UK business: Intrigued but cautious about AI

'It's too early to jump'

From all the noise, you'd be forgiven for thinking that UK organisations are falling over themselves to adopt generative AI; but as with many hyped new technologies, the reality is far less frenzied.

Asked about their opinion of gen-AI, the vast majority (68%) of 170 senior UK IT professionals surveyed by Computing in January said it is promising but immature. On the other hand, 9% believe it to be the most important innovation since the smartphone, but that number was almost equalled by those dismissing it as the biggest bubble since the dotcom boom.

Ten percent said they are currently using AI operationally, with a further 17% rolling out proofs of concept (PoCs). The largest number, though, were at the dabbling stage, or planning to review it in the future. Five percent ruled it out altogether.

Among those who said they are using genAI in an organisational capacity, or implementing PoCs, ChatGPT (76%) was the comfortable frontrunner, followed by Microsoft/GitHub Copilots (45%) and Google Bard (now renamed Gemini, 14%). Microsoft led in the cloud stakes too, with 76% saying they were using its Azure AI cloud services, compared to Google Cloud's 15% and AWS's 12%.

The wait-and-sees said they simply have no current use cases (39%), are waiting for the legal/ regulatory landscape to stabilise (35%), or lack expertise (31%).

A frothy market

The genAI market is the epitome of frothy.

"Myriad tools have emerged and it's too early to jump, to train staff on one tool", said a CPO in the health sector.

Others feared it is a solution looking for a problem.

"We are not convinced of the need or effectiveness of AI in our business at this point," added a business systems analyst in hospitality.

An IT manager in manufacturing spoke for many, saying there is just not enough information to go on at the moment. "AI is not seen as mature enough and it is difficult to allocate the resources to investigate this. We need to see better usage cases, e.g. real-world examples in manufacturing businesses."

Even those who view genAI as the "most important innovation since the smartphone", voiced concerns over its use to spread disinformation. Three-quarters said they were concerned or considerably concerned about this, the same proportion as the cohort as a whole.

The early adopters were, however, far more likely to be looking to restructure their CTO and/or CIO roles to make AI adoption easier, demonstrating they are serious about making the most of the opportunities on offer.

Some were raring to go, but felt constrained by their operating environment, like this IT manager in a further education college.

"GenAI has the potential to considerably improve the FE offering to our students, however limited government insight, especially at Ofsted, will hold back advanced use for some time to come."

Those who said they are already using genAI were found in sectors including education, manufacturing, technology and finance. Unsurprisingly, these IT leaders were much more likely to describe it as a golden opportunity or highly significant innovation.

But for most generative AI remains too risky, too immature and not a practical proposition at the current time.

About the research

Computing polled 173 senior UK IT leaders about current tech trends including AI, sustainability, application and platform consolidation, cyber resilience and quantum computing. Watch out for more analysis of the findings over the coming weeks.