Wednesday 8 November, London: Today, IBM launched its new report Leadership in the Age of AI', which found that nearly 80% of senior UK businesses leaders surveyed are deploying generative AI, or are planning to, with half of respondents primarily motivated by enhancing customer experience.
Based on a survey of 1,600 senior business executives across the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Sweden, the report explores how leadership is transforming as the region's businesses embrace generative AI.
The report also found that 97% of UK respondents who have or plan to deploy generative are actively engaged in shaping new ethical and governance frameworks.
As executives across the UK seek to untap the potential of AI while navigating growing security threats and an evolving regulatory and ethics landscape, the report explores what leadership in the age of AI truly entails.
Dr Nicola Hodson, CEO, IBM UK and Ireland
Heralded as a transformative tool to drive insights, reduce costs, and improve operational efficiencies, it is not surprising that business leaders are acting swiftly to embrace generative AI tools like IBM's watsonx. This latest research shows a real sense of opportunity in boardrooms across Europe. Almost 80% of UK business leaders have already deployed generative AI or intend to in the next year, demonstrating just how rapidly this revolution is happening.
Yet, as executives across the UK and Europe seek to untap the potential of AI, businesses must also navigate the evolving regulatory and ethical landscape surrounding it. Alongside their focus on delivering commercial value, business leaders now have the duty to lead the generative AI revolution responsibly embedding trust and transparency into every step of their adoption. This duty is placing new demands on business leaders who are facing pressure to deploy rapidly from multiple internal and external sources.
Generative AI is poised to be a once-in-a-generation business opportunity and leaders are responding quickly to the fast-moving developments. Taking the right approach to leadership in this new era will be vital for success and will have far-reaching benefits on business value, people, and society on a whole.
Main findings include:
Key drivers for AI take up
UK business leaders surveyed say that the embrace of generative AI is being driven by external and internal factors, with board members (38%) and the need to keep up with competitors (33%) identified as the two greatest forces.
This stems primarily from a desire to enhance customer experience in their business, (50%). This is followed by the desire to modernise and improve operational efficiency (44%) - using AI to automate routine processes and free up employees to take on higher value work while helping foster innovation - and boosting sales and revenue (39%).
Answering the AI boardroom agenda in particular, respondents were virtually unanimous (93%) on the potential of generative AI to power better leadership decisions.
Taking the lead on transparency and ethics
When it came to the challenges of deploying generative AI, UK respondents identified cost as the top challenge to deployment, followed by the pressure to hire specialist talent.
And, while policy makers in Europe develop AI policy frameworks, business leaders themselves are being required to take ownership and responsibility on key governance issues, particularly in the UK. Consistent with the European average, 38% of UK respondents cite security implications as the most fundamental to responsible AI.
Maintaining focus on continuous skills development
The availability of AI skills was also revealed to be an issue in UK, with less than two thirds of respondents (61%) believing their workforce had the right skills to adopt generative AI.
Consequently, improving AI skills proved to be a key priority, with 93% of UK leaders saying they were taking steps to ensure they have the right AI skills in their organisations.
UK business leaders are also assuming proactive accountability for helping establish the guardrails: 75% of UK leaders are planning to join discussions with peers or collaborate with policymakers on AI regulation.
Despite these promising conversations, however, there is still some way to go. Although 93% of respondents claim to have a good understanding of the regulatory context, a far smaller proportion (50%) felt clear about what it means for their business. This was one of the lowest levels across Europe, indicating the UK respondents feel less informed than their European counterparts.
Paul Weller, Head of Customer Propositions and Conversational AI, Retail Bank, NatWest Group commented on the findings of the report: At NatWest, we are always looking for new ways to improve our services and provide outstanding digital-first experiences for our customers. The advent of generative AI presents an exciting opportunity to accelerate our digital strategy and keep pace with our customer needs and expectations.
IBM's study shows there is a lot of enthusiasm from UK business leaders for the benefits generative AI can bring. However, like many other organisations, making sure the data and AI models we're using are secure and trustworthy is a top priority for us. This is particularly vital in highly regulated industries like financial services, which have stringent requirements in place to protect customers.
There's an abundance of opportunity for businesses that can make early gains with generative AI, but in order for customers, regulators and other stakeholders to be able to trust the outputs of AI models, having the right governance framework in place is going to be critical.
Asif Shah, People Services Digital Lead, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust observed: This new research from IBM suggests there s a lot of interest from UK or
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
Wednesday 8 November, London: Today, IBM launched its new report Leadership in the Age of AI', which found that nearly 80% of senior UK businesses leaders surveyed are deploying generative AI, or are planning to, with half of respondents primarily motivated by enhancing customer experience.
