AI is dominating UK businesses, but isn't yet driving customer value (www.techradar.com)

New research from Red Hat finds that while AI adoption is widespread across UK businesses, it’s not yet translating into customer value: 89% of firms report no uplift in customer outcomes from their AI investments. Despite that shortfall, companies plan to boost AI spending by about 32% by 2026, and 83% of respondents believe the UK could become a global AI powerhouse within three years. The government is backing that ambition with initiatives such as safety platforms, “growth zones” and more than 100 new data centers to meet rising compute demand. Agentic (autonomous) AI is a near-term priority for 68% of organizations, and personal use of AI is growing alongside enterprise deployments. The study highlights clear operational hurdles: 95% of respondents encountered barriers to adoption, chiefly high implementation/maintenance costs (34%), security and data-privacy concerns (30%), and integration with legacy systems (28%). Talent gaps are acute — 55% rank AI as the most urgent skills shortage — and many organizations lack the MLOps, data governance and systems-integration expertise needed to move pilots into production. The result is a risky but optimistic landscape: heavy investment and infrastructure expansion could accelerate capability, but realizing customer value will require focus on scalable engineering, secure data practices, and workforce upskilling.