Barclays' CEO describes AI as the "icing on the cake" behind its 5,000 job cuts.
I suspect the truth lies in years of modernising systems and processes.
AI is accelerating change, for sure, but it's rarely the whole story. Workforce planning matters as much as AI skills.
“Best model” shouldn’t automatically mean the one with the highest benchmark score.
George Williamson at the Alan Turing Institute is arguing for cheaper, application-specific AI in public services. Cost, latency, privacy, resilience and control are part of performance too.
Today brings us an interesting follow-up to the NHS/Palantir story. FT analysis finds more than 20 trusts have stopped using the waiting-list tools that had been cited as evidence of success.
That doesn’t tell us the platform has failed. It does remind us that deployment, adoption and measurable benefit are three different things.
I spent some time analysing some of the clinical processes at a Hampshire hospital and it was immediately clear that there is a heavy cultural influence, often determined by the lead clinician, that can act as a barrier to technology adoption.
How much potentially valuable research is sitting undiscovered in our universities?
Not just published papers, but data, unfinished research, abandoned ideas and work that never found the right application.
I suspect there is an enormous amount of knowledge sitting there that we've effectively forgotten about.
AI certainly gives us new ways to interrogate old knowledge. but first we have to be able to find it.
The Oxford/OpenAI story got me thinking about our own universities in Hampshire and the Solent.
We have excellent universities doing significant research. But if you're running a business, how would you know that someone at a university 20 miles away has spent five years researching something directly relevant to a problem you're trying to solve?
Published research is only part of it. There must also be huge amounts of data, IP, unfinished research and good ideas that are incredibly difficult for people outside academia to discover.
This is somewhere I think the AI Growth Alliance can help: bridging the gap between academia and commercial organisations and improving the flow of knowledge in both directions.
Making research available isn't the same as making it findable, understandable and useful.
Oxford/OpenAI story:
theguardian.com/technology/2…
What should be measurably different in Hampshire and the Solent in 2–3 years if our AI ecosystem is genuinely developing?
Skills, investment and adoption matter, but so do productivity, governance and inclusion.
That’s the focus of my latest AI Growth Alliance Chair’s Brief:
newsletter.aigrowthalliance.…
We’ve just launched Entelligently V2.
It starts with a simple idea: a building can tell you what it’s doing. The people inside can tell you whether it’s working.
V2 brings those perspectives together with digital twins, AI and building data.
Now we need some interesting buildings.
kn-i.com/latest-insights/ent…
#PropertyTech #DigitalTwin
Northern Ireland is now measuring the growth of its AI economy. I think we should do the same for Hampshire and the Solent.
Together with the AI Growth Alliance, I’m going to explore how we establish a baseline.
What should we measure?
aicc.co/artificial-intellige…
Captain Kirk is an iconic character but what with Shatner in Space and now, at 95, performing onstage heavy metal as William Shatner and the Fuckers - this man is proving to be an even more iconic human.
Have you ever noticed we live in a country where a 95-year-old man can walk into a mud pit in Chicago, call his band The Fuckers, and start reciting “Enter Sandman” like he’s giving a TED Talk from the afterlife?
William Shatner. Ninety-five. Riot Fest. Douglass Park. Thirty-five minutes. Spoken-word heavy metal. In the mud. With people cheering like this is normal.
It is not normal. It is magnificent.
He did “Crazy Train.” He did “Ace of Spades.” He did Metallica. Not sang them. Talked them. Like Captain Kirk got trapped in a guitar amp and decided to negotiate with Satan instead of the Klingons.
Behind him: actual musicians. Marcus Nand. Phil Soussan. Grown men who have paid rent with real notes while a nonagenarian stands there going, “What the F is heavy metal?” and somehow makes it a question worth answering.
Brian May is on the record. Tony Iommi is on the record. The album is called *What the F Is Heavy Metal?* which is the most honest title in music since someone first admitted most of it is just louder complaining.
The crowd ate it up. Of course they did. We will watch a man old enough to remember radio as furniture stand in wet dirt and dare death to tap him on the shoulder. Death probably took one look, said “I’m not dealing with this today,” and went to find someone easier.
You’re never too old to live out your dreams. That’s the line they always use. The real line is: most people quit the second it gets embarrassing. Shatner waited until embarrassing became the whole act, then sold tickets.
Follow @wickedsmaahht before the rest of the timeline figures it out.
#WilliamShatner #RiotFest #WhatTheFIsHeavyMetal #NeverTooOld #SpokenWordMetal #LiveLongAndGetLouder #CaptainKirkHasEnteredTheChat
The real test of an AI Growth Zone isn’t just MW of compute or £Bn invested. It’s whether local people gain skills, businesses become more productive and communities share in the value created.
linkedin.com/pulse/building-…
The debate around AI Growth Zones is increasingly about more than infrastructure.
Data centres matter. But the real question is what grows around them: skills, startups, research, business adoption, productivity and local opportunity.
My thoughts here: linkedin.com/pulse/building-…
AI continues to dominate the front pages. But don't confuse the macro with the micro.
Slowing frontier AI development may be sensible. That certainly doesn't mean that you should slow your own AI adoption.
Using AI to solve real business problems remains a huge opportunity. Don't confuse the message with your opportunity!
Seeing a bizarre partnership between @Pompey and Visit Annapolis launched today has reminded me that a few years ago a partnership with the Cayman Islands was announced with promises of a "year of fan engagement and the chance for season ticket holders to win a vacation" - pretty sure this didn't happen? portsmouthfc.co.uk/news/2026…
At Farnborough, I had the privilege of launching the AI Growth Alliance alongside AI Minister Kanishka Narayan MP.
This is about turning regional capability into coordinated action.
I’ve written about the launch, our working groups and our plans for Hampshire and the Solent in the latest Chairs Brief:
newsletter.aigrowthalliance.…
David Patterson retweeted
With urgency, ambition, and with British values at heart, we will shape the future of AI in Britain’s national interest.
The AI Growth Alliance is grateful for @KanishkaNarayan speaking at our launch at Farnborough international Airshow yesterday.
I believe that the Hampshire and Solent region, with it's long history of both defence and tech industry, aligns perfectly with the vision for sovereign UK security and defence through deeper AI capability.
Coverage of our launch of the AI Growth Alliance - Regional partnership to champion AI in Hampshire and Solent launches at Farnborough Airshow insidermedia.com/news/south-…
Chief of the Air Staff l, sir Harv Smyth speaking at the CEO welcome reception at Farnborough international Airshow 2026. Talking autonomous uncrewed air defence. Nice canapés too.
I believe Hampshire, the Solent and the wider South Central region already have one of the UK’s strongest AI ecosystems.
Now we need to coordinate those strengths.
Next week we launch the AI Growth Alliance at @FIAFarnborough.
More here:
🔗 kn-i.com/latest-insights/sup…
#ArtificialIntelligence #RegionalGrowth
kn-i.com/latest-insights/sup…







