Exclusive: Lloyds in tie-up with Google to build AI agents April 30, 2026 Lloyds Banking Group has formed a tie-up with Google as the financial services giant sets its sight on building its own AI agents, City AM can reveal. The blue-chip lender is leveraging Google Cloud – the tech giant’s suite of computing services – and the bank’s existing Large Language Model to create a new internal [...]
AI could trigger a PPI level scandal in ‘two weeks’ April 29, 2026 A multi-billion pound scandal like PPI could happen within just “two weeks” as UK finance firms plough ahead with deploying AI despite uncertainty around governance standards, a fresh report has claimed. The UK’s financial services sector faces a “capability gap” when deploying AI, according to a report from regulatory compliance firm Zango. The research pulled [...]
King’s Cross puts London on the AI map April 28, 2026 A description of King’s Cross a little over 20 years ago sounds like something from a Dickens novel. It was “a place of decay, dereliction, crime and filth” – known for drugs and prostitution. Some readers may remember its rave scene but for most people it was a no-go area. That opening description comes from [...]
Former Deepmind star lands $1.1bn backing for AI startup April 27, 2026 An ex-Google DeepMind researcher has secured one of Europe’s largest AI funding rounds, as investors race to back a new generation of frontier labs beyond large language models (LLMs). David Silver has raised $1.1bn (£880m) for his London-based startup Ineffable Intelligence at a valuation of $5.1bn, in a round led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed [...]
‘A London Marathon every weekend? I think we can get to that – and sell out’ April 24, 2026 Sam Browne, co-founder of the tech platform, Let’s Do This, which runs the London Marathon ballot, on its rapid growth… and the coming AI revolution. On Sunday 59,000 keen runners, amateur plodders and fundraisers dressed as, among other things, a pair of testicles will line up to take on the London Marathon. This year’s ballot [...]
Magic circle Freshfields to co-build legal AI with Anthropic April 24, 2026 Magic circle law firm Freshfields has signed a multi-year agreement with AI giant Anthropic, giving the firm easy access to Anthropic’s latest AI models and collaborating to help design Anthropic’s next-generation offerings. As part of the deal, Freshfields has rolled out Anthropic’s Claude models to its entire global workforce of 5,700 users across 33 offices, [...]
Meta to cut 8,000 jobs as AI spending soars April 24, 2026 Meta Platforms is set to cut around 8,000 jobs next month as it ramps up spending on AI, in what marks one of the company’s largest rounds of layoffs in recent years. The move, as first reported by Bloomberg, will see roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s workforce cut, alongside plans to leave thousands of [...]
‘China data theft’: 500,000 Britons’ details put for sale online April 23, 2026 The government has revealed that confidential medical data belonging to half a million Brits was put up for a sale on a website in China. Data stored in UK Biobank, the world’s most comprehensive set of information on health that is used by scientists for research, was put on Alibaba. The data did not contain [...]
AI-focused services make up 40 per cent of BCG’s 2025 revenue April 23, 2026 The global revenue of the consultancy group Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reached $14.4bn (£10.6bn), a single-digit increase over the previous year, credited to AI. BCG reported seven per cent global revenue growth, rising to $14.4bn in 2025 from $13.5bn in 2024, marking its 22nd consecutive year of growth. The firm said its AI-and tech-focused services [...]
Barclays and Lloyds picked for City watchdog’s AI live testing April 21, 2026 Barclays has joined the second cohort of firms selected by the UK’s financial watchdog to get a safe run at testing AI as banking giants battle to bulk up their tech capacity. The FTSE 100 constituent will join its peer Lloyds Banking Group – which will be represented by its subsidiary Scottish Widows – as [...]