Advise
Advise agents generate recommendations, drafts or proposed actions, while humans review all outputs and execute actions manually. These agents retain read‑only access with no write access to any system and are commonly used for email drafting, report or code generation, and decision support.
Although humans execute decisions, advisory agents can anchor judgment, creating downstream risk when inaccurate outputs are trusted due to automation bias.
“Governance for advise agents should include all Level 1 controls and extend to addressing output quality and decision influence through accuracy and hallucination testing, domain-specific quality evaluations, and user training on appropriate reliance levels,” said Varma.
At Level 3, agents can execute actions such as writing data, sending communications or modifying configurations, but only after explicit human approval for every action.
“At this level, human review is effective only if it remains a meaningful control,” said Varma. “Without strong security testing, clear approval workflows with audit trails, and agent‑specific incident response procedures, approvals can degrade under time pressure or approval fatigue, creating a false sense of safety while expanding the attack surface.”
Level 4: Act Autonomously
At the highest autonomy level, agents execute actions independently within defined guardrails, with humans reviewing exceptions, audit logs and aggregated outcomes rather than individual decisions.
“When agents operate autonomously, actions are executed at a scale and speed that can outpace human oversight,” said Varma. “Because accountability for outcomes remains with the organisation, this level requires the most rigorous governance, including continuous monitoring, enforced guardrails, rapid rollback mechanisms, circuit breakers that halt agent operation on threshold violations and clear ownership for agent behaviour.”
UK fintech vacancies are forecast to increase by close to 14% in 2026, following growth of 28% the previous year, as hiring shifts decisively towards payments infrastructure, engineering and compliance rather than consumer neobanks according to the latest Fintech UK Finance Labour Market Trends report from Morgan McKinley and Vacancysoft.
London is expected to account for 71% of all fintech hiring, reinforcing the capital’s dominance in the sector. Data from early May suggests the momentum is not merely seasonal – Q1 hiring stood more than 13% above the same period in 2025, while vacancies in London in particular were 17% higher.
The report also suggests the sector is entering a more operationally-focused phase, with hiring increasingly concentrated in engineering, infrastructure, compliance and payments rather than broad-based expansion across consumer fintech.
Compliance Hiring Becomes More Selective
The compliance boom that followed the post-pandemic fintech expansion is beginning to mature. Legal, Risk & Compliance vacancies are forecast to dip by 4% in 2026 after rising by close to 22% in 2025, while banking-related hiring is expected to fall by 8%.
Demand is shifting towards AML risk and compliance vacancies, which are projected to rise by 28%, while Credit Analyst hiring is forecast to surge by nearly 46%. This reflects growing regulatory scrutiny around digital lending, payments and stablecoins.
Meanwhile, recruitment in financial crime and credit risk is expected to retreat sharply after the exceptional expansion recorded in 2025.
Infrastructure and Engineering Drives Growth
Technology remains fintech’s principal engine of recruitment growth. IT vacancies are forecast to rise over 13% in 2026 with London continuing to absorb the vast majority of this demand. Vacancies in the capital are expected to rise to 18%, compared with growth of under 1% elsewhere in Britain.
IT infrastructure roles, the fastest-growing major technology function, is expected to climb close to 31% whilst IT development and engineering vacancies are forecast to increase nearly 19%.
By contrast, IT support roles remain subdued, dropping from 17% to 9% in two years as automation, outsourced delivery and cloud-based systems steadily displace traditional support structures.
The report reveals a significant shift in where growth is concentrated across the sector. Payments infrastructure providers and SME-focused platforms are increasingly outperforming consumer neobanks, many of which are now moderating recruitment after years of aggressive expansion.
Radius is forecast to increase hiring by more than 42%, while SumUp Payments is projected to rise close to 28%. Crypto-linked firms are also expanding rapidly, with Payward, operator of Kraken, forecast to increase vacancies by nearly 91% as firms prepare for the FCA’s evolving cryptoasset framework. In contrast, Starling Bank and Monzo are both projected to reduce hiring activity in 2026.
Mark Astbury, Director of Project & Change Recruitment at Morgan McKinley said: “The UK fintech sector is entering a more disciplined and structurally selective phase of growth. This is not a slowdown in momentum, but a reorientation of where growth is occurring. Growth is increasingly concentrated in IT infrastructure and engineering roles, as firms prioritise resilience, scalability and cloud-native architecture over pure product expansion.
“Most significantly, the centre of gravity within fintech is shifting. Payment infrastructure providers and SME-focused platforms are now outpacing consumer neobanks, many of which are beginning to moderate hiring after years of rapid expansion.”
AI is driving a fundamental shift in how software is built and a growing gap in how it is validated, secured, and delivered.
This is according to Sembi’s Software Quality Pulse Report, a global study examining how organisations are managing software quality, testing, and security in the age of AI.
Based on insights from nearly 4,000 QA engineers, security professionals, developers, and engineering leaders, the Software Quality Pulse Report examines key trends across software testing, application security, and the growing convergence between QA and security teams.
“Over the past year, we’ve all seen just how quickly AI is changing the pace of software development,” said Christian Beatty, Vice President at Sembi.
“Teams are moving faster than ever, but that speed is putting real pressure on how quality and risk are managed. Our research shows just how difficult it’s becoming to keep testing, security, and delivery aligned.”
The report found tht AI is now central to software development and increasing testing demands.
Organisations report that 53% of their code is AI-generated or AI-assisted, signaling a major shift in how software is built. As a result, more than one-third of teams say AI-driven development has increased testing demands by 26-50% or more.
QA and security remain misaligned despite widespread recognition of the problem, with fewer than 35% of respondents report strong alignment between QA and security priorities.
Yet, 68% say improved alignment would be highly valuable, highlighting a disconnect between organisational intent and execution.
While speed has historically been the primary pressure point in software delivery, 86% of organizations now report that security issues delay releases at least occasionally, reflecting a growing tension between rapid innovation and risk management.
Further, automation progress is slowing without deeper integration. On average, 57% of tests are automated, but only 1.82% of organisations report fully integrated QA tools within their DevOps pipelines, limiting the impact of automation and contributing to fragmented workflows.
Plus, while AI adoption is rising, governance concerns remain, as 63% of respondents cite privacy and security concerns as barriers to adopting AI in QA, signaling that trust, auditability, and compliance are now critical factors in scaling AI responsibly.
The Software Quality Pulse Report’s findings point to a clear need for organisations to adopt “integrated quality operations,” where testing, security, and development are unified within an intelligence-driven system.
As software systems become more dynamic and AI-driven, organisations can no longer rely on siloed approaches. Instead, they must align QA and security around shared goals, visibility, and accountability to effectively manage quality and risk at scale.
“AI has redefined what ‘quality’ means in software development,” said Judy Bossi, Vice President of Product at Sembi. “Teams are no longer testing for deterministic outcomes, they’re evaluating probabilistic systems. Because of that, you can’t rely on traditional testing approaches. Quality becomes continuous and shared across teams, which requires new strategies, stronger governance, and much closer alignment among QA, engineering, and security.”
The greenhouse gas emissions of hyperscale AI data centres have not been included in the Scottish Government’s analysis of the impact of ‘green data centres’ on Scotland’s climate targets, according to analysis by environmental charity APRS.
Scottish Government documents assessing the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of ‘green data centres’ say that they “will likely have an overall negligible impact on achieving national greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.”
However, investigation by countryside charity APRS has found that the Scottish Government has omitted to include the impact of hyperscale data centres entirely in this assessment.
This is despite developers claiming hyperscale AI data centres are ‘green data centres’ to get a preferential hearing from planning authorities.
‘Green data centre’ is a term associated with one of Scotland’s ‘Priority Developments’ in National Planning Framework 4.
This analysis has been used as evidence that hyperscale AI data centres do not create emissions in council documents relating to the 213MW data centre in Edinburgh which is currently appealing the refusal of planning permission.
APRS found that the lifecycle greenhouse analysis carried out by the government was carried out in 2022, prior to the launch of ChatGPT and before any hyperscale AI data centres would have been analysed in Scotland.
The Scottish Government believed in 2024 that Scotland had 10MW of co-location data centres (the UK Government estimated it to be 30MW) but the smallest hyperscale AI data centre now coming into the planning system is 200MW, with the largest being 1000MW and 2000MW. It is clear that the ‘green data centres’ that the Scottish Government envisaged in its documented analysis to deal with a marginal increase in device use and use of the internet do not encompass these developments, and they have not been included in their analysis of the climate impacts.
“It is pretty shocking to find out that the vast carbon footprint of hyperscale data centres has been completely excluded from the Government’s greenhouse gas analysis,” Dr Kat Jones, Director of APRS said.
“However it is not surprising because, when our National Planning Framework was being written, ChatGPT had not launched and hyperscale AI data centres simply didn’t exist.
“One can only conclude that the ‘green data centres’ mentioned in Scotland’s planning framework do not include hyperscale AI data centres, and only include the smaller type of data centres used for business, data storage, research and cloud use.”
The UK and Australia will deepen cooperation on AI security and safety when Ministers meet in Canberra as both nations move to stay ahead of emerging threats from powerful AI systems.
Under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the UK AI Security Institute and Australian Safety Institute will work together to track the latest developments in frontier AI – including how these systems could be used in cyber-attacks, as well as how they can strengthen defences.
The partnership will see both countries share insights on AI capabilities, carry out research into emerging risks, and work together to develop international best practice for testing and evaluating AI systems – principles to help guide those working to ensure AI behaves as intended.
It will also open the door to staff exchanges between the two institutes, strengthening day to day collaboration. The agreement builds on the strong and deep ties that the UK and Australia already share, bringing that cooperation into the AI era at a moment when the technology is evolving at pace. Working closely with key allies will be critical managing these risks, while ensuring AI can be harnessed to safely drive growth and improve lives.
