The opportunity for the UK to become a leader in AI applications, especially in professional services

The U.K. digital sector has largely missed out on recent major technological revolutions, from the internet to the rise of the smartphone and social media. That’s why none of the world’s 50 largest software companies (by revenue) are based here. That’s why Nvidia alone is worth more than the whole FTSE100 combined.

The AI revolution will reset the board — completely changing how most knowledge work is done within the next decade.

Given that the U.K.’s strengths are focused in knowledge industries which are prime candidates for AI disruption, it gives the U.K. the perfect vantage point to build AI applications for these industries, make up for missed opportunities, and boost productivity, which has barely grown since 2007.

While the developers of large foundation models, such as our partner Anthropic (and OpenAI)  have attracted the most attention in the AI conversation so far, applications like biotech, finance, legal and professional services will soon produce a new generation of huge specialized AI companies.

The U.K. can be home to the next round of tech winners — which could end up as big as Amazon, Google and Facebook are today.

AI in practice: what does the legal sector of tomorrow look like?

• Today’s best large language models (LLMs) are very capable, when used in the right way. The next generation of LLMs will be even more powerful, and the hundreds of billions invested in GPU clusters will continue the rapid improvements, allowing start-ups to build their own AI on top of these foundational models to serve specialist markets such as the legal sector.
• Don’t expect to see fewer lawyers. As AI makes lawyers much more productive, demand will go up as good legal work will become faster, and more affordable.
• The Legal Service Board recently found that around 3.6 million people who need legal services go without them each year in England and Wales. Just as the spreadsheet made accountants more valuable, rather than making them all redundant, legal AI will help meet unmet demand for legal services, and broaden access.
• But improving Legal AI means the end of the billable hour.
• Paying an hourly rate used to make sense, but soon, tech-enabled lawyers might be 100 times more efficient than their old-fashioned competitors. An hourly rate disincentivises efficiency whereas billing for output encourages it, and incentivising efficiency is key to unlocking productivity gains.
• The drudgery of tedious document comprehension will be done by AI, leaving human experts to be strategic business partners, who play the role of commercial decision-maker and advisor, rather spending hours reading long documents.
• In-house legal teams will do more, using AI to perform research, to draft and negotiate contracts, write reports and perform due diligence, and to manage their commercial obligations. Industries with big legal bills today, like private equity, banking, insurance and pharmaceuticals, will be able to leverage technology to provide the capacity they use law firms for today. They’ll outcompete those who don’t use AI in this way.
• Valuable business data, which is today locked away inside thousands of unread reports, memos and contracts, will be unleashed by letting AI read every page in seconds. This will boost the productivity of large corporations in particular. Security concerns will push these big enterprises towards partnerships with the most trusted AI providers.

Winning this race matters – it may matter more than everything else being done to grow the UK’s economy. And losing it will be costly. If British professional services industries don’t adapt to use AI quickly, they could disappear entirely as globally relevant industries.

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