Industry set to increase investment in AI

25 November, 2024

Furthermore, while adoption of AI across overall business functions is increasing, the report shows the use of other digital tools, such as robotics, remains disappointingly low. Less than a fifth of companies (16%) operate them with almost a third (29%) not considering using them and only four in ten (38%) considering using them. The UK is positioned 24th in the global rankings for robotics use, at 111 robots per 10,000 employees. The UK uses just 0.5% of the world’s robots in manufacturing compared to 1.2% in France and 1.6% in Italy, both of whom have similar size industrial bases (1).

According to Make UK, there have been welcome initiatives from Government including confirmation of the roll out of the Made Smarter programme nationwide and a doubling of the funding for the Alan Turing Institute (2). However, given the extent of barriers that remain for SMEs in particular there needs to be greater efforts by Industry itself to overcome awareness and cultural challenges in organisations by sharing peer to peer learning and best practice.

In addition, Government could take additional specific measures including extending the R&D tax relief to cover investment in capital equipment and ensure that the extended Made Smarter programme is able to deliver across all regions.

The survey of 151 companies was conducted between in August 2024.

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