UK music tech faces scale-up crunch as growth funding collapses June 1, 2026 Britain’s music tech sector is facing a scaling crisis, with funding for growth-stage firms collapsing by 90 per cent over the last five years despite the rapid rise of AI and growing investor interest in music licensing infrastructure. A new report from industry body Music Technology UK (MTUK) found investment into growth-stage music tech companies [...]
Business services staff face redundancies at City law firm May 29, 2026 City-based law firm Clyde & Co has launched a restructuring consultation for its business service staff as part of its ongoing strategy to centralise support operations into regional hubs. The firm is proposing to move certain services currently performed by teams within legal support, purchase-to-pay, and IT to its service centres in Glasgow and its [...]
Private equity boom slows down as the deal bar rises for City firms May 29, 2026 Private equity interest in professional services remains, but the era of easy deals is over as most attractive targets have already been acquired, and investors are now more selective, writes Maria Ward-Brennan. The bubble around private equity interest in the professional services industry has started to deflate, as most of the “low-hanging fruit” has already [...]
Elite law firm to splash £370m on building own AI tool May 28, 2026 The world’s largest law firm by revenue, Kirkland & Ellis, is investing £370m ($500m) to develop its own custom-built AI platform, challenging competitors that rely on widely used third-party AI tools. The US-based firm, which has a large office in the City, said it plans to spend hundreds of millions over the next three to [...]
Samsung employees bag £310k bonuses as chip boom sends payouts soaring May 28, 2026 Samsung’s AI-fuelled chip boom has delivered eye-watering payouts for thousands of staff, after workers at the South Korean giant voted through a profit-sharing deal worth hundreds of thousands of pounds each. Employees in Samsung’s memory chip division are set to receive bonuses averaging roughly £310,000, mostly in stock, as soaring demand for AI data centre [...]
Salesforce tries to prove AI won’t kill software after brutal sector sell-off May 28, 2026 Salesforce beat Wall Street expectations on Wednesday evening, but the results did little to soothe investor fears that AI could reshape, and potentially undermine, the software industry. The Slack owner reported quarterly revenue of $11.1bn (£8.2bn) during the quarter, up 13 per cent from last year and ahead of analyst expectations, while earnings per share [...]
Pinsent Masons is not the only City law firm walking a dangerous AI tightrope May 28, 2026 A junior lawyer at Pinsent Masons used AI to draft misleading emails for a High Court case, highlighting how generational attitudes and lack of training risk new mistakes as law firms rush to adopt new technology, writes Maria Ward-Brennan. It has been a slow burner, but we finally have the first notable UK law firm [...]
Salesforce earnings set to test AI sell-off fears May 27, 2026 Salesforce will report earnings after the bell on Wednesday, with investors watching closely to see whether the software giant can shake off the AI-driven sell-off that has hammered the sector since February. The Slack owner has lost around a third of its value this year, badly underperforming both the Nasdaq and wider software sector, as [...]
‘Outdated’ consultancy sector faces a reckoning as AI rips up the old model May 27, 2026 For years, the consultancy sector has relied on a traditional model and profitable formula: retained clients, billing time and upselling clients. Another crucial element has been the blend of ‘senior counsel’ supported by a team of juniors carrying out research and compiling reports. But the rug is being pulled from under this model and a [...]
Octopus acquires legal team to boost bereavement services with AI May 27, 2026 Octopus Legacy, a bereavement service owned by Octopus Group, has acquired a private client team from a large UK-based law firm as part of a push to speed up its services using AI. The company’s legal arm, Octopus Legal Services, has taken on a team of 50 legal professionals from NewLaw Solicitors in “a significant [...]