The UK’s AI Minister Kanishka Narayan will sign the agreement alongside Australia’s Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, Dr Andrew Charlton.
“Australia and the UK have always worked closely to keep our people safe – and that partnership matters more than ever in the age of AI,” UK AI Minister, Kanishka Narayan, said.
“This technology is moving fast, and so are the risks that come with it – particularly in areas like cyber security. No country can tackle that alone.
“By working hand in hand with trusted partners such as Australia, we can stay ahead of the risks, strengthen our defences and make sure AI is used to improve lives for Brits and Aussies alike.”
Tech firms are agreeing to new anti-grooming measures to better protect UK children online, though Ofcom notes that some tech firms are still lacking in their protections.
Snap, Meta and Roblox have confirmed to the regulator that they will bring in new safety measures designed to better protect children from online strangers who wish them harm – ranging from tighter default settings for children’s contacts and friendship groups, to AI detection tools and direct chat controls.
These new commitments are included in a report, published today, which confirms how major platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snap, TikTok and YouTube – have responded to Ofcom’s demands in March to urgently strengthen protections for children online.
However, the regulator is still concerned about the lack of action from some platforms to make their feeds safer. Similarly, Ofcom is not convinced that the commitments from platforms with a strict minimum age of 13 will effectively prevent underage children from accessing their services.
Notably, TikTok and YouTube failed to commit to any significant changes to reduce harmful content being served to children, maintaining their feeds are already safe for children.
Ofcom’s evidence, however, suggests that these platforms are still not safe enough.
Since the children’s online safety duties came into force in July 2025, there has been little change in children’s overall exposure to harmful content, with nearly three-quarters of 11- to 17-year-olds (73%) encountering it in a four-week period.
Just over a third (35%) of these children recalled exposure to harmful content when they were ‘scrolling on their feed’.
Half of secondary school aged children who see harmful content recall coming across it on TikTok (53%), followed by YouTube (excluding YouTube kids) (36%), Instagram (34%), and Facebook (31%).
Despite acknowledging the importance of minimum age policies, none of the companies with a minimum age of 13 on their services convinced us that they are currently enforcing them effectively and the impact is clear. Our latest research shows that 84% of children aged 8–12 are still using one of the top five reaching online services (YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat) despite a minimum age of 13.
Ofcom has laid out a five point action plan to hold tech firms to account:
Monitoring the implementation of services’ new commitments to ensure they work in practice to better protect children.
Continuing to review evidence on recommender feeds and explore whether to use new inspection powers, with a further update in July.
Launching enforcement action where we have grounds to suspect non-compliance with the Online Safety Act.
Continuing to monitor the real-world experiences of children online through our world-class research.
Engaging with Government on the outcome of its consultation so that enforcement of minimum age policies under online safety laws can be strengthened where needed.
“These changes have the potential to make children’s lives safer online,” Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s Chief Executive said.
“Ofcom’s sustained public and private pressure on the tech platforms where children spend most time has delivered some significant safety improvements – particularly against grooming.
“However, more change is needed, and we remain deeply concerned that, despite overwhelming evidence of harm, companies are still failing to take the necessary action to keep underage children off their platforms and make their feeds safer.
“We are determined to force through further changes, using the full extent of our powers and influence. We will also bring our evidence and experience to bear as the government considers responses to its national conversation on children’s safety and social media.”
CodeBase has partnered with Cork-based Republic of Work to drive cross-border startup growth.
The ‘Celtic Link’ pilot programme launched this week aims to help tech companies from Scotland and Ireland scale beyond their own home markets, opening the door to new investors, workspaces, networks, and mentors, while creating a fast, accessible pipeline for talent, collaboration, and innovation between the two regions.
Located in the centre of Cork, Republic of Work is a leading international innovation hub.
As a gateway for international companies entering the EU, it provides comprehensive infrastructure and access to national and international programmes.
Frank Brennan, CEO and owner of Republic of Work, said: “Celtic Link is about creating a low-cost, high impact corridor for our founders.
By partnering with CodeBase and its Techscaler network, we are giving Cork startups a home in Scotland and providing Scottish firms with a clear, supported path into the EU single market through Cork.”
CodeBase is a leading tech ecosystem support organisation helping to build and grow tech startups and scaleups, and delivers Techscaler, the Scottish Government’s tech startup support programme, a programme that has supported over 1,500 startups to date.
Edinburgh-headquartered CodeBase focuses on early stage pathways for startups, high growth and scaleup support, and operates across the UK and internationally.
Helen Tate, Head of Strategic Partnerships at CodeBase, said: “Our partnership with Republic of Work gives Scottish founders access to an internationally recognised network in Ireland as they look to expand into the wider EU Market.
“We’re excited to welcome founders from Cork and support them in establishing a pathway into the UK market through Scotland.”
CodeBase is bringing a cohort of Scotland-based tech founders to Dublin Tech Summit (27-28 May), where CodeBase COO Richard Lennox will host a roundtable and a dedicated session for Ireland-based CTOs.
Richard Lennox said “Scotland’s best founders don’t need permission to go international, they need an open door. Ireland is one of Europe’s most connected tech markets, and we’re pushing that door open together.”
Educational establishments investing in AI are allocating two-thirds of infrastructure budgets toward data, storage and compute to power AI applications, but are struggling to see a positive return on their investments.
This is according to the fourth annual 2026 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index explores how organisations are managing rising infrastructure costs, scaling AI projects, and strengthening data security, highlighting a growing disconnect between AI investment and efficiency in the industry.
Based on global survey data from 1,700 business and IT respondents, including 241 respondents within the education sector, the study has uncovered key findings over the past three years on buying behavior, user satisfaction, and the impact of hyperscaler fee structures on storage costs.
AI Ambitions Hit Roadblocks
It found that AI ambitions in the education secretary are high but infratructure cost and efficiency are major roadblocks.
There is little hesitation in investment: Nearly all (98%) education organisations expect their AI infrastructure budgets to either increase or remain unchanged over the next year, with 46% planning to increase spending.
A large share of that infrastructure spend (67%) will go to data, storage and compute to run AI applications.
Costs associated with AI are not just high, they’re unpredictable, with 50% citing data storage challenges, like the cost of storage and data access, as the number one challenge associated with AI project and solution implementation.
Just 37% of AI projects currently in place are achieving positive returns. However, education IT decision makers’ expectations for future results show this rate increasing to 47% over the just the next 12 months – an indication of sector demand to achieve positive ROI soon.
“Education institutions are eager to dive head-first into AI, but the survey data illustrates a concerning trend regarding expectations vs. fiscal realities,” said Andrew Smith, director of strategy and market intelligence at Wasabi Technologies and a former IDC analyst.
“To ensure long-term success of AI initiatives, IT buyers in education must consider both the technical challenges associated with their data (i.e., storage, migration, quality); as well as the long-term cost-efficiency of accessing, retaining, and securing this data.
“Avoiding costly, budget-breaking fees from hyperscaler infrastructure services should be a priority.”
Cloud Costs
The report found that cloud storage fees consume a growing share of budgets and spending.
The proportion of spending on fee-related charges such as data egress, API operations, and access—compared to actual storage capacity—has risen year over year in the education sector.
In 2026, these fees accounted for 54% of cloud storage spending among education respondents, up four percentage points (50%) from 2025.
As organisations in education access, analyse, and utilise their data more frequently, it is increasingly difficult to predict fees.
This surge in data activity drives higher storage retrieval, API, and egress fees—making spending harder to control.
As a result, 41% of education respondents reported exceeding their public cloud storage budgets last year, signaling a shift from storage being a predictable infrastructure cost to a more variable and impossible-to-manage expense.
Data Maturity, Confidence Gaps
Education has a cyber resilience confidence gap. Fewer than half of institutions (47%) feel completely confident in their ability to keep data unaltered and operational after an attack, pointing to a broader lack of confidence and potentially trust in recovery capabilities for the majority of education respondents.
With 44% of education respondents reporting loss of access to public cloud data due to a cyberattack, this threat remains a persistent, real-world issue.
Progress is being made, with 63% of education respondents using immutability to protect their data in the public cloud, an increase from 49% last year; pointing to a movement toward implementation of stronger data protection mechanisms.
Three in four UK businesses (75%) are concerned about the cyber risks arising from their vendors and suppliers using Artificial Intelligence (AI), yet only 28% of AI-using businesses have taken steps to assess or audit their third-party suppliers’ AI systems, new research from business insurer QBE reveals.
Using AI is now standard practice for UK businesses, with 97% already using it or looking into it, up from 95% last year. Despite this, only 35% of AI-using businesses have a formal AI usage or governance policy.
QBE warns the growing gap between AI adoption and risk management means businesses could be exposed through their supply chains at a time where cyber threats are accelerating.
Both the number of UK businesses experiencing cyber events, and the number linking those to supply chain, are increasing.
The share of UK businesses that experienced a cyber event in the last 12 months rose from 53% in 2025 to 59% in 2026. Among those affected, 59% reported supplier-related events (up from 56%), with 22% saying that all or most of the attacks they suffered involved a supplier.
“AI is now commonplace for UK businesses. While this brings commercial benefits, it also increases cyber risks, especially across supply chains,” David Warr, Portfolio Manager – Cyber, QBE Europe, said.
“Our research reveals that three in four businesses recognise this risk, but only a small proportion are checking how their suppliers are using AI. This widening gap is concerning. Even with robust internal controls, an organisation could be exposed to attack through a third party with weaker defences.
“As AI adoption accelerates, businesses need to address this emerging risk. Auditing the supply chain is now a key responsibility of cyber risk management.”
