TL;DR
The UK Treasury has brought in the Tony Blair Institute and senior tech executives to advise on deploying AI across public services, drawing criticism from campaign groups who see conflicts of interest in letting tech firms shape procurement of their own products.
Government turns to private sector for AI guidance
Chief Secretary to the Treasury James Murray chaired a meeting with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the chair of IBM, and senior executives from AI companies including Faculty AI (now part of Accenture) and former Google and SpaceX communications adviser Dex Hunter-Torricke.
Murray said the attendees are “exactly who can help us create change across the public sector,” adding their advice will feed into efficiency planning ahead of the next spending review. The meeting follows Technology Secretary Liz Kendall’s stated goal of making Britain “the fastest AI adoption country in the G7.”
Conflict of interest concerns
Campaign group Foxglove described the meeting as “yet more evidence of the government’s excessively cosy relationship with Big Tech.” Director of advocacy Donald Campbell warned that giving tech companies “privileged access to decision-making around buying the very products they supply is clearly a risk.”
Ministers were expected to hear criticism of how government has procured AI technology, the lack of high-calibre talent in Whitehall to steer implementation, and a failure to turn pilot projects into large-scale deployments.
The government has already signed memorandums of understanding with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, accepted £730,000 from Meta to fund AI experts, and holds contracts with Palantir across health, defence, and policing. The Tony Blair Institute itself has received more than £250 million from the Ellison Foundation, linked to Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Looking forward
The advisory meeting signals the Treasury is accelerating its AI strategy ahead of the spending review, but the involvement of companies that stand to profit from public sector AI contracts will likely face continued scrutiny from transparency campaigners and opposition politicians.