This growth will purportedly also bring staggering job losses, with the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) estimating AI could displace between one and three million UK jobs over the coming decades, raising unemployment by up to 180,000 by 2030.
Such estimates serve a purpose, informing investment decisions and building momentum. But the problem is their reductive nature. The analysis is constrained by the question "does this save us money?"
For anyone involved in automation, the more valuable framing should always be "what could these systems release?"
The greatest opportunity presented by agentic AI is not automation for its own sake, or pure paper efficiency, but the flourishing of human skill, judgement and imagination. People can be freed from tasks that never really deserved human attention. The prize, in every case, is not necessarily a smaller workforce, but a more capable one. To realise this, government must encourage human growth - skills, attitudes and imagination that can, in turn, drive business and economic growth.
In developing policy
The good news for policymakers is that the underpinning feedback loop is already well established: challenge – policy – programmes – evaluation – evolution. The opportunity in adopting AI is to speed that loop up, leveraging better data to make better decisions. We're delighted to see this happening more, like greenfield public consultation synthesis, the Test Learn and Grow team, and the growing importance placed on data and insight in major service delivery procurements. AI can help further still; for example with digital twins and scenario simulation.
In enabling change
Within government operations, senior buy-in and aircover is critical, and the environment has never been more conducive to reimagining how outcomes get delivered. Permanent Secretaries and senior leaders giving their teams licence to "show up differently" can genuinely unleash brilliant people to transform public services. The "Newco" approach is showing huge promise at HMRC, while DSIT's growing influence is evident in every major tender brought to market. The raw ambition of the Customer First team is also admirable. The challenge now is to protect it, and let it build, prove and do.
In commissioning delivery
The strongest gains lie wherever skilled people spend disproportionate time on coordination, paperwork and information-chasing rather than improving the outcomes they universally want.
Three areas are particularly close to our hearts at Avencera:
Education is perhaps the most talked about opportunity space, and the scale of possibility is virtually boundless. But schools remain bounded by real financial and capacity constraints, and so still focus on efficiency. The TBI's Generation Ready analysis found nearly half of schools had not officially implemented AI as of 2025, and even among those experimenting, the rationale is narrow: reducing teacher workload (44%) is the most common motivation. Far smaller shares cite improving pupil outcomes (14%) or supporting assessment (9%) – highlighting both the untapped opportunity to reshape teaching and learning, and the need for policy to push beyond incremental gains.
Employability programmes, including the huge £1.2bn Future Employment Support contract which is now in early market engagement, are part of a broader government drive. Here agentic AI can make delivery more effective: identifying gaps in the market; matching individuals to them; spotting gaps in their skill base; helping define robust, meaningful qualifications to fill those gaps – consistently and far more rapidly than today. Responses to shifting demand can and should happen in days and weeks, not years.
Business support to seed AI adoption at the grassroots is hard, but compelling: small businesses account for over 99% of private sector businesses, 60% of private sector employment, and around 52% of UK business turnover. Nationally, we've seen mixed success here. The landscape is loud, the technology is moving fast, and business owners need targeted support explicitly relevant to them. Again, the real opportunity is to scale what works – and from our work with the Thames Freeport, we believe that's locally, not nationally, driven.
Across these areas, the open questions AI can help us solve include: how do we better understand individuals, their behaviours and motivations, not just their skills? How do people learn best? And how can we access better, more granular data locally?
What it takes to deliver
None of this lands on enthusiasm alone, and the hard lessons of earlier automation waves still apply.
Three sets of levers need to move together.
Technically, agents work best grounded in authoritative data rather than left to improvise. They need to be integrated carefully into the legacy systems where work happens, and observable enough that we can see what an agent did and why, with a person kept in the loop wherever stakes and regulatory imperatives call for it.
Organisationally, the binding constraint is rarely the technology. It tends to be skills, not just literacy, but the confidence to direct, question and overrule AI well; alongside the will to redesign broken workflows rather than simply make them faster. Trust is equally as important: people embrace tools they believe in and quietly resist those they don't.
On policy, scaling responsibly calls for clear accountability for what agents do, procurement routes that let public bodies adopt fast-moving technology without locking themselves in, and proportionate regulation. Most of all it needs honest measurement, so claims of saving and growth are evidenced rather than asserted.
Handled well, agentic AI can clear away the drudgery that has long crowded out meaningful work: the diagnosis, the teaching, the judgement, the creative leap. The UK's advantage – and the greatest opportunity – will not come from deploying AI fastest, but from deploying it in service of people, to unleash their imagination.
That is an opportunity worth getting right.
Chris McKibbin
Principal Consultant, Avencera
Chris McKibbin
Principal Consultant, Avencera
techUK - Seizing the AI Opportunity
The UK is a global leader in AI innovation, development and adoption.