The financial consequences and business interruption are also worsening year-on-year. Among businesses that experienced a cyber event, the proportion suffering revenue loss rose from 50% in 2025 to 59% in 2026. Of all UK businesses, 22% experienced a cyber event that caused a disruption of more than one working day, up from 16% in 2025.
Concern about cyber threats remains high, with 82% of UK businesses saying they are concerned about the threats they may face over the next 12 months. A new type of risk seems to be emerging, with 23% of UK businesses experiencing a cyber incident which they believe leveraged AI. The most commonly reported methods included phishing (49%), malware (46%) and Business Email Compromise (42%).
UK businesses are responding to the changing cyber risk landscape with increased investment. Indeed, 79% expect their IT cybersecurity budget to increase over the next 12 months (up from 74% in 2025), with 32% planning increases beyond the rate of inflation.
Edinburgh-based startup stampfree.ai has successfully raised £1,029,968 in new investment, strengthening the company’s mission to modernise ecommerce logistics through social media customer experiences and AI label-free parcel technology.
The round includes continued backing from long-term investor R42 Group, who have supported stampfree.ai in every fundraising round to date, alongside strong participation from other existing and new investors including the crowdfunding communities on Crowdcube and Republic.
The raise follows a transformative 12 months for stampfree.ai, marked by major commercial and technology milestones across ecommerce returns, carrier integrations, and intellectual property development.
Most notably, the company launched what it believes to be a world-first ecommerce returns journey managed entirely through WhatsApp, powered by its appfree platform. The innovation enables consumers to manage returns seamlessly within WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, removing the friction of downloading apps or navigating complex return portals.
Over the past year, stampfree.ai has also completed appfree integrations with major delivery networks including Royal Mail and Evri, helping retailers streamline customer communication and parcel return experiences.
Alongside its appfree progress, the company secured both EU and US patents for its proprietary AI-powered labelfree technology, off the back of its UK patent, which allows consumers to send parcels and ecommerce returns without printing or attaching labels. The technology is already live in a number of regions including deployment with QazPost in Kazakhstan.
“This latest investment round was once again hugely oversubscribed, reflecting the confidence both of existing and new investors in stampfree.ai as we utilise AI to revolutionise parcel shipping technology,” said Hugh Craigie Halkett, CEO & Founder of stampfree.ai.
“The ecommerce industry still relies on outdated customer journeys, printed labels, and app downloads. We’re building technology that makes parcel sending and returns radically simpler for consumers, whilst increasing market share for carriers/retailers and reducing their operational costs.”
The new funding will support continued product development, international expansion, strategic partnerships, and further deployment of stampfree.ai’s appfree and labelfree technologies across global postal and ecommerce networks.
As ecommerce continues to evolve, and utilising AI, stampfree.ai is positioning itself at the forefront of conversational and social commerce, customer experience automation, and next-generation parcel infrastructure.
Infrawatch, founded by Edinburgh local Lloyd Davies, announced it has raised a $3 million pre-seed round to build the Internet Infrastructure Intelligence Layer, a new category of cybersecurity platform.
The round was co-led by Outward VC and Triple Point Ventures, with participation from Portfolio Ventures and leading fintech and cyber angel investors.
Founded by Lloyd Davies and built by a team of CrowdStrike, Recorded Future, and Intel 471 alumni, Infrawatch gives security, fraud, and investigations teams real-time visibility into the infrastructure powering cyberattacks, fraud & scams, phishing, and online abuse.
The new funding will support Infrawatch’s next stage of growth, including expansion of its engineering and research teams, accelerated platform development ahead of general launch later this year, early enterprise customer deployments, and the company’s expansion into the United States on the back of strong inbound interest from security, fraud, and intelligence teams based there.
Davies founded Infrawatch stemming from extensive experience in security research and threat intelligence, including roles in PwC’s security intelligence team and CrowdStrike’s specialist team focused on nation-state threats. Having seen first-hand how adversaries use internet infrastructure to operate, and how poorly existing tools help defenders understand this threat vector, he set out to build a new intelligence layer for the internet.
Infrawatch will continue to publish security intelligence research informed by its own intelligence capabilities as part of the company’s mission to support the wider security community.
“I know from first-hand experience how broken infrastructure intelligence is today: fragmented data, noisy feeds, and taped-together workflows, where ‘real-time’ detection often means static daily updates in practice,” Lloyd Davies, Founder and CEO of Infrawatch, said.
“Enterprises cannot keep up by patching together narrow intelligence feeds while the internet changes beneath them. That is why we built Infrawatch from the ground up: to turn one of the most underutilised aspects of cybersecurity into a practical defence layer that empowers defenders to act earlier and stop threats before they reach their customers, users or systems.”
Sam Stone, an investor at Triple Point Ventures, said: “While AI lowers the bar to carrying out cyber crime and drives up attack volumes, attackers at scale still depend on infrastructure to operate.
“We think Infrawatch offers the very best solution for society’s critical organisations to identify, understand, and disrupt that infrastructure. Lloyd and team have the depth of knowledge, experience, and technical ability to shake up the industry with a solution defenders desperately need to keep companies and people protected. We’re proud to back that vision.”
Seven in 10 of the UK public are worried about the economic impacts of AI, six in 10 think it will eliminate more jobs than it creates, half think its impact will be worse than a normal recession – and one in five think it will create civil unrest.
People are particularly worried about the impacts on entry-level jobs and young people more generally: nearly six in 10 agree with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 2025 prediction that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years.
New research by King’s College London’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Policy Institute finds that while fear of AI’s impact on jobs and society is widespread and cuts across every group, there is somewhat less concern about the impact on people’s own jobs, and some groups are more excited about the positive impacts, particularly employers, men generally and male undergraduate students in particular.
The study, the first wave of a major new tracker on attitudes to AI and The Future of Work, surveyed four groups: a 2,000 representative sample of the general public; a 1,000 sample of young people aged 16-29; 1,000 university students; and 500 employers.
According to the research, half of the public (48%) would rather avoid AI, 41% are afraid of it and only 24% think it’s positive for humanity, compared with 39% who disagree.
Despite this, more say they will (43%), rather than won’t (26%) use it in the future – and men (30%), university students (43%) and particularly male university students (52%) say it is a positive for humanity.
The majority of parents of 11-to-29-year-olds have not engaged with their children on AI – though around three in 10 have discussed career implications and encouraged their children how to use AI tools.
AI and the Future of Work
Seven in 10 workers (69%) are worried about the economic impact of AI job losses – and this concern is just as strong among employers (64%).
Most of the public (57%) think AI will lead to widespread unemployment, with only 17% believing it will create as many or more jobs — compared with nearly half of employers (48%) who take that more optimistic view.
One in five (22%) believe AI will eliminate jobs fast enough to cause civil unrest – rising to a third among university students (34%).
Most of the public (56%) and employers (59%) agree with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s 2025 prediction that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within 5 years.
The public are much less convinced by the World Economic Forum prediction that AI will create twice as many jobs as it displaces by 2030: only 25% agree, although employers are again more positive (47%).
The majority of all groups predict that AI’s economic benefits will mainly go to wealthy investors and large companies, rather than workers or society as a whole (65% of the public and 58% of employers).
There is, however, some optimism: 69% of employers are excited about new job opportunities opening up as a result of AI, as are most university students (56%). However, only 35% of workers and 28% of the overall public feel the same.
And, again more positively, most workers are not worried about AI replacing their own job (55%) – although one in 5 graduate workers (19%) are very worried.
AI Taking Effect
While predictions on how AI will affect society and the economy range, how is the emerging technology already impacting the world?
When it comes to cognition, people are much more likely to think that other people’s ability to think has been negatively affected by AI (60% think this is the case) than their own ability (only 27% think this about themselves).
Male university students are the most confident that AI is improving their ability to think for themselves (41%) – and female university students are most likely to think it’s worsening (46%).
Nine in 10 students (89%) who use AI for their studies have encountered problems with it – most commonly factual errors (37%) and made-up sources (31%) – with this causing a serious or moderate problem for 45% of them.
The public underestimate AI’s current reach into the workforce: people guess that 35% of UK workers are in jobs with tasks that AI could potentially perform or enhance, while, the International Monetary Fund estimates that it’s twice this at 70%.
When asked about AI’s main impact on jobs, employers are much more likely to say it is mainly assisting workers (56%) than replacing them (12%), in contrast with public who are more likely to say that AI is replacing workers (32%) than assisting them (24%).
Half of workers who use AI (47%) say it has made no real difference to whether they are better or worse at their job – in contrast to employers, where nearly 9 in 10 (86%) say they seen at least modest improvements in productivity.
A fifth of employers (22%) have already made roles redundant or reduced hiring because of AI – rising to 29% among large organisations.
Almost two thirds (64%) of employers say investors, shareholders or senior leadership are encouraging them to use AI – with fewer than one in 10 (9%) saying they are discouraged
Despite the growth of AI, 8 in 10 current university students (78%) would still choose to do a degree – but 3 in 10 (30%) would switch to a different subject.
“These findings tell us something important: the British public isn’t asking us to slow down on AI, they’re asking us to do it better,” Professor Elena Simperl, Director of The King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, King’s College London, said.
“People want these tools, they want more of them, and they’ve used them enough to know where they fall short. Employers see creative thinking as the top benefit AI can offer, ahead of productivity, but the public and the experts both doubt that today’s tools deliver this.
“That puts a real onus on those of us building and deploying AI to make systems that genuinely support learning, creativity, and critical thinking, and honestly, too few people in the sector are working seriously on this.
“Moreover, women seem to be more cautious about AI than men. That should make us ask who we are designing for, and who is being left out of the conversation.”
