The Confederation of British Industry and consultancy Oliver Wyman have called for a national drive to accelerate artificial intelligence adoption across the UK economy, warning that an “execution divide” is emerging between businesses successfully deploying AI and those still stuck in pilot projects.
In a new report, The Adoption Decade, the organisations argue that widespread AI adoption could boost productivity, living standards and economic resilience if businesses and government move quickly to address barriers to implementation.
The report calls for AI adoption to become a “national productivity mission”, with the UK aiming to become “the world’s leading human-centric AI-enabled economy”.
While AI use is becoming increasingly widespread, the CBI and Oliver Wyman say adoption remains uneven. Many businesses are experimenting with productivity tools, customer service applications and analytics, but fewer have embedded AI into core processes and achieved significant returns.
“The AI divide is no longer a technology divide, it is an execution divide,” the report states, highlighting leadership commitment, workforce training, governance and business process redesign as key factors separating successful adopters from the rest.
The report identifies skills shortages, regulatory uncertainty, weak data infrastructure and cybersecurity concerns among the barriers holding businesses back. Smaller firms are particularly vulnerable due to limited resources to experiment with and scale new technologies.
The organisations recommend establishing a temporary Business AI Adoption Delivery Group, bringing together government and industry to accelerate private-sector adoption. They also call for greater access to computing infrastructure and data, more effective public-sector AI deployment and a simplified approach to navigating regulation.
Skills are also central to the recommendations, with the report calling for AI literacy to be embedded across education, apprenticeships, workforce retraining and employment support.
CBI chief executive Rain Newton-Smith and Oliver Wyman UK head Lisa Quest said the UK already has world-class AI research and technology talent, but warned that “timing matters” if the country is to turn its AI capabilities into stronger productivity and economic growth.
