Making AI Workfor Britain
The UK learned to consolidate demand and diversify supply for digital government. For AI, it has inverted the formula. This book explains why — and what to do about it.
The Lesson We're Forgetting
The UK's most successful digital reform — the creation of 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 SMEs. The result: £4 billion in savings and a number one UN ranking for digital government.
That formula — consolidate demand, diversify supply — 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 experimenting independently, signing bilateral deals, accumulating dependencies that will be extraordinarily difficult to reverse. No AI spend controls. No coordinated procurement standards. No single front door.
This book argues that 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 that GDS once wielded. That is the UK’s distinctive path. The question is whether it will choose to walk it.
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.
Full book details →Early Endorsements
“The UK sits at a pivotal point in its potential as an AI superpower. 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. We need more ambition like this.”
“This book provides a thoughtful framework for asking the right questions about how Britain turns AI ambition into real-world impact.”
“Across financial services and public data infrastructure alike, 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.”
“Written on a bedrock of research and experience, Alan Brown's "Making AI work for Britain" is a complete and clear guide to the AI revolution. The book introduces the great opportunity AI provides to successfully navigate the next big step in digital transformation and offers an important roadmap for what the UK should do next. I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about AI strategy.”
“Alan draws on insights from digital transformation to identify how to introduce AI effectively into business and government. One of the most compelling visions is of AI assurance as an export industry.”
“At a time of relentless digital disruption, this book focuses on the hardest problem of all: institutional change. Alan explains why AI exposes the limits of existing structures, and how organisations must fundamentally rethink how they govern, decide and deliver.”
“Professor Brown offers an optimistic, yet pragmatic and realistic blueprint for a future national debate around how AI can reshape the future of our economy. The book provides policy makers and business leaders with a roadmap that creates a pathway to achieve the UK’s AI ambitions.”
“This is an excellent overview of the issues facing the UK in governing AI, developing the AI sector, growing the economy in an AI age, and integrating AI ethically and effectively into business and government. It lays out clearly all the areas to which government and industry need to pay close attention - where there are no complete answers, conclusions, or outcomes. I will be using this guide to key issues for my own research and policy work.”
“Professor Brown’s well researched book provides valuable insight for the informed lay reader wanting to understand more on AI’s impact in the UK. It offers a clear perspective on the UK’s current AI strategy and strengths in both a historical and global setting.”
“This book offers well-founded advice, innovative ideas, and practical steps to help leaders and their advisers drive effective action in making AI work for the nation.”
“A timely, pragmatic, and clear-eyed analysis of the UK’s AI landscape. It successfully shifts the conversation away from abstract technological hype toward the gritty, institutional realities of implementation.”
Visual Summary
Three Parts, One Argument
Historical lessons inform current priorities, and current priorities shape the strategic choices ahead.
What Got Us Here
The patterns of success and failure across decades of UK digital transformation — and why the same structural barriers keep recurring.
What Matters Now
The institutional, workforce, and governance challenges that must be addressed before path dependencies lock in.
What Comes Next
The UK in the global landscape, a distinctive strategic path, and a practical five-year implementation roadmap.
Professor Alan W. Brown
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