Shareholder litigation accounted for £3.7 billion of the £11.7 billion total cost of cyber-attacks to large UK businesses in 2025, according to new research from leading global insurance brokerage, Gallagher and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
The numbers are modelled on a scenario where each affected firm incurs the cost of its most severe cyber incident.
Litigation was the second largest cost after £5.4 billion in direct losses from disrupted trading. Lost assets, including intellectual property, added a further £1.3 billion to company losses, while regulatory fines totalled £108 million.
By contrast, the immediate cost of responding to an attack was much lower.
Businesses spent £226 million on external support, including forensic specialists, consultants and technical remediation, while businesses lost £51 million in internal labour costs from staff time which was diverted to manage the incident and restore systems.
Together, these response costs are only a small share of the total financial impact. The far larger exposure now lies in the legal and reputational consequences that follow, with shareholder action and class actions emerging as significant financial risks for directors.
The cost of getting it wrong
When cyber incidents escalate, the costs extend well beyond the initial disruption. In 2025 alone, businesses incurred £573 million in reputational damage and £339 million in the resulting lost customer goodwill[ii] on top of direct disruption and litigation costs.
These losses are driven by long-term effects, like investor reaction, weakened market confidence and prolonged commercial disruption, rather than the immediate technical breach.
With the risks of cyber-attacks on large UK businesses remaining very high, even a 5% rise in the financial impact of these, including disruption, shareholder claims and recovery costs, could push total annual losses beyond £12 billion in 2026.
Insurance confidence remains misplaced
Despite the scale of losses, most large UK businesses believe they are protected as nearly nine in ten (88%) have purchased cyber insurance.
Cover is most effective in the immediate aftermath with 72% of businesses insured for costs arising from the interruption, 76% for data recovery and forensic investigation and the technical clean-up that follows a breach.
However, a lot of the emerging litigation costs sit elsewhere. Only 59% have cover for third-party legal claims, and fewer than half (49%) are insured for regulatory fines or GDPR penalties.
While 86% of firms carry directors’ & officers’ insurance, many policies restrict cover where incidents are linked to governance failings, meaning firms should check with their broker which insurance policy will cover them for these costs.
“For years, boards have measured cyber risk in terms of system downtime and IT recovery however the risk doesn’t end when the attack is over,” Laura Parris, Executive Director of Financial Lines at Gallagher, said.
“As the high-profile attacks on high street retailers last year show, the legal, financial and reputational fallout can drag on for months.
“In the US, breaches have gone even further, triggering costly shareholder lawsuits focused entirely onboard oversight and disclosure. With cyber governance under growing scrutiny, our research shows UK boards are not immune to losses on a similar scale either.
“Many organisations take comfort in the fact they have cyber insurance in place. But as the risk profile evolves and becomes more complex, having a policy is not the same as being fully protected.
“If boards aren’t actively testing how their cyber and directors’ & officers’ insurance respond to cyber-triggered claims, they may find that the liabilities that hurt most are the ones that aren’t fully insured.”
Worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.59 trillion in 2026, a 47% increase year-over-year, according to Gartner.
“Through the next several years, the need for capacity will make AI infrastructure, including AI-optimised IaaS, AI-optimised servers, AI network fabric, AI processing semiconductors and devices, the largest segment of the market, accounting for over 45% of spending, which will be driven by vendors,” said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.
“Within this segment, spending on AI-optimised servers will triple over the next five years to become the largest subsegment, as cloud services providers expand capacity in anticipation of the workloads created by GenAI models and agentic workflows.”
Enterprises will expand their use of both the GenAI models embedded in existing software applications and the new AI agents within multiple workflows.
Model consumption will increase through multistep processes and integration into broad suites of tools as enterprises recognise the potential value of agentic automation.
This dynamic means that the short-term outlook for AI models has been increased to 110% growth in 2026, adding $6 billion in spending for this year.
“Up to this point, AI spending has primarily been driven by technology companies and hyperscalers,” said Lovelock.
“Enterprises have yet to really flex their spending potential. That is coming and 2026 will be the inflection year. Currently, organisations show limited appetite for using AI to drive disruptive enterprise change. Instead, they favor tactical AI initiatives with incremental improvements in efficiency and productivity.
“For this reason, CIOs face challenges in proving the value from AI investments and demonstrate tangible business outcomes,” said Lovelock.
“Aligning AI initiatives with strategic business objectives is the essential step for success. This incremental approach persists despite AI hype and valuations that reflect aspirations to transform the broader economy.”
Worldwide AI Spending by Market, 2025-2027 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
Market
2025
2026
2027
AI Services
436,351
585,527
759,418
AI Cybersecurity
25,920
51,347
85,997
AI Software
282,897
453,209
638,431
AI Models
15,494
32,604
59,161
AI Platforms for Data Science and Machine Learning
Alphabet is partnering with Blackstone, the asset manager, to form an AI cloud business aiming to corner the market on growing computing demand as AI booms.
The deal will see Blackston investing $5 billion in equity to Google initially, bringing in 500 megawatt of data centre capacity by 2027. Expansion on both these fronts is planned as well.
The new venture will provide data centre capacity, as well as Google’s own custom AI chips, positioning itself as a compute-as-a-service model.
According to reports from Bloomberg, the total investment could reach $25 billion.
The new firm’s CEO will be Benjamin Sloss, a Google executive.
The new venture aims to meet skyrocketing demand for AI chips – known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) – by offering a centralised service for accessing the full scope for compute, from data centres to chips.
Google has been successful in the market so far, attracting big ticket customers like Anthropic with its custom AI chips and business stack.
But the cloud and AI chip sphere is highly competitive – from AWS and Microsoft dominate overall cloud deployments, and NVIDIA continues to see its shares skyrocket as it triumphs in the AI chip race.
Despite fear that the AI bubble may burst, Blackstone has increased investments into AI infrastructure, from data centres to energy generation.
Spending in AI has transformed from investing and major deals with firms developing frontier models to funding in the infrastructure backing AI, from updating energy grids to outfitting new data centres.
These require not only large influxes of up front investment for construction, but supply chain coordinate and often, government and public backing.
While the UK as classified data centres as critical national infrastructure, concerns over their impact on the local environment, the wider climate, and energy demand, has seen local councils hesistant to approve data centre building plans in the country.
Cybersecurity is considered one of the top strategic priorities for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide, but many organisations remain exposed to attacks despite rising investment, according to new research commissioned by Sage, the leader in accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology for SMBs.
The study, conducted by IDC and titledSMBs in the Age of AI: Navigating cyber complexity and building resilience, based on a global survey of 2,210 SMBs, found that over half (52%) rank cyber security and data protection among their top business priorities for the next 12 months, second only to growth (59%) and well ahead of scaling AI adoption (33%). Six in ten SMBs (60%) also expect to increase cyber security spending over the same period.
Despite this momentum, many SMBs remain vulnerable to cyber-attacks, with one in two experiencing an incident or data breach in the last year. This highlights a resilience gap between SMBs prioritising cyber security and the realities of how effectively it is embedded in day-to-day operations.
Only 13% of micro businesses and 21% of small businesses describe their cyber security approach as proactive, compared with 48% of medium‑sized organisations, leaving smaller firms more vulnerable to disruption.
Most SMBs report using baseline protections such as email security (79%), endpoint protection (67%) and regular patching and data backup (71%). Yet far fewer carry out staff training and phishing simulations (50%), train employees consistently or test incident response plans (36%), limiting the real‑world effectiveness of these investments when incidents occur.
As SaaS platforms become central to operations, security monitoring often remains infrequent. Among micro businesses, 43% do not conduct regular or continuous monitoring of third-party vendors, creating blind spots across increasingly complex digital ecosystems.
AI accelerates pressure on already stretched security
AI adoption is intensifying cyber security pressure for SMBs, with readiness lagging behind risk. Eight in ten (81%) of SMBs are not prepared or remain in the early stages of preparedness for AI-related threats, while nearly a quarter (22%) have yet to implement dedicated protections for AI applications.
The gap is even more pronounced among smaller firms. Among micro businesses, 84% say they are either unprepared or only at an early stage of readiness, with many lacking specific safeguards as AI use grows.
The gaps are pronounced by business size too. The research found that 63% of medium-sized businesses see AI as a business opportunity, but only 23% of small businesses and 9% of micro businesses agree.
For SMB customers, Sage is focused on making cyber security more accessible by embedding security into the design of everyday software from the outset, backed by continuous testing, secure coding practices aligned to OWASP standards, and ongoing security training for engineers.
Sage also works with industry bodies, partners and government initiatives, including the UK Government’s Software Security Ambassadors Scheme, to support practical, accessible cyber security approaches that strengthen resilience across the wider SMB ecosystem.
“Many SMBs are excited about the potential of AI but want simple, practical ways to adopt it securely as threats become more sophisticated. Businesses should not have to choose between innovation and security,” Gustavo Zeidan, Chief Information Security Officer at Sage, said. “By making cyber security easier to implement through secure-by-design products, clearer guidance and collaboration across industry and government, we can help SMBs build resilience, innovate securely and grow at pace.”
Joel Stradling, Senior Research Director, European Security at IDC, said: “The research suggests many SMBs still believe they are not a prime target for cyberattacks, despite threats becoming more sophisticated and widespread.
“IDC recommends SMBs embed cybersecurity into AI initiatives from the outset and take an organisation-wide approach to cyber resilience. Businesses that close the gap between growth ambitions and security readiness will be best placed to build long-term digital trust with customers, partners and investors.”
UK Cyber Security Minister Baroness Lloyd said: “Small and medium-sized businesses are under growing pressure from cyber threats, and AI is making that challenge more urgent. But strong cyber resilience does not always mean expensive or complicated action. It starts with getting the basics right.
