Digital Ethics Summit 2026

For ten years, techUK’s Digital Ethics Summit has brought together the practitioners, policymakers, technologists, and thinkers at the frontier of responsible data and AI driven innovation. When we held our first Summit in 2017, we discussed the huge potential and power of digital technologies, such as AI, when applied with purpose, thoughtfulness, and ethical foresight. The development and deep application of digital ethics were seen as the right solution to ensure innovation remains reflective and as a way to prevent harm. We asked what institutions, capabilities, and capacities were needed to help the UK stay on that course and build technologies that can be a force for good.

The UK’s digital ethics community, which came together at the very first Summit has helped shape where we are today. We have seen significant action, advocacy, activity, and progress over the last ten years. Ethical principles and frameworks that did not exist in 2017 have been developed, codified, and adopted. As we predicted, a UK AI Assurance industry has emerged, and UK institutions the we called for, such as the Ada Lovelace Institute, the AI Security Institute and, most recently, the AI Assurance Consortium have been established.

However, we have also seen bodies and initiatives come to an end and fall away, possibly leaving gaps in our capability and capacity at a time when the digital ethics debate has never felt more important. New questions have also emerged around the role and impact of ethics in an era of agentic AI; the drive to scale AI deployment and adoption; whether AI assurance is the answer to building trust and confidence; and how to ensure sovereignty in a more complex and contested world. These are questions we must lean into as we consider whether we have the capabilities and tools we need for the challenges ahead.

This year’s Summit will ask whether we have the right institutions, bodies, and governance structures to address where we are today and apply foresight to what may lie ahead. We will explore whether the digital ethics principles and frameworks being put into action are delivering the outcomes they were designed to achieve, and what more may still be needed? It will discuss whether we have the appropriate human capacity, the organisational and political will, and the shared purpose to make ethics in action work on the ground at scale and, if not, what more we need to prove that an ethics-driven approach to responsible AI governance and deployment can work.

While the Summit reckons with the present, the horizon also demands attention. Ethical questions raised by AI do not exist in isolation. The emergence and convergence of technologies such as agentic AI, robotics, quantum computing, and immersive and spatial technologies are bringing their own set of challenges. This is a frontier that the digital ethics community must map now, before deployment outpaces reflection. In its tenth year, the Summit will look to the future and consider the work that must now be done.

Event information

Date: Wednesday 2 December

Timings: 09:00 - 17:00 GMT (please note timings may be subject to change as the agenda is finalised)

Tickets:

• techUK member ticket - free

• Non-member ticket - £170.00 + VAT

Complimentary tickets are available to Public Sector representatives, civil society organisations, students and academics, as well as the wider community interested in digital ethics. If you would like to apply for a free ticket, please contact Flagship Events Team

Please note: a refund will be given on cancellations received in writing 6 weeks prior to the event. Regrettably no refunds can be given after this date. Full terms and conditions can be viewed here.