British firms reshape workforce for AI amid staff resistance to office return October 15, 2026 Top bosses at British businesses have said lingering resistance to returning to the office remains a challenge, as City firms focus on redesigning roles to support human-AI collaboration. According to KPMG’s 2026 global CEO outlook, investment in AI remains a top priority for global business leaders, as most British bosses (87 per cent) expect to [...]
City lawyers say GPU financing is the new data centre gold rush October 14, 2026 As AI drives demand for larger data centres, lenders are increasingly financing the costly Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) inside them, which can cost almost as much as the buildings themselves. Data suggests that since the generative AI boom took off in 2023, global investment in GPUs and AI chip infrastructure has been staggering, with figures [...]
Team GB Olympic medallist raises £5m to make health tech as common as iPhone October 14, 2026 Olympic medallist turned health tech entrepreneur Andrew Steele has raised nearly £5m ahead of the US launch of his latest venture, Stride. Steele – part of the Team GB 4 x 400m relay squad awarded bronze in Beijing 2008 – co-founded genetic testing firm DNAfit and sold it to David Beckham-backed global giant Prenetics for [...]
Meta challenges Ofcom in court for ‘acting irrationally’ in fine and fee pricing October 13, 2026 Meta has challenged the UK regulator in court over how it calculates fees and fines under the UK’s online safety law, as it argued the methods are disproportionate and unlawful. The tech giant has questioned the media regulator, Ofcom, over its definition of ‘qualifying worldwide revenue’, which it uses to calculate financial penalties and fees [...]
We should be AI optimists, says Bank of England deputy October 12, 2026 A top Bank of England official has called for optimism around artificial intelligence and said leveraging the tech is the “best pathway” to securing economic growth. Sarah Breeden, deputy governor for financial stability at the central bank, said the UK needs to “think ahead” on the future use cases of AI for “how we might [...]
Palantir’s Tom Watson warns Labour against ‘mob rule’ on procurement October 9, 2026 Former Labour deputy leader and top Palantir executive Tom Watson has warned his party could face “trouble” if they bow to “mob rule” on procurement procedures. Lord Watson, who became a senior vice president at the US tech giant in September, said Palantir is “very targeted by the people that are targeting Israeli companies”. Watson [...]
Google DeepMind’s London AI drug spinout eyes $50bn valuation October 8, 2026 London-based AI drug discovery firm, Isomorphic Labs, is reportedly seeking a valuation of up to $50bn (£37bn) in fresh funding talks, just five months after raising $2.1bn from investors. The Google DeepMind spinout, led by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir Demis Hassabis, is in early discussions to raise new capital at a valuation of at least [...]
Bolt set for £190m VAT bill after legal defeat October 8, 2026 Ride-hailing platform Bolt has been refused permission to appeal a case brought by HMRC over how it calculates and pays its VAT. This follows HMRC winning an appeal in June against the Estonian tech giant over its VAT payments and calculations, overturning earlier decisions that had ruled in Bolt’s favour. The tax authority brought the [...]
Asos hackers duped employee in data breach October 8, 2026 The hackers behind a threat to leak Asos customer data duped an employee by posing as a “trusted contact,” the fast-fashion group has said. An unknown group shocked Asos’ millions of customers on Tuesday when they published a push notification on the online retailer’s app, claiming to have hacked into the company and threatening a [...]
As it happened: Oil surges after Trump says he doesn’t ‘really want’ Iran peace October 8, 2026 Welcome back to City AM‘s FTSE 100 liveblog. The FTSE 100 has returned to the red after markets were hit by the spiking price of oil this week that led to a global bond sell-off. The UK’s 10-year gilt yield rose ten basis point yesterday before giving up some gains to settle seven basis points higher at [...]