“That is why the National Cyber Security Centre’s Cyber Action Toolkit and our Cyber Essentials scheme are so important. They give smaller firms clear, practical ways to strengthen their defences against common online threats, helping them build resilience and reduce the risk of serious disruption. I urge all SMEs to take up these valuable protections.”
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has produced new guidance surrounding agentic AI and its cyber risks.
The new blog notes that the autonomous and complex nature of agentic systems make them more dangerous and introduces new risks to the cyber and AI landscapes.
The NCSC is warning organisations to be wary of giving agentic AI models wider access to data, tools, and external systems, as this could lead to unpredictable outcomes.
Agentic AI’s speed, while an asset, also makes it harder to spot problems as it moves faster than humans can meaningfully review it.
The model’s actions are also difficult to fully explain, due to the range of behaviours and tools available to the agents.
Because of these factors, the NCSC as well as international partners are calling on organisations to approach agentic AI adoption carefully.
Over-privileged or poorly designed agents can turn even a single failure into a serious incident.
Organisations should carefully consider what could go wrong when deploying agentic AI, and should equally reflect if AI is really needed or if a lower-risk solution could be employed.
The NCSC also suggests that organisations deploy agentic AI incrementally, with clearly defined pilots and solid foundations before expansion.
“If you cannot understand, monitor or contain an agent’s actions, it is not ready for deployment,” the guidance insists.
The NCSC further insists on human accountability, meaning that a human must be accountable for the decision to deploy an AI agent, the access it was granted, the safeguards around it, and the consequences of its operation. Crucially, these roles should be defined before the agent is connected to real systems or data. Responsible individuals should also be able to intervene with an agent if necessary.
Finally, the NCSC says organisations should apply best practices when it comes to cybersecurity, including applying least privilege, limiting the agent’s scope, avoiding long-live credentials, and using secure defaults.
Organisations should also understand dependencies, monitor agent behaviour, model threats on the deployment, and plan for incidents.
“Start small, apply existing cyber hygiene and governance from the start and plan for failure (including how you would respond to it),” the NCSC’s blog said.
Financial authorities in the UK are warning firms to take action on the security risks rising as a result of frontier AI.
The Financial Conduct Authority, Bank of England, and the UK government issued a joint warning to the financial sector about the cybersecurity fallouts of frontier AI models – while these models can achieve superior cybersecurity posture, they also can amplify threats if found in the wrong hands.
As the complexity of AI models increase and become more readily available, cyber risks are expected to rise as well.
The introduction of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, an AI model boasting superior vulnerability discovery skills, has sent shockwaves through the cyber ecosystem as security experts and threat actors alike wait intently to test out its capabilities.
“It is essential that firms have effective protective, detective, threat containment and cyber response capabilities including to address faster and more disruptive frontier AI-driven attacks,” the joint statement said.
The statement called on boards and senior management to ensure they have a sufficient understanding of frontier AI risks, with investment and resource decisions reflecting emerging threats.
As AI models increase their capabilities when it comes to vulnerability discovery and exploitation, firms should ensure they can triage, prioritise, risk assess, and remediate vulnerabilities faster, more frequently, and at scale.
Firms should also ensure frontier AI cyber risks are mitigated from third parties and supply chains.
Reducing the attack surface that a frontier AI model may access is essential, requiring effective data protection, network security, and access management.
Accelerated response and recover times are also essential to mitigate new threats, the statement said.
Underinvesting in core cyber fundamentals will see firms being mercilessly exposed by threat actors using AI agents,
There’s only three days until our inaugural AI Business Summit, taking place at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow this Thursday, 21 May!
The newest event from DIGIT welcomes top talent from key players in the emerging, transformative world of AI.
Artificial Intelligence has become the defining technology of our age; from accelerated product innovation to optimised workflows and decision-making – AI has the potential to completely reshape the enterprise.
But despite enormous potential, many businesses are struggling to translate the promise into reality. From difficulties navigating the pace of change, to frontline challenges associated with implementation, upskilling, and scalability.
The AI Business Summit aims to contextualise the rapid evolution of AI, examine tangible examples of optimisation and impact, and explore how to overcome common barriers to genuine RoI.
The event, geared for senior technologists and C-level business leaders, provides an ideal forum for shared learning, discussion, and high-level networking.
Speakers include:
Alan Gray, Principal Engineer, NVIDIA
Samer Sallam, Data Practice Lead, Accenture
Regina Berengolts, Director of Data & AI, Vaul Labs
Martin Paice, Technology Practice Lead, Valcon UK
Simon de Timary, Data Practice Lead, Valcon UK
Scott Ogilvie, Global Director: AI Strategy, Wood Group
Manjula Dissanayake, Head of Data Science & AI, Aberdeen Adviser
Ofcom has responded to commitments made by social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, concerning its commitment to protect UK users from hate and terror content.
The media regulator had accepted X’s commitments, which include expedited time scales for reviewing such content, engaging with experts regarding reporting systems, and taking action against accounts posting on behalf of proscribed terrorist organisations.
As part of the commitments, X will submit performance data to Ofcom on a quarterly basis over a 12-month period so the regulatory can actively monitor the social media firm’s performance against these targets.
“Following intensive engagement carried out by Ofcom’s online safety team, X have committed to implementing stronger protections for UK users, which we will now monitor closely,” Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s Online Safety Group Director, said.
“We have evidence that terrorist content and illegal hate speech is persisting on some of the largest social media sites. We are challenging them to tackle the problem and expect them to take firm action. This is of particular importance in the UK following a number of recent hate motivated crimes suffered by the country’s Jewish community.
“These commitments are a step forward, but there’s a lot more to do. We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from civil society and other expert organisations to scrutinise these platforms, and we’ll continue working with them extensively to drive forward changes for people in the UK.
“Our Grok investigation into X remains ongoing, which is looking at the company’s compliance with duties to deal with illegal content, and the systems it has in place to do that.”
In December, Ofcom launched a compliance programme to assess whether the biggest social media companies have adequate systems and processes for dealing with illegal hate and terror material that has been reported to them.
X continues to face scrutiny for the content shared across its platform, and was found to be a major factor behind the race riots seen across England in August 2024 due to the sharing of mis and disinformation.
It further faces scrutiny for its allowance of different types of hateful content, such as Holocaust-denial posts.
The xAI’s, associated with X and also owned by Elon Mus AI chatbot, Grok, was also seen to have produced and shared antisemitic views across the platform, calling itself Mega Hitler.
The commitment comes after a series of horrendous attacks against the UK’s Jewish community, including an attack on a Synagogue in Manchester in 2025, the attacks on two Jewish men in Golders Green just this April, and recent arson attempts on Jewish sites in London.
Following the 2025 Synagogue attack, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit, found a swath of antisemitic posts on X, including content calling for violence against Jews in the UK.
“X is now part of the UK’s social fabric, and with that comes a civic responsibility to keep the public square safe,” Adam Hadley CBE, Chief Executive of Tech Against Terrorism, said.
“We welcome its public commitment to the people of the United Kingdom to improved targets for removal times of hate and terrorist content, and we stand ready to help any platform serious about making good on similar pledges. This is a powerful example of what constructive dialogue between regulators and platforms can deliver, and we hope it builds momentum for similar collaboration across the sector.”
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a strategic market status (SMS) investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem and set out details of what the investigation will cover. This is the fourth SMS investigation opened by the CMA since the UK’s digital markets competition regime came into force in January 2025.
Hundreds of thousands of UK businesses and public sector organisations use Microsoft’s business software (such as Windows, Word, Excel, Teams and increasingly Copilot) every day, with more than 15 million commercial users across its ecosystem. Microsoft’s ecosystem is therefore important to the productivity of the UK economy.
The business software sector is changing rapidly, with increased AI functionality and a shift towards agentic AI in familiar workplace tools. The UK will benefit most where customers can access the best tools in the market, and mix and match software and AI services from a broad range of competing suppliers. It is therefore important that competition in business software is working well.
The CMA has heard that UK customers may not always be able to effectively combine software from Microsoft with that of other providers, limiting their ability to get access to the best products at the most competitive prices. The CMA’s investigation will examine whether Microsoft has SMS in business software and consider whether it can use that position to limit customer choice. It will assess whether bundling of products, limits in interoperability or default settings can prevent customers switching and weaken the competitive constraints Microsoft faces from rivals. This includes looking at how AI competitors are able to integrate with Microsoft’s business software, giving customers access to AI software across suppliers to best suit their needs.
The investigation will examine Microsoft’s provision of a range of business software products used by UK organisations, including productivity software, personal computer and server operating systems, database management systems and security software.
An SMS designation would also allow the CMA to consider whether to intervene on a key concern from its cloud market investigation – particularly Microsoft’s use of software licensing which was found to be reducing competition in cloud services.
“Business software is a cornerstone of how the UK economy functions, from small businesses to major public services and infrastructure,” Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA said.
“Hundreds of thousands of customers in the UK rely on Microsoft’s systems, which is why it’s so important to ensure these services are delivering good outcomes.
“Our aim is to understand how these markets are developing, Microsoft’s position within them and to consider what, if any, targeted action may be needed to ensure UK organisations can benefit from choice, innovation and competitive prices.”
The CMA’s investigation must be completed in nine months, and the regulator will now focus on engaging wider stakeholders as well as gathering evidence from Microsoft before reaching its decision, expected by February 2027.
A preliminary study by researchers at the University of Strathclyde has highlighted the growing role banks, charities and other organisations play in supporting victims of cyber-crime in Scotland.
The research explored how victims respond to cyber-crime in Scotland and Italy and suggests many Scots affected by cyber-crime who took part in the sample survey seek help from ‘responsibilised non-policing agencies’ – organisations which increasingly play a role in supporting victims and handling reports traditionally associated with policing.
