AI is driving McKinsey’s business model and talent overhaul May 15, 2026 McKinsey & Company’s business model is changing to prioritise performance-based pay, a shift largely driven by the impact of AI, City AM understands. The Big Three consulting giant has told senior staff it plans to overhaul its remuneration structure for partners, with more of their pay potentially coming in the form of equity in the US-headquartered partnership. [...]
UK firms are spending billions on AI – but getting extra admin in return May 14, 2026 UK companies are pouring copious amounts of money into AI, while their employees spend nearly a full day each week doing work that AI was supposed to eliminate, new research has found. According to Workday, one in four UK workers loses seven or more hours a week moving information between systems, chasing down data and [...]
Quantexa chief says £175m HMRC deal will ‘protect taxpayers’ money’ May 14, 2026 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has signed a £175m, 10-year partnership with London-based Quantexa to overhaul its data infrastructure, as the tax authority scrambles to recover billions lost to evasion and sophisticated fraud. The deal – one of the largest tech deployments in the public sector – is designed to fix the “fragmented” legacy systems [...]
Copyright isn’t dead in the age of AI, it’s key to growing UK creative industries May 14, 2026 Copyright is not a brake on innovation. It is the market mechanism that turns British creativity into investment and the route to responsible AI, says Ed Vaizey The creative industries are not a side hustle for the British economy. They are a serious growth engine. The UK’s music industry alone generates around £8bn in GVA [...]
Britain’s data centres are eating the grid – and we underestimated the damage May 14, 2026 UK data centre emissions forecasts have been revised upward 100-fold. London’s server farms already consume more power than all its households combined. So why did it take this long to do the maths? Data centres are consuming six per cent of all UK electricity, while government emissions forecasts have been revised upward by a factor [...]
Fractile lands $220m as ministers hail ‘vote of confidence’ in UK AI May 13, 2026 British AI chip startup Fractile has raised $220m (£165m) in fresh funding with the government pointing to the deal as evidence the UK can produce globally competitive AI infrastructure companies. The London-founded company, which is developing next-generation chips designed to speed up AI inference – the by which AI models generate responses – said the [...]
Deloitte: UK Gen Z and Millennials delaying milestones and living ‘payslip to payslip’ May 13, 2026 British Gen Z and Millennials are delaying major life decisions as they live “payslip to payslip”, according to data shared exclusively with City AM from Big Four giant Deloitte. The data, based on findings from 806 respondents as part of the firm’s annual Gen Z and Millennial Survey, revealed that around 40 per cent of [...]
Employers think Gen Z has forgotten how to work – are they right? May 13, 2026 Over half of UK employers are worried about Gen Z behaviour and professionalism. Here’s three things they can do, according to Eliza Filby ‘Why won’t our graduates just pick up the phone?’ is the most frequent complaint I hear from leaders. It may be the point of most frustration but it’s far from the most [...]
AI in banks? It’s all marketing and FOMO May 13, 2026 As banks are rush to beef up their AI capacity Samuel Norman recounts the sentiment shared across the industry at a conference in Copenhagen last week. Like all sectors, banks are chasing the promises of AI. The industry is shrugging off growing fears around job losses and rushing to beef up their AI credentials. Last [...]
Arm’s AI ambitions hit supply chain reality despite record revenues May 8, 2026 Computing giant Arm has spent the last twelve months posing as one of the AI boom’s biggest beneficiaries, but the British chip maker’s latest results exposed that the semiconductor supply chain is lagging behind demand. The Cambridge-born company posted record quarterly revenues of $1.49bn (£1.09bn) and annual revenues of $4.92bn on Wednesday, marking its third [...]