AI confidence drops amongst UK business leaders

As the Expleo AI Pulse reaches its 12-month milestone, the UK data shows a continued softening in sentiment towards the technology. The proportion of business leaders who view AI as primarily beneficial has fallen from nearly three quarters (73%) at the start of the tracker to 63%, narrowing the gap between perceived upside and persistent concerns.

The survey also highlights that concerns associated with AI programmes have not eased over the same 12-month period. Cybersecurity ranks highly among UK business leaders, with 58% of respondents citing it as a worry, compared with 56% at the start of the tracker. In addition, concern about how AI is transforming organisations has risen from 36% to 41%.

The overall UK AI Pulse sentiment score for August is 65. The tracker combines responses on confidence, excitement, trust and worry around AI use in business into a single score from 0 to 100, providing a month-by-month view of how UK business sentiment towards the technology is changing.

Jonathan Taylor, MD – UK, Expleo, said: “AI has not lost its place on the boardroom agenda, but it may be losing some of the benefit of the doubt. That is the reality check. Leaders are moving beyond assumptions and hype to ask harder questions about what AI is solving, what risk it introduces and whether the return is strong enough to justify continued support.

“Softer confidence and trust do not automatically mean investment will stop, but they can change the questions leaders need answers to before committing budget, scaling a programme or defending a project that was launched in a more optimistic market. Businesses now need clearer evidence that AI is solving the right problem, using the right data, at the right level of risk, with responsible governance built in from the start. In that environment, the companies that can connect technical delivery with assurance, data quality and real-world performance will be better placed to show where AI genuinely works.”

Taylor added: “Deployment alone does not prove progress. To build confidence in AI, businesses need to show that it works in real operating environments, and that risk is managed from the start.”

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