AI Reality Check: The uncomfortable truth UK business leaders need to face now
AI isn’t coming. It’s already everywhere in your organisation.
Your people are using AI tools right now to make decisions, produce work, analyse data, write code, and do tasks that used to require full teams. Most of those decisions never reach leadership. Most aren’t checked. A lot of them are wrong.
And the uncomfortable reality is this: AI is moving faster inside UK businesses than the leaders running them.
We wanted to understand the real scale of this problem, so we commissioned independent research with 2,000 UK tech workers. What they told us contradicts almost everything leadership teams think they know about AI readiness, risk, and capability.
This research will make some companies rethink their entire strategy. It will make others realise they’re already behind.
Before we release the findings publicly, we’re bringing a small group of senior UK leaders together for a closed, off-record, brutally honest discussion.
This is not a panel. This is not a showcase. This is not a safe PR conversation.
This is a private briefing for leaders who actually want to know the truth about what’s happening inside their organisations, and what they need to fix before AI-driven decisions start costing them money, reputation, or people.
What we’ll be unpacking
The focus depends on where the data hits hardest, but expect the conversation to confront issues like:
AI adoption in the shadows. How much AI is already being used without leadership approval, oversight, or understanding, and what that means for risk.
The governance gap. Where companies think they are vs where the workforce says they actually are. Spoiler, the gap is wide.
Leadership readiness. Whether senior teams genuinely understand the tools they’re approving, the decisions they’re delegating, and the skills they’re missing.
Workforce truth. What tech workers really think about AI, how prepared they feel, and where they’re already relying on it in ways leadership hasn’t caught up to yet.
None of this will be comfortable. That’s the point.
What you’ll walk away with
A private first look at the data. The kind of findings that will dominate boardroom conversations for the next year. You’ll see them before anyone else.
A candid peer discussion. No recordings, no observers, no PR spin. Just leaders comparing notes on what they’re seeing, what scares them, and what the data means for their strategy.
A clear view of your blind spots. The biggest risks come from what you don’t know is already happening. This will show you where to look first.
A competitive advantage. Your competitors’ junior staff are adopting AI faster than their leaders can regulate it. If you don’t get ahead of it now, you’re already behind.
Who this is for
Leaders who are already responsible for AI decisions, whether they feel ready or not:
CTOs and CIOs
Chief Data Officers
Digital and transformation leaders
Business heads accountable for technology direction
We’re inviting 20 to 25 leaders. No more. If you’re in the room, you’re part of the real conversation shaping UK business strategy in 2026.
If you’re not, you’ll hear about it afterwards.