Researchers said this risks making it harder for police to build a clear picture of the scale of the problem, which includes illegal activity involving computers, the internet or network devices. Cyber-criminals commit identity theft, initiate phishing scams, spread malware and instigate other digital attacks.
The study compared cyber-crime reporting behaviour in Scotland and Italy, as neither country has a centralised reporting system. It examined 11 Scottish organisations, four Italian organisations and surveys from 287 victims of cyber-crime across both countries. Among survey participants, researchers found that Scottish victims preferred reporting to banks rather than the police, while Italian victims were more likely to contact the police directly.
The study, which is not peer reviewed, ‘The Role of Responsibilised Non-Policing Agencies in facilitating Italian and Scottish Cybercrime reporting’, was published on the Zenodo open research repository. Researchers say the findings align with a wider trend where preventing and responding to cyber-crime is increasingly shared between individuals, businesses and third-sector organisations rather than solely by the state.
Among Scottish participants, many victims said they reported incidents to banks primarily to recover stolen money, while others avoided police because they believed reporting would be stressful or ineffective.
It also found that some vulnerable groups, including older people, can be reluctant to come forward because of the stigma associated with cyber-crime victimisation.
The researchers also found that Scottish organisations working with cyber-crime victims believed reporting could be improved through greater public awareness, simpler online reporting systems, improved information sharing and reducing the shame associated with being targeted by scams.
Dr Juraj Sikra, co-author of the study and a former PhD researcher at Strathclyde, said: “Victims often blame themselves for falling for scams and removing the stigma around cyber-crime victimisation is crucial if police forces are to understand the true scale, and respond effectively.
“Our research suggests that many victims in Scotland feel more comfortable approaching banks and charities than reporting directly to the police. While these organisations provide valuable support, under-reporting can make it harder for law enforcement to identify patterns and tackle cybercriminal activity.
“The study is a first step towards understanding the issue, and exploring how cybercrime reporting could be improved by closer collaboration between technical experts, charities, businesses, police and researchers, as well as stronger international cooperation to share learning across countries.”
techUK is calling on the Government to regulate digital services according to the risks they present and the features they offer – not by platform label, brand recognition, or size.
The trade association, which represents over 1,100 technology companies across the UK, today sets out its positions on children’s online safety, ahead of the Government’s ‘Growing Up in the Online World’ consultation deadline
The UK already has one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks globally through the Online Safety Act, which is backed by Ofcom-led, service-specific risk assessments. Future action should build on this strong foundation rather than bypassing it, to enhance the safety of children online, techUK says.
On regulatory scope, techUK argues that ‘social media’ is not a coherent regulatory category. Regulation should be based on the specific features a service offers, within the context of its operation, and whether it is accessed by children, rather than on the basis of platform labels or brand recognition.
Drawing regulations too narrowly around a handful of well-known platforms risks redirecting children to less moderated alternatives. Drawing them too widely imposes compliance costs on low-risk services without delivering meaningful safety benefits.
techUK calls on the Government to adopt universal standards, holding all services with relevant features and functionalities that are accessed by children to the same expectations – a stronger, fairer and more future-proof basis than category-by-category definitions.
That feature-based approach is best delivered through Ofcom’s risk-based supervision under the Online Safety Act, which can assess how features operate within a given service and adjust obligations accordingly. By contrast, statutory feature bans imposed in primary legislation would apply uniformly regardless of context. techUK believes such an approach would struggle to keep pace with how technology evolves, and risk displacing harm to less moderated environments.
Instead, techUK supports the consultation’s focus on business models rather than individual features as the stronger basis for regulation. It supports the case for harder requirements on clearly high-risk functions, such as direct messaging with strangers, where evidence of harm is well established and existing platform measures have proved insufficient.
On AI chatbots, techUK calls on the Government to draw a clear regulatory distinction between standalone conversational AI services and AI features embedded within other products. A companion chatbot designed to simulate emotional intimacy is categorically different from an AI tutoring tool embedded in a school platform. Treating these services as equivalent risks over-regulating tools with genuine educational value while potentially under-scrutinising those that require the closest attention.
On age assurance, techUK’s position is that verification requirements should be explicitly calibrated to the sensitivity of the features and content being accessed, functioning as an enabler of proportionate access rather than a uniform restriction applied regardless of what a service offers.
Verification should match the level of risk involved to access explicit content but not needing this verification to access a content feed. A framework without such calibration will burden ordinary users as much as children, without delivering meaningfully better safety outcomes for those it is intended to protect.
techUK also calls on the Government to prioritise a national approach to interoperability, so that age assurance credentials verified on one platform do not need to be re-verified on another – reducing friction for users while maintaining consistent standards across services.
“Children’s online safety must be delivered by policies that are grounded in how technology actually works – not by platform labels or blanket service bans that risk moving children to less safe spaces rather than making the online world safer,” Antony Walker, deputy CEO of techUK said.
“The Online Safety Act was built to keep pace with new technologies and new harms. That is the foundation we should be strengthening, not bypassing. By focusing on how services operate and supporting innovation in areas like AI and age assurance, we can create a safer, more positive online experience that genuinely prioritises children’s wellbeing.”
OpenAI said that it found no evidence that a supply chain attack on open-source library TanStack npm accessed any of its user data.
The AI firm said that it found no evidence that the attack impacted its intellectual property or production systems, with no evidence that its software was compromised or changed.
However, two employee devices were impacted by the TanStack breach; these were on OpenAI’s corporate environment.
OpenAI said that only limited credential material was exfiltrated from these corporate code repositories, insisting that no other code or data was impacted as a result of the third-party attack.
The ChatGPT founder said that it took immediate steps to isolate the impacted systems, restriction code deployment workflows temporarily to contain the attack.
The firm said that macOS users will be required to update their OpenAI applications as it is rotating its code-signing certificates in response to the breach.
Quantexa has been awarded a £175 million, 10-year partnership by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to modernise its data foundation and enable sovereign, governed AI at national scale in one of the public sector’s largest Decision Intelligence deployments.
The initiative will seek to drive efficiency across key workflows, protect public funds, and enhance the customer experience for the UK taxpayer. HMRC has also seen an uptick in dissatisfaction from the public; 2024-2025 saw the tax collector gain 93,000 complaints according to a Freedom of Information request.
This programme will support the modernisation of HMRC’s core data infrastructure, giving the UK’s tax authority a clearer, connected view of its data to improve performance, help identify tax at risk, and strengthen control.
It also lays the groundwork for advanced AI capabilities and supports wider transformation efforts; from closing the tax gap to delivering faster, more seamless customer service.
Public sector organisations are accelerating digital transformation while needing to maintain sovereignty, auditability and control.
Vishal Marria, Founder & CEO, Quantexa: “Governments around the world are facing a common challenge: how to turn complex, fragmented data into confident, timely decisions. By creating context from data and embedding trusted, governed AI, we are helping HMRC improve how public sector organizations make confident, informed decisions. This is a blueprint for how the UK government deploys AI at scale.”
The appointment of a UK-based company is more in line with government initiatives to put British companies first after MPs raised their concerns over government contracts continually going to foreign-based tech companies.
Quantexa secured a $2.6 billion valuation just last year following a $175 million series F; the firm achieved unicorn status in 2023.
AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said: “Quantexa is at the forefront of British innovation, developing the technologies we need to power next generation digital public services that are smarter and more secure. This partnership will help HMRC to deploy AI safely at scale, bringing its data together to support better decisions, improve efficiency and deliver a stronger service for taxpayers.
“By using advanced data tools to identify risks and automate routine tasks, HMRC can focus its efforts where they matter most. This is a practical step that paves the way for a better service for taxpayers.”
Ceri Morgan, HM Trade Commissioner for Europe, said: “This announcement underscores the strength of the UK’s advanced data and AI ecosystem, and its relevance to governments around the world. Quantexa’s work with HMRC shows how UK-developed technology can deliver impact at national scale—supporting more efficient public services, safeguarding revenues, and enhancing the taxpayer experience. It’s exactly the kind of innovation we are keen to share with international partners.”
There’s just one week left until our inaugural AI Business Summit, taking place at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow on 21 May!
The newest event from DIGIT welcomes top talent from key players in the emerging, transformative world of AI.
Artificial intelligence has become the defining technology of our age; from accelerated product innovation to optimised workflows and decision-making – AI has the potential to completely reshape the enterprise.
But despite enormous potential, many businesses are struggling to translate the promise into reality. From difficulties navigating the pace of change, to frontline challenges associated with implementation, upskilling, and scalability.
The AI Business Summit aims to contextualise the rapid evolution of AI, examine tangible examples of optimisation and impact, and explore how to overcome common barriers to genuine ROI.
The event, geared for senior technologists and C-level business leaders, provides an ideal forum for shared learning, discussion, and high-level networking.
Speakers include:
Alan Gray, Principal Engineer, NVIDIA
Samer Sallam, Data Practice Lead, Accenture
Regina Berengolts, Director of Data & AI, Vaul Labs
Martin Paice, Technology Practice Lead, Valcon UK
Simon de Timary, Data Practice Lead, Valcon UK
Scott Ogilvie, Global Director: AI Strategy, Wood Group
Manjula Dissanayake, Head of Data Science & AI, Aberdeen Adviser
Isomorphic Labs, a London-founded and headquartered company, using AI to design and develop new medicines, has been named as the latest firm to receive investment from the UK Government’s Sovereign AI Fund.
The investment forms part of a fundraise announced by Isomorphic Labs today, as it scales up its work to tackle some of the world’s most serious diseases.
The company, founded by Nobel Prize-winner Sir Demis Hassabis, is reimagining drug discovery, with AI at its core.
