EP20: Reviewing the AI Opportunities Action Plan: 6 Month Scorecard

Building the Skills Base for AI Adoption

Skills and training remain one of the foundations of the UK’s AI ambitions. The government has introduced a number of initiatives aimed at developing AI skills earlier in the education system, supporting broader digital literacy and attracting specialist talent.

From the Institute of Directors’ perspective, the emphasis on developing homegrown talent is welcome, but it cannot be the entire strategy. The UK also needs to attract and retain international talent, particularly as competition for highly skilled AI professionals becomes increasingly global.

Jacob highlighted the political difficulty of balancing this ambition with wider pressures around immigration. The most advanced AI companies compete internationally for a relatively small pool of highly skilled engineers, making openness to global talent an important part of remaining competitive.

This creates an opportunity for the UK, particularly as immigration policy in other major AI markets becomes more restrictive. However, communicating the economic case for attracting international talent remains politically challenging.

AI Literacy Matters Beyond the Tech Sector

The skills debate also needs to extend beyond highly technical AI expertise. For the majority of businesses, particularly those outside the technology sector, employees do not necessarily need to become AI engineers. Instead, they need a basic understanding of what AI can do, how it can be used and where its limitations lie.

This foundational AI literacy could be critical to increasing adoption among mainstream businesses. Members of the Institute of Directors are interested in AI, but the scale and complexity of the technology can make businesses hesitant to engage with it.

The challenge for government is therefore not simply producing more highly specialised technical talent, but creating a workforce that is sufficiently confident and informed to use AI effectively.

Regional Growth Needs More Than AI Growth Zones

Regional development was another area where the speakers identified a significant gap between ambition and delivery. The government’s AI growth zones have attracted considerable attention, with regions and constituencies competing to secure investment. Jacob argued, however, that these zones should not become primarily a vehicle for regional development.

Instead, decisions about where AI infrastructure is located need to consider practical requirements such as energy availability, grid capacity and planning opportunities. Regional investment remains important, but infrastructure needs to be strategically located if it is to support the UK's wider AI ambitions.

For the UK, there is also a broader strategic question about what kind of AI leadership is realistic. Rather than attempting to compete with the world's largest economies at every stage of frontier model development, the UK could focus on becoming exceptionally good at adopting and diffusing AI across industries.

Healthcare, education, defence and business could all benefit from widespread AI adoption, creating an opportunity for the UK to build an advantage through implementation rather than simply model development.

Infrastructure Is Becoming a Critical Bottleneck

The discussion repeatedly returned to compute. Both speakers identified the government's delayed compute strategy as an important missing piece of the wider action plan. Without sufficient clarity around compute capacity, energy and infrastructure, many of the government's other AI ambitions become difficult to deliver.

The private sector is already looking at ways to build regional ecosystems and partnerships, but government has an important role in removing the barriers that prevent investment from moving forward.

Planning reform was highlighted as particularly important. Rather than relying entirely on government funding, the government can help unlock private investment by creating the conditions in which companies are able to build the necessary infrastructure. The absence of detail around the compute strategy therefore contributes to uncertainty across the wider ecosystem.

Creating a More Globally Connected AI Economy

The UK’s AI ambitions cannot be separated from its position in international markets. The speakers welcomed emerging partnerships, including collaboration between the UK and France on supercomputing, as well as wider efforts to build international relationships around AI infrastructure, skills and technology. There is also an opportunity to attract international talent and investment as other countries become more restrictive.

However, Jacob argued that the UK should think beyond individual bilateral agreements. Rather than negotiating separate arrangements with every country across every aspect of AI, the UK could play a role in developing stable international frameworks around standards, regulation, testing and certification.

This would make it easier for British companies to export while also making the UK an attractive destination for international investment. The UK's position gives it an opportunity to act as a bridge between major markets, particularly Europe and the US, while contributing to the development of internationally compatible AI standards.

Frontier AI Needs to Be Matched by Wider Adoption

Support for frontier AI remains important, particularly for companies developing cutting-edge technology. But the discussion highlighted the danger of allowing investment policy to focus too heavily on a small number of large technology companies.

The Institute of Directors represents businesses across the wider economy, including many smaller companies. For these organisations, the ability to adopt AI may be just as important as supporting the companies developing the underlying technology.

Government procurement could play an important role here. The original action plan included recommendations around rapid prototyping, pilots and more agile approaches to purchasing technology, but the panel noted that there had been limited progress in turning these ambitions into action.

The wider objective should be to ensure that investment in AI translates into adoption across the economy rather than remaining concentrated within the frontier technology sector.

AI Should Ultimately Deliver Benefits for Citizens

One of the broader criticisms of the action plan was the limited emphasis on citizens and the environment. Jacob argued that AI, compute and data are ultimately means rather than ends. The real question is what these technologies allow society to achieve — whether that means greater prosperity, better public services or more time for people to spend with family and friends.

This creates a need for a stronger narrative connecting AI policy to tangible improvements in everyday life.

The environmental question is similarly complex. AI and digital infrastructure have real energy requirements, but digital technologies can also replace more resource-intensive physical activities and change how goods and services are consumed.

Rather than presenting AI and environmental objectives as inherently opposed, there is an opportunity to think about how digital and physical environments can work together to create more sustainable ways of living.

Trust Is Still Holding Back Business Adoption

Despite growing interest in AI, businesses remain cautious. The Institute of Directors is seeing strong engagement from its members, but this is accompanied by concerns about the accuracy and reliability of AI models, as well as ethical, environmental and societal implications.

There is also resistance to the hype surrounding AI. Businesses increasingly want evidence of tangible returns rather than promises about what the technology might eventually deliver.

This creates a communication challenge for both government and the technology industry. Businesses need practical guidance, education and evidence of real-world value if interest is going to translate into widespread adoption.

From a Long List of Recommendations to a Focused Strategy

The final assessment of the action plan was broadly positive, but both speakers argued that implementation now matters more than additional announcements.

The individual recommendations were described as broadly sound, but the sheer number of them makes it difficult to create a clear overarching mission. A more focused strategy, centred around a smaller number of ambitious priorities, could make delivery easier to measure and communicate.

This also requires stronger coordination across government. AI policy overlaps with energy, planning, education, immigration, trade and industrial strategy, meaning that responsibility cannot sit neatly within a single policy area. The AI growth zones provide a useful example: delivering them effectively requires coordination between science and technology policy, planning and energy policy.

Turning Ambition into Delivery

Six months into the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the UK has made progress across skills, international partnerships and AI adoption initiatives. However, significant questions remain around compute, infrastructure, procurement, regional delivery and public engagement.

The next stage is therefore less about producing more recommendations and more about implementation. A successful AI strategy will need clear timelines, funding, measurable outcomes and accountability. As the discussion demonstrated, the UK has many of the ingredients needed to build a strong AI economy — but turning those ingredients into a coherent national advantage will depend on the government's ability to prioritise, coordinate and deliver.

The central challenge is no longer simply what should the UK do about AI? It is how quickly and effectively it can turn its ambitions into results.