United for BritAIn

‘I want the UK to be the most digitally capable and AI confident economy in the G7.’

So were the words from Minister McDougall that opened a meet of industry leaders who had gathered at Number 10 Downing Street to show their commitment to small firms and the topic of digital adoption. It was a strong start that fired up guests into dialogue and discussion. 

First an announcement of Barnsley as the UK’s first Tech Town. The town will be a ‘national exemplar’ testing and showcasing the impact of AI when it is deployed fully in a community, with uses from the delivery of local healthcare, to new AI learning opportunities in education spaces. Throughout, there will be increased support for local SMEs through the expansion of Seam Digital Campus.

Next were case studies presented by Google on their AI skills training, Xero’s Unlock your Numbers and Enterprise Nation’s Tech Hub.  Common threads were the need to make training personalised, easy to access and digest, at a time that’s right for the business, from a trusted source, and task oriented. 

The support examples presented are delivering impressive results and the room was buoyed by a stat from one attendee that their work on AI access for their SME community was showing to save 2-10 hours per week and growing revenues by 40%. Wow. This provides the evidence for action. 

Which is indeed what all attendees are doing. Every business present is running some form of training or support for their SME customers and the question arose as to how small firms could be directed to this free support via government websites and how government could ‘show-up’ at in-person events with speakers and endorsement. More thinking on this to follow. 

Consideration is also being given to partnering with spaces and places to ensure every small business gets the opportunity to feel digitally confident and capable, not just those already online. 

Reaching all small businesses with a message of adopting digital practices raises the question of scale ie how to take a model that works well in Barnsley and deliver effectively to every part of the UK. Here lies another benefit of having people in the room who consider scale for a living and have been asked to give thought to how this can be applied in the public sector. 

The meet was called and organised by the Department of Business & Trade on the back of the SME Digital Adoption Taskforce that assembled in 2025 and published a report and recommendations for government and industry consideration. 

Phil Smith was Taskforce Chair and knows a thing or two about the topic having run Cisco in UK & Ireland for a decade. Phil works on the belief (and evidence) that there are two main ways to improve small firm productivity; by boosting a) leadership and management capability (on which, see the Help to Grow Management course) and, b) digital adoption. 

We all left feeling a big step closer towards achieving the latter based on pooling learnings and resource and scaling what works. What a great union this would be for the sake of small business and to realise the Government’s growth mission. 

Let’s do it, BritAIn!