Launched just last month, Sovereign AI is the government’s big bet on promising early-stage AI companies to help them grow, scale and succeed from Britain, offering a range of backing to high-potential AI businesses that are starting out here in the UK.
“Isomorphic Labs’ ground-breaking work has the potential to reshape completely how medicines are discovered – cutting years off development and giving real hope to people living with devastating diseases. This is AI at its very best – pushing the boundaries of innovation to improve people’s lives,” science and technology secretary Liz Kendall said.
“Britain has a proud history of world-changing medical breakthroughs – from penicillin to MRI scanners. Now in the AI era, we are backing a brilliant UK firm working on another huge jump forward in science to the benefit of people across the country and around the world.”
Isomorphic’s work builds on the breakthrough success of AlphaFold: the AI model developed by DeepMind that sent shockwaves through the world of science through its ability to accurately predict the structures of proteins – which are the chemical building blocks of all life on Earth.
Isomorphic Labs is going beyond AlphaFold, developing a number of proprietary breakthrough AI models that together form its unified drug design engine, across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities.
This backing brings the number of startups receiving equity investment from Sovereign AI to three since it launched, and the overall number of startups receiving Sovereign AI backing – including support accessing compute – to nine.
The King’s Speech set out a series of major legislative priorities, including the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill and renewed plans for voluntary digital IDs, as part of the government’s wider aim to build a stronger UK.
The speech confirmed that new legislation will set out how voluntary digital IDs could be implemented across society, including for access to public services, with the government aiming to make them available to those who want them by 2029.
It also provided an update on the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, which is designed to strengthen protections for critical infrastructure and supply chains following a wave of major cyber-attacks. The government said further legislation may also be introduced to support cybersecurity research and improve the security of enterprise connected devices.
Graeme Stewart, Head of Public Sector at Check Point said: “Ramping up AI security legislation is an absolute must, especially when the technology can so easily by hijacked by hostile foreign powers and cyber criminals to attack our banks, hospitals and public services.
“Likewise, the Resilience Bill will at last enshrine contingency planning into law, forcing key areas of UK PLC to have a clear plan of action in place when the next successful cyber attack inevitably takes place. If anything, today’s proposals do not go far enough, and much more needs to be done to ensure businesses and government work more closely together to tackle this menace.”
According to the Government, the new laws form part of a long-term programme to strengthen the economy, improve public services and ensure greater security and opportunity for people across the country.
The programme was announced as part of the King’s Speech and outlined more than 35 measures across the economy and public finances, asylum and immigration, the environment, health, housing, transport, crime, governance, digital ID, road safety, cyber security.
This includes core promises to help parents with everyday school costs, stronger rights for victims and survivors, creating the first smoke-free generation to help people live healthier lives, tougher police powers to crack down antisocial behaviour and giving communities a say in the decisions that affect them.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer commented: “The British people expect the Government to get on with the job of changing our country for the better. Cutting the cost of living, bringing down hospital waiting lists and keeping our country safe in an increasingly dangerous world.”
“Britain stands at a pivotal moment: to press ahead with a plan to build a stronger, fairer country or turn back to the chaos and instability of the past. My government will deliver on the promise of change for the British people.”
The King’s Speech, the second under the government, unveiled over 35 bills and draft bills facing up to the big challenges our country faces and put the UK on a stronger, fairer path for people across Britain.
Jennifer Holmes, CEO of London Internet Exchange, commented: “As the Government outlines its priorities in today’s King’s Speech, the continued focus on cyber security and digital resilience is both welcome and necessary. The UK’s economy, public services, and critical national infrastructure increasingly rely on fast, secure, and resilient internet connectivity, making the resilience of the networks underpinning the internet more important than ever.”
“Internet exchanges play a critical role in keeping data flowing securely and efficiently between networks, supporting everything from businesses and financial services to healthcare and public sector operations. As cyber threats continue to evolve in scale and sophistication, investment in resilient digital infrastructure and strong cyber defences will be essential to ensuring the UK remains secure, competitive, and connected.”
UK businesses are missing out on the full economic benefits of AI, with the majority still stuck in experimentation rather than real-world deployment.
This is according to RingCentral‘s new report “The New Economics of AI at Work: Why Britain Must Move from AI Pilots to AI Systems”, which is based on responses from 2,000 IT, HR, and CX leaders across the UK and US and explores how UK businesses are using AI.
Findings highlight a growing disconnect between optimism and execution for UK PLC, adding to a persistent productivity problem. While 87% of UK organisations view AI positively, only 16% have fully deployed AI-powered digital workers, significantly lagging behind US businesses (41%). More than half (54%) of UK organisations remain in research, exploration, or pilot stages.
Proven value from AI deployment
Despite this, the research shows UK organisations are provingvalue where AI is fully deployed, with60% reporting productivity gains and 57% faster workflows.
The data also shows that once digital workers are truly embedded in workplaces, they are seen as augmentation to human roles, not replacement. Less than a quarter of workers who have fully deployed digital workers (23%) see job replacement as their biggest concern, compared to those who haven’t started exploring AI (45%).
The UK market is at a critical turning point, where early value is evident, but many organisations are still working out how to embed AI into core business processes and realise sustained, enterprise-wide benefits. Leaders say the main barriers they are having to tackle when scaling AI include cost concerns (35%), integration complexity (35%) and trust and compliance risks (32%).
“The next phase of AI is about embedding intelligence directly into the workflows where decisions are made. Despite strong investment and ambition, many UK organisations are failing to scale AI beyond isolated pilots, leaving benefits unrealised,” Russel Tilsed, VP at RingCentral, said.
“For the UK, the core issue is not technology capability, but integration. AI tools often sit outside everyday workflows, limiting their ability to drive real operational change. As a result, insights generated by AI frequently fail to translate into action. If the UK wants to seize this moment to address persistent productivity challenges, 2026 must be the year AI stops being an experiment and becomes enterprise infrastructure.”
About seven in ten (71%) of organisations suffered at least one identity-related breach in the past year, and on average organisations reported three separate incidents.
This is according to new research from Sophos, which surveyed 5,000 IT and cybersecurity leaders across 17 countries.
Repeat victimisation reached a notable level, with 5% even reporting six or more breaches. These attacks are driven primarily by human error and weak management of non-human identities (NHIs), a challenge that is accelerating rapidly as agentic AI accelerates attack processes.
Two thirds of the ransomware victims (67%) responding to this survey confirmed their ransomware incident stemmed from an identity attack, establishing identity compromise as a primary delivery mechanism for ransomware.
Sophos X-Ops researchers have observed this consistently over the past year. The financial consequences are steep: the mean recovery cost reached $1.64 million, with a median of $750,000, and 73% of those affected faced costs of $250,000 or more.
“Identity has become the primary attack surface in modern cybersecurity, and this data shows most organisations are losing ground,” said Ross McKerchar, chief information security officer, Sophos.
“The non-human identity problem is particularly urgent. AI agents are being granted privileges faster than security teams can track them, and organisations that fail to get ahead of this will find it an increasingly costly gap to close.”
Data and financial theft dominate breach fallout, with 10% of organisations reporting an identity breach that impacted their business in the last year with the primary consequences being data theft (49%) and ransomware (48%), and financial theft (47%).
Visibility has remained a critical weakness, with only 24% of organisations continually monitoring for unusual login attempts, and more than half checking every three months or less.
Detection gaps persist, with 14% of breached organisations unable to detect and stop their most significant identity attack before damage was done. Smaller organisations (100–250 employees) were nearly twice as likely to fail at detection as mid-sized peers.
Energy, oil/gas, and utilities (80%) and federal/central government (78%) reported the highest breach rates across all industries surveyed.
Organisations that found compliance requirements very challenging had a breach rate of 82.4%, a full 14% points higher than those with lower compliance difficulty (68.3%).
Human error (employees tricked into providing credentials) was cited in nearly 43% of incidents. Weak NHI management, including API keys stored in code, static credentials, and orphaned service accounts, was cited in 41%. Organisations with weak NHI management are 22% more likely to experience financial theft and pay approximately $150,000 more to recover than average.
The NHI management problem is intensifying. AI agents can autonomously spin up sub-agents, each generating new credentials with broad, persistent access and inconsistent human oversight.
Existing identity frameworks were not built for this, and organizations are already behind: only 1 in 3 organisations regularly rotate or audits service accounts and non-human identities, and just 11% do so continuously.
Artificial Intelligence is playing a central role in driving business growth, boosting productivity, and most notably, supporting job creation across small and mid-sized businesses, according to research from Intuit’s 2026 AI Impact Report.
Across the UK, US, Canada and Australia, AI is being utilised primarily as a tool for business expansion and operational efficiency rather than as a mechanism for broad labor reduction or simple cost-cutting.
The report draws on one of the largest datasets of its kind, combining anonymised administrative data from more than 5.3 million businesses using QuickBooks, alongside surveys of more than 34,000 businesses across the four countries.
Together, the findings provide a comprehensive, real-world view of how AI is being adopted and used in business.
A Shift in the Narrative on Jobs
The report challenges the idea that AI is primarily a threat to jobs. Across all four markets, more businesses report increasing employment as a result of AI than reducing it.
In the UK, 20% of businesses using AI report increased employment, compared to just 8% reporting declines. Similar patterns are seen internationally, pointing to a broader trend of AI enabling, rather than replacing, human work.
AI adoption is now mainstream, with around 70% of UK businesses, 77% in the US, 69% in Canada, and 69% in Australia report using AI regularly.
Strong productivity gains have been seen, with between 73% and 79% of businesses using AI across these markets saying it has improved their productivity.
Around 43% of businesses report increased revenue as a result of AI, while only a small minority report declines.
