Making AI Work for Britain: A Playbook for Digital Leaders
The AI pilots look promising, the strategies read well, and yet adoption stalls. The problem is not what most people think it is — and the good news is that we have solved something very like it before.
Across the Digital Leaders network I hear the same story, whether in boardrooms, public sector teams, or consultancies. The AI pilots look promising. The strategies read well. Yet adoption numbers stall, value never quite lands, and the enthusiasm of recent years is giving way to something more anxious in 2026.
If that picture feels familiar, I want you to know two things. First, you are not alone. Second, the problem is not what most people think it is.
This is the argument at the heart of my new book, Making AI Work for Britain, published on 28th April by London Publishing Partnership and available now via Open Access for free download via Digital Leaders.
Britain’s AI implementation gap is not a story about missing models or weak infrastructure. The tools are here. The talent is here. What is missing is the institutional scaffolding that turns capability into outcome: procurement that rewards the right behaviours, governance that senior leaders can actually use, and accountability that reaches the board.
We have been in this position before. Between 2010 and 2013, UK government digital delivery was fragmented, duplicative, and slow. The creation of the Government Digital Service, and the playbook that came with it, changed what was possible. That turnaround did not come from a breakthrough in technology. It came from the deliberate redesign of how the state bought, built, and held itself to account.
AI today needs the same kind of structural answer.
The book’s core proposition is one I have arrived at through both research and practice: Britain should consolidate demand and diversify supply. That means pooling common requirements across government and major organisations, while deliberately broadening the supplier base beyond a handful of US platforms. This is not protectionism. It is the considered response to a dependency trap we are otherwise walking into.
From that starting point, five reforms follow. Three are worth previewing here:
None of these require new technology. All of them require leadership choices that digital leaders are uniquely placed to make.
I wrote this book because I believe the current moment is more winnable than the mood suggests. The UK has the research base, the professional community, and the institutional memory to get this right. What it needs is a shared AI playbook and the confidence to apply it.
Digital Leaders is hosting the download because this community is exactly where that AI playbook has to take root. You are the people running the transformations, writing the strategies, and making the procurement decisions that will shape the next decade of Britain’s AI story.
Print and paid digital editions are available through the usual channels for those who prefer them. I would really like to hear what resonates and what you would challenge. Please let me know directly, comment on LinkedIn, or find me at a Digital Leaders event. This is the start of the conversation, not the end of it.
Click Here to Download Making AI Work for Britain
