UK businesses have tripled their AI adoption. Most are still barely scratching the surface.

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/07/uk-cloud-dependency-billion-pound-risk.avif

TL;DR

A new ONS survey shows UK business AI adoption has risen from 12% to 35% since 2023, but the average adopter uses only 1.6 AI tools. Scott Pope of Nexthink argues the gap between adoption and transformation is a culture and visibility problem, not a technology one.

Three years ago, roughly one in eight UK businesses with ten or more employees reported using artificial intelligence; today, the Office for National Statistics puts that figure at around one in three, a near-tripling that reflects how quickly AI has moved from specialist tool to mainstream workplace technology. The numbers tell a compelling story of expansion.

They also reveal its limits. The average adopting business has gone from using 1.4 AI technologies to 1.6 over the same period, a gain so modest it barely registers as progress.

What businesses are actually using

Large language models are the most widely deployed AI...

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