Beneath Every Revolution Lies a Platform

To unlock AI’s full potential for public service transformation and economic growth, the UK must look beyond tools and pilots—toward platforms that scale. The UK government is in a race on two fronts:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is central to both ambitions. It represents a £45 billion productivity opportunity and a broader means to transform services, deliver better citizen outcomes, and unlock growth.

Throughout history, revolutions—agricultural, industrial, digital—were not just moments of invention but inflection points shaped by platforms. Crop rotation enabled agricultural surpluses. Factories transformed production. The internet redefined communication. Platforms are the infrastructure on which transformation scales.

The Power of Platform Thinking

A platform is more than a piece of technology—it’s an enabler of scale, flexibility, and sustained innovation. Just as Ford’s assembly line redefined manufacturing and opened the door to unimagined products, AI platforms today can support diverse use cases, often far beyond what their creators initially envisioned.

Modern AI platforms—like those delivered by ServiceNow—can unify legacy systems, bring together data, orchestrate multiple AI models, and streamline workflows through low/no-code interfaces. Crucially, they’re ready now.

They don’t just improve IT—they reimagine how an entire organisation operates, enabling both innovation and efficiency at scale.

Visionaries who have led major periods of change have understood the power of platforms. Today’s leaders look to bring the power of platforms together with AI.

Real-World Proof: Siemens

Take Siemens—a 175-year-old industrial giant with 300,000 employees. Its Global Business Services (GBS) handles:

To modernise, Siemens needed more than automation—it needed a platform. CIO Matthias Egelhaaf explains:

“Digitalisation is the next step to bring GBS into the new technology-led era.”

ServiceNow delivered. Not as a tool, but as a foundation—a platform—enabling Siemens to standardise, simplify, and scale intelligent automation across the enterprise.

The UK public sector faces similar high-volume, complex challenges. The opportunity to replicate platform success stories is enormous.

The Opportunity: Platform Thinking in UK Public Sector

The government’s AI Adoption Plan is an important step. But true transformation requires more:

Platform thinking reframes the approach to AI adoption. It shifts away from scattered pilots and tech-first experimentation to mission-first, scalable, interoperable transformation.

Actionable Ideas: Four Levers of Platform Thinking

Reframe legacy as opportunity: Legacy systems are everywhere. But they’re not an excuse to delay. Platforms let organisations work around legacy, not be limited by it. When Apple reinvented music consumption, they didn’t wait for the industry to modernise—they bypassed it. The UK public sector should ask: Are legacy systems enabling 21st-century outcomes—or holding them back? Platforms can bridge the gap between old architecture and new ambitions.

Stay mission-focused: AI “scanning” can turn into long lists of use cases that fail to align with core goals. Platform thinking flips the process—start with the mission, then identify use cases that deliver impact at scale. “Quick wins” have a role, but the £45bn prize will be won by those who think big and bold.

Scale beyond the pilot: 80% of pilots fail to scale. Why? Because they aren’t designed with scale in mind. Platform models enable a smooth path from pilot to production. They share common infrastructure, budgets, governance, and planning. With a shared platform, every pilot isn’t a one-off—it’s a step forward on a common roadmap.

Drive pace with purpose: Transformation used to take decades. Now it takes years—or months. The UK has the ideas. It needs the pace. Platform thinking compresses time-to-value and builds agility into the core.

Industry has a critical role to play—but it goes far beyond providing technology. It must become a genuine partner to the public sector, helping to deliver real, scalable impact. That means investing in robust, flexible AI platforms that are easy to adopt and built for long-term value. It means providing the skills, training, and embedded expertise needed to accelerate capability—meeting departments where they are, whether they’re exploring foundational automation or deploying advanced AI. And it means working collaboratively to co-design digital blueprints, shape maturity models, and help the public sector move with pace and purpose through the scan, pilot, and scale journey.

This is not about selling the future; it’s about enabling progress now. If the UK is to realise its £45 billion AI opportunity, industry must show up not just with innovation, but with intention—and deliver platforms that make transformation both possible and practical.

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