Nscale Lands $2bn Funding Round; Can UK Make Inclusion an AI Strategy? National Wealth Fund Throws Weight Behind Autonomous Driving Pioneer
AI in the UKShow Notes
On this week's show, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: Nscale, a fast-growing UK-based AI infrastructure firm, has bagged $2bn in a series C funding round. But are its achievements justifying the hype?
The UK is attempting to tackle some of the AI talent gap – are regional hubs and voluntary charters the answer?
Backed by the UK’s National Wealth Fund, AI self-driving software firm Oxa has raised $100m. Can this long-promising tech finally deliver on its potential?
More from AI in the UK
In a highly bureaucratic sector, when anyone can use AI to draft lengthy (if not always entirely accurate) legal responses, social housing landlords could be a major beneficiary of curated AI technology. But the challenges are legion too. On this week's show, Niels and Matt invited Phil Shelton, chief executive of HousingAI, to discuss: What are housing associations using AI for? Can a curated data set offer an enduring competitive advantage in the age of AI? How open are local authorities to buying AI solutions from UK providers? How is housing residents' use of AI affecting the social housing sector?
On this week's pod, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: OpenAI claims Astra is its best-aligned model but the AISI says the frontier model carried out attacks in 29% of its tests. So who's right? The UK's AI minister has raised the alarm on potential AI-driven job losses. Is he right? And if he is, what should we do? Plus all this week's latest UK AI news...
On this week's pod, Niels Footman and Matt Wilkinson discuss: A UK-based payment platform demos its first, heavily supervised agentic live payment. Meanwhile, in Cambridge, regulators competed to create anti-scam agents of their own. Is financial services remotely ready for this? Proposals for AI regulation are coming thick and fast in the UK. But if we can't get access to the frontier models, how meaningful can the rules be? Plus the latest AI news from across the UK...
In a break from the regular schedule, Niels Footman grills co-host Matt Wilkinson about his new book, The Buyer in the Loop. Matt discusses how buyer personas, which could traditionally only offer a snapshot in time, are made into dynamic, responsive personalities with the infusion of AI. How do they work? Do they really improve sales results? And, as elsewhere, are we in danger of offloading our marketing thinking to AI tools? Matt answers all these questions and more. Plus the usual round-up of the week's UK AI stories in Quick Hits.
This week, Matt Wilkinson and Niels Footman discuss: The UK government gets serious about domestic AI procurement, just as one of UK AI’s leading lights gets poached by Anthropic. What does this mean for UK AI?