AI has the potential to boost UK GDP by £550 billion by 2035, making adoption an urgent economic priority. techUK and our members are committed to working with the Government to turn the AI Opportunities Action Plan into reality. Together we can ensure the UK seizes the opportunities presented by AI technology and continues to be a world leader in AI development.
Get involved: techUK runs a busy calendar of activities including events, reports, and insights to demonstrate some of the most significant AI opportunities for the UK. Our AI Hub is where you will find details of all upcoming activity. We also send a monthly AI newsletter which you can subscribe to here.
Derek Thompson, Senior Vice President and GM, EMEA at Workato, shares his insights on how agentic AI is at risk of becoming a 'side project' for many, without intelligent and ambitious enterprise integration.
Read Okta's guest blog, discussing how the core opportunity for British organisations today is enabling teams to safely move AI agents into production at scale and at speed.
Sign-up to our monthly newsletter to get the latest updates and opportunities from our AI and Data Analytics Programme straight to your inbox.
Contact the team
Kir Nuthi
Head of AI and Data, techUK
Kir Nuthi
Head of AI and Data, techUK
Kir Nuthi is the Head of AI and Data at techUK.
She holds over seven years of Government Affairs and Tech Policy experience in the US and UK. Kir previously headed up the regulatory portfolio at a UK advocacy group for tech startups and held various public affairs in US tech policy. All involved policy research and campaigns on competition, artificial intelligence, access to data, and pro-innovation regulation.
Kir has an MSc in International Public Policy from University College London and a BA in both Political Science (International Relations) and Economics from the University of California San Diego.
Outside of techUK, you are likely to find her attempting studies at art galleries, attempting an elusive headstand at yoga, mending and binding books, or chasing her dog Maya around South London's many parks.
Usman joined techUK in January 2024 as Programme Manager for Artificial Intelligence.
He leads techUK’s AI Adoption programme, supporting members of all sizes and sectors in adopting AI at scale. His work involves identifying barriers to adoption, exploring solutions, and helping to unlock AI’s transformative potential, particularly its benefits for people, the economy, society, and the planet. He is also committed to advancing the UK’s AI sector and ensuring the UK remains a global leader in AI by working closely with techUK members, the UK Government, regulators, and devolved and local authorities.
Since joining techUK, Usman has delivered a regular drumbeat of activity to engage members and advance techUK's AI programme. This has included two campaign weeks, the creation of the AI Adoption Hub (now the AI Hub), the AI Leader's Event Series, the Putting AI into Action webinar series and the Industrial AI sprint campaign.
Before joining techUK, Usman worked as a policy, regulatory and government/public affairs professional in the advertising sector. He has also worked in sales, marketing, and FinTech.
Usman holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a GDL and LLB from BPP Law School, and a BA from Queen Mary University of London.
When he isn’t working, Usman enjoys spending time with his family and friends. He also has a keen interest in running, reading and travelling.
Sue leads techUK's Technology and Innovation work. This includes work programmes on AI, Cloud, Data, Quantum, Semiconductors, Digital ID and Digital ethics as well as emerging and transformative technologies and innovation policy. In 2025, Sue was honoured with an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the Technology Industry in the New Year Honours List. She has also been recognised as one of the most influential people in UK tech by Computer Weekly's UKtech50 Longlist and was inducted into the Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK Tech Hall of Fame.
A key influencer in driving forward the tech agenda in the UK, in December 2025 Sue was appointed to the UK Government’s Women in Tech Taskforce by the Technology Secretary of State. She also sits on the UK Government’s Smart Data Council, Satellite Applications Catapult Advisory Group, Bank of England’s AI Consortium and BSI’s Digital Strategic Advisory Group. Previously, Sue was a member of the Independent Future of Compute Review and co-chaired the National Data Strategy Forum. As well as being recognised in the UK's Big Data 100 and the Global Top 100 Data Visionaries in 2020, Sue has been shortlisted for the Milton Keynes Women Leaders Awards and has been a judge for the Loebner Prize in AI, the UK Tech 50 and annual UK Cloud Awards. She is a regular industry speaker on issues including AI ethics, data protection and cyber security.
Prior to joining techUK in January 2015, Sue was responsible for Symantec's Government Relations in the UK and Ireland. Before that, Sue was senior policy advisor at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Sue has an BA degree on History and American Studies from Leeds University and a Master’s Degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from the University of Birmingham. Sue is a keen sportswoman and in 2016 achieved a lifelong ambition to swim the English Channel.
Visit our AI Hub - the home of all our AI content:
Enquire about membership:
Become a techUK member
Our members develop strong networks, build meaningful partnerships and grow their businesses as we all work together to create a thriving environment where industry, government and stakeholders come together to realise the positive outcomes tech can deliver.
