Making AI Workfor Britain
The UK’s AI challenge is institutional, not technological. This is the home of the argument, the evidence, and the independent quarterly tracker of whether strategy is becoming delivery.
Eight chapters, 200 pages, 20+ recommendations. The full argument for the UK’s adaptive path.
Quarterly scorecard: are the book’s 25 recommendations being acted on? Independent assessment updated every three months.
NHS, local government, education. Evidence and recommendations tailored by sector. Coming shortly.
The Digital Economy Dispatch, Alan’s weekly briefing on UK AI strategy and digital policy. Free to 1,600+ readers.
The Lesson We’re Forgetting
The UK’s most successful digital reform — GDS — worked because it changed the institutional mechanics of how government bought technology. It consolidated demand through common platforms, shared standards, and spend controls. It diversified supply by breaking the grip of incumbent contractors and opening the market to smaller providers. The result: £4 billion in savings and a number one UN ranking for digital government. That formula was the engine behind everything GDS achieved.
For AI, the UK has inverted it. Supply has reconcentrated into a handful of US foundation model providers. Demand remains fragmented — departments signing bilateral deals, accumulating dependencies, with no coordinated standards and no spend controls. The UK does not need to build its own foundation models to exercise sovereignty over AI. It needs to be a disciplined, coordinated buyer — with the same institutional authority GDS once wielded. The question is whether it will choose to be.
Three Roads. One Choice.
The US Model
Prioritise speed, accept platform dependency, rely on market forces. Produces remarkable innovation but with extreme concentration and only 37% public trust.
The EU Model
Prioritise citizen protection through comprehensive regulation. Achieves 68% public support but the EU’s share of global AI patents fell from 12% to 8%.
The UK’s Adaptive Path
Build sovereign capability where it matters most, set governance standards others adopt, and use UK institutional assets as proving grounds for AI that is both innovative and accountable.
The UK’s distinctive lever is demand-side consolidation: using its purchasing power, standards, and institutional authority to shape the AI market — just as GDS did for digital services a decade ago.
Early Endorsements
“Professor Brown has superbly captured the challenge of turning opportunity and ambition into reality — eloquently providing a roadmap to success. Government should step up and listen, or risk irrelevancy in this new world.”
“This book provides a thoughtful framework for asking the right questions about how Britain turns AI ambition into real-world impact.”
“We excel at admiring the AI opportunity. This book does something rarer: it asks what realistic delivery actually looks like — and who has to change to make it happen.”
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