Interview: Content Guru and King’s College, Digital Technology Leaders Awards finalists
'There's growing interest in how AI can make IT delivery more effective’
For a decade, the Digital Technology Leaders Awards have recognised the individuals and teams driving meaningful change across the industry.
In a landscape where innovation never slows, digital professionals aren't just keeping pace; they're reshaping organisations, redefining services and setting new expectations for what technology can deliver.
This year's winners will be announced at a live awards ceremony on Thursday 2nd July in London.
King's College London and Content Guru are joint finalist in two categories: Best Automation Project and Best Public Sector Digital Project.
We caught up with Laura Wheat, Admissions Transformation Manager at King's College London and Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO, Content Guru, to learn more about the work that propelled their organisations to the finals of the Digital Technology Leaders Awards.
Why do you think awards like the Digital Technology Leaders Awards matter?
Laura Wheat: Awards like these play an important role in recognising innovation that has real, tangible impact. In sectors like higher education - where processes can be complex and change can be slow - they help spotlight what's possible when organisations are willing to rethink traditional approaches. They also provide a platform to share best practice, which helps the wider sector move forward collectively, particularly in areas like AI, automation, and digital transformation.
Martin Taylor: Awards like the Digital Technology Leaders Awards bring together every sector that uses IT. Most awards we enter are market-focused, such as customer experience or contact centres, but these awards are different as the categories are horizontal. For example, for Best Automation Project, we're competing not just with peers in our space, but also against IT services firms, technology consultants, and cloud providers.
What would winning this award mean to your company?
Laura Wheat: It would be a fantastic recognition of the collaboration between King's and Content Guru, and the work our teams have put into delivering a solution under significant time and operational pressure. More importantly, it would validate the value of investing in applicant experience. Clearing is a critical and high-stakes moment for prospective students, and improving accessibility, responsiveness, and support at that point really matters. Winning would reinforce our commitment to continuing that work.
Martin Taylor: Intelligent automation is not new, but how we are applying it is. We are shortlisted for two awards for our work with King's: Best Automation Project and Best Public Sector Digital Project, and it's great to see that hard work recognised.
What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?
Laura Wheat: Our proudest achievement is the successful delivery of the AI-powered IVR system for Clearing. The solution transformed our ability to manage large volumes of calls, reducing wait times by over 90 minutes at peak and helping applicants get through to the right support more quickly. It not only improved operational efficiency but also made a meaningful difference to the experience of thousands of prospective students during a very stressful process.
Martin Taylor: In May 2026, we won the 'Improving Urgent and Emergency Care through Digital' category at the Health Service Journal's Digital Awards 2026 alongside our customer, NHS England London DUEC team. The award recognised our work using AI-powered Natural Language Processing (NLP) to improve digital triage, reduce wait times, and help thousands of Londoners access urgent and emergency care every single day. It's fantastic that this same technology is available for all types of organisations, so they can benefit from the same leading-edge solutions as other vital sectors.
What have been the biggest challenges of 2026 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?
Laura Wheat: One of the biggest challenges has been balancing rapid innovation with the need to maintain service continuity during peak periods like Clearing. Implementing new technology at scale, while ensuring reliability and trust, requires careful planning and strong collaboration. Our people have been central to that - bringing operational insight, testing new approaches, and adapting quickly in a live environment. The partnership with Content Guru was also key, enabling us to combine technical expertise with frontline experience to deliver something that genuinely works in practice.
Martin Taylor: 2025 was shaped by challenging geopolitics, and 2026 is no different. We're seeing rising economic nationalism in many markets, with tariffs, global conflicts, and volatility in energy and commodity prices all creating a climate of uncertainty. For the IT sector, that has meant many organisations deferring major programme decisions, and in many cases, our biggest competitor has been the decision to do nothing.
To overcome this, we've doubled down on supporting our existing customer base, giving them new tools that drive efficiency and enhance customer experience. Artificial intelligence in customer experience has been especially well-received and continues to be one of the most exciting areas of growth.
How do you think the industry has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?
Laura Wheat: There has been a noticeable shift towards adopting AI and automation in a more practical, outcomes-focused way. The conversation is moving beyond experimentation to real-world application. However, there is still work to do around building confidence and ensuring these technologies are used responsibly. The sector needs to continue focusing on transparency, fairness, and maintaining the human element, particularly in areas like admissions where decisions have significant personal impact.
Martin Taylor: Across the wider IT industry, there's growing interest in how AI can make the delivery of IT itself more effective: through automating quality assurance, testing, deployment, and other processes. But there's a challenge: many IT departments are being asked to implement AI without clear use cases, success criteria, or the right data foundations in place.
In customer experience, decades of process optimisation, measurement, and structured data mean AI can be applied effectively. But not every sector is ready. If the data isn't in the right state, AI simply can't deliver on its potential.
What do you see as the main opportunities for the industry in the coming year?
Laura Wheat: The biggest opportunity is to use AI and automation to enhance, rather than replace, human decision-making. This includes improving application processing times, providing more personalised support to applicants, and using data more effectively to inform decisions. There is also an opportunity to make processes more accessible, ensuring that all applicants can engage with admissions systems in a way that works for them.
Martin Taylor: One of the biggest opportunities for the industry in the year ahead is the growing demand for sovereign UK technology and stronger security, driven by high-profile breaches that have finally given the issue the prominence it deserves. Insider threats are particularly difficult to insure against, which is why all organisations need to focus on proactive monitoring, constantly scanning for unusual behaviours that can flag risks early.
How do you plan to capitalise on those opportunities?
Laura Wheat: At King's, we are continuing to invest in scalable, user-focused technologies that support both applicants and our internal teams. This means building on the success of initiatives like the AI IVR, expanding automation in application assessment, and improving how we use data to support decision-making. A key focus will be ensuring these solutions are designed with users in mind - keeping processes clear, fair, and accessible, while enabling our teams to focus on the areas where human input adds the most value.
Martin Taylor: Another area of opportunity is AI. The real opportunity will be to prove which AI implementations deliver genuine ROI and then scale them. That's exactly where we're focused. Being in the customer experience space gives us a big advantage, because this is where some of the earliest and most successful AI applications have already been proven. Organisations are recognising that customer experience is the place where they can apply AI at scale to transform efficiency, and more and more are investing here.
The Digital Technology Awards will take place on 2nd July in London. Click here to view the shortlist and here to book your table.