AI is becoming embedded in operations: Around 16% of businesses say AI is now a core part of how they run their business.
Rapid Acceleration in Adoption
The data shows adoption of AI tools has accelerated sharply since early 2023, particularly among businesses making more intensive, paid use of the technology. In the UK, 7% of small and mid-sized businesses are now using AI intensively, with higher adoption among larger and younger firms. More mature firms are 35% less likely to adopt AI solutions, pointing to organisational inertia, where long standing habits and updating systems to make room for AI are harder to change.
Across markets, sectors such as information, professional services, and education, (the more knowledge intensive and service oriented industries), are leading the way in intensive AI adoption. This is unexpectedly lower in physical, manual and location dependent businesses.
Intensive use of AI primarily exists in data processing, content creation and information management, where it provides the most immediate operational utility.
Across the board, businesses are using AI to automate time-intensive tasks such as marketing, customer service, bookkeeping, administration and data processing.
This is translating into tangible operational benefits, with the most positive impacts cited from AI use being revenue, and then efficiency both in costs and workday length.
AI had increased revenue for 43% of UK businesses, with more than a quarter reporting reduced costs. A similar proportion say AI is shortening their working hours as well.
The likelihood of adopting AI increases steadily with revenue, pointing to a strong positive association between financial capability and AI integration. There is also a pronounced positive relationship in the data between growth ambition and AI adoption, showing that strategic intent is a critical behavioural factor.
“UK businesses aren’t short of tools, they’re short of time and clarity,” Ciarán Quilty, VP International, Intuit, said.
“We’re seeing a shift from reactive software to proactive AI embedded into businesses systems that actually do work on behalf of the customer.
“By embedding AI directly into key workflows, businesses spend less time managing admin and more time making confident decisions about how they grow. Usage of this kind is growing and ambitious businesses are beginning to reap the benefits.”
AI is emerging as a double edged cyber threat, acting as not only a sophisticated engine for attacks, but also a high-value target for threat actors.
This is according to the latest report from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), which documented the shift from hackers experimenting with AI to using it on an industrial scale.
For the first time, GTIG identified a threat actor using a zero-day exploit that the group believes was developed with AI. According to the report, the threat actor behind the exploit planned to use it in a mass exploitation event which was prevented by Google’s counter discovery.
The zero-day vulnerability identified was in a Python script that enables a user to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) on a web-based, open-source system administration tool. GTIG has not identified what AI model was leveraged, but says they “have high confidence that the actor likely leveraged n AI model to support the discovery and weaponisation of this vulnerability.”
The vulnerability was the result of a high-level semantic logic flaw, which frontier large language models (LLMs) excel at identifying, Google said.
“Though frontier LLMs struggle to navigate complex enterprise authorization logic, they have an increasing ability to perform contextual reasoning, effectively reading the developer’s intent to correlate the 2FA enforcement logic with the contradictions of its hardcoded exceptions,” the threat report said. “This capability can allow models to surface dormant logic errors that appear functionally correct to traditional scanners but are strategically broken from a security perspective.”
AI has also been behind the acceleration of infrastructure suites and polymorphic malware, facilitating defense evasion.
The development of AI-enabled malware is causing a shift to autonomous attack orchestration, GTIG says, where models take the initiative to generate commands and manipulate environments based on their interpretation of target systems. GTIG’s “analysis of this malware reveals previously unreported capabilities and use cases for its integration with AI,” the groups blog said.
As found in previous GTIG reports, threat actors continue to leverage AI as a research assistant for attacks, but are increasingly turning to agentic workflows for automation.
Threat actors also often access premium tier AI models anonymously, using automated registration pipelines and middleware to bypass limits on usage.
Supply chains continue to be pain points, as threat actors begin to target AI environments and software dependencies as an initial access vector.
“There’s a misconception that the AI vulnerability race is imminent. The reality is that it’s already begun. For every zero-day we can trace back to AI, there are probably many more out there. Threat actors are using AI to boost the speed, scale, and sophistication of their attacks,” John Hultquist, Chief Analyst, Google Threat Intelligence Group, said.
Businesses across the UK are being urged to strengthen their cyber defences, as the government takes action to protect the economy and essential services people rely on every day from fast-evolving cyber threats.
As part of a wider push to shore up the UK’s cyber defences, ministers are urging organisations across the economy to boost their resilience by signing up to a Cyber Resilience Pledge.
The pledge, launching later this year, sets out three concrete actions organisations can take to improve their cybersecurity.
These actions include: making cybersecurity a board-level responsibility; signing up to the National Cyber Security Centre’s free Early Warning Service; require Cyber Essentials certification across their supply chains – the UK government-backed cybersecurity standard that blocks the most common cyber threats.
Ministers have written directly to some of the UK’s leading companies inviting them to sign up to the Cyber Resilience Pledge, and organisations are now encouraged to review the requirements and commit. The government is backing this shift with £90 million towards improving cyber resilience across the economy.
The push comes as the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will continue its passage through Parliament following the King’s Speech, demonstrating the government’s long-term commitment to protect critical national infrastructure, support economic growth and reduce the risk of disruption to essential services such as energy, water, healthcare and data centres.
New figures published today also show the strength of the UK’s cyber security sector, which grew 11% last year to £14.7 billion, with the number of firms rising by 20% to 2,603 – underlining the UK’s position as a global cyber security leader and a fast‑growing engine of the economy.
The sector created 2,300 jobs in the past year alone, reflecting rising demand for British cyber expertise as businesses and public services invest in stronger protection against increasingly sophisticated threats, including those enabled by AI.
Ministers have warned that the threats businesses face in cyber space are changing, and the way they respond must change with it.
A new generation of AI models is lowering the barrier for cyber-criminals, enabling them to find vulnerabilities and carry out attacks at a speed and scale that would have been impossible even a year ago. Recent figures show 43% of UK businesses experienced a cyber breach or attack in the past year, underlining the urgency of action.
The importance of taking action has been highlighted by recent research by the AI Security Institute, looking at frontier models like Mythos and GPT 5.5. Ministers are warning that traditional cyber protections alone are no longer enough.
As AI accelerates the pace and scale of cyber-attacks, organisations must now invest in smarter, more resilient systems that can limit the impact of breaches and keep ahead of attackers – rather than constantly reacting after the damage is done.
“Cybersecurity is now fundamental to economic growth, job creation and the resilience of the services people rely on every day,” cybersecurity minister Baroness Lloyd said.
“The UK has a world‑class cyber sector that is creating skilled jobs and protecting our economy – and government is doing more by investing in its own defences, legislating to require more of essential services and setting clear national standards.
“As threats evolve, businesses of all sizes need to step up and take practical action now. The Cyber Resilience Pledge is a clear call for companies to strengthen their defences, protect their customers and play their part in keeping the UK secure and competitive.”
OpenAI has acquired Edinburgh-based Tomoro AI to scale its newly announced deployment firm with an initial investment of $4 billion.
The AI firm is launching OpenAI Deployment Company, a new firm designed to help organisations build and deploy AI systems.
The new firm has been created to help extend OpenAI’s ability to embed specialist AI engineerings into organisations working on complex AI deployments in demanding environments.
The acquisition of Tomoro AI will see about 150 experienced deployment engineers and specialists into the new OpenAI Deployment Company.
The new firm is a partnership between OpenAI and 19 other organisations led by TPG, with Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield as co-lead founding partners, and B Capital, BBVA, Emergence Capital, Goanna, Goldman Sachs, SoftBank Corp., Warburg Pincus, and WCAS as founding partners.
Investors also include leading consulting and systems integration firms, including Bain & Company, Capgemini, and McKinsey & Company.
The new firm, which OpenAI will maintain majority ownership and control over, is part of OpenAI’s continued campaign to bring its consumer market success into enterprise deployment as it competes with Anthropic’s Claude which has seen recent success in business adoption.
The acquisition of Tomoro, which was founded in 2023 in Edinburgh, sees OpenAI inserting itself down the supply chain from its foundation model origins to business AI deployment aid.
“Our belief hasn’t changed, but the scale of the mission has. At The Deployment Company, we’re going to build that future and amplify the change we’re already creating for our customers,” Tomoro wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the firm’s acquisition.
Cutting corners on context could be costing enterprises from reaching the full potential of their AI agent deployments.
Neglecting semantics will cause AI agents to be inaccurate and inefficient, exposing organisations to wasted spending and increased data and AI governance vulnerabilities, said Gartner, Inc.
AI agents need to understand the context inputs in each step of the agentic workflow to deliver accurate responses at an optimal cost.
“Agentic AI outcomes depend on context including semantic representations of data,” Rita Sallam, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, said.
“Without context – a clear understanding of the specific relationships and rules within an organisation’s data – AI agents cannot operate accurately and are far more likely to hallucinate, introduce bias and produce unreliable results.
“Organisations that fail to adopt comprehensive context structures — supported by a robust data layer — will perpetuate data inefficiencies and face heightened financial costs, as well as legal and reputational damage.”
Gartner predicts that by 2027, organizations that prioritize semantics in AI-ready data will increase their agentic AI accuracy by up to 80% and reduce costs by up to 60%.
Gartner advises data and analytics (D&A) leaders to establish a context layer as a core component of their D&A infrastructure. Traditional schema-based data models alone no longer suffice for agentic AI because they lack business context and data meaning.
Gartner expects that regulators will demand greater semantic transparency, and boards will increasingly treat semantic governance as both a strategic risk and a competitive opportunity.
“Context with semantic coherence will become a cost-control and trust strategy, not a nice-to-have,” said Sallam. “By reducing errors and increasing trust, semantics will push organizations to budget for semantic capabilities as a non-negotiable foundation.”
