TL;DR

Oxford Insights, the research and advisory firm behind the Government AI Readiness Index, published a report on Tuesday 6 October laying the groundwork for an equivalent index for cities. It studied Abu Dhabi in depth and compared it with London, Seoul, Helsinki, Montreal and Tallinn. Its profile of London observes that the capital has no AI strategy of its own.

Why a city index

National rankings compare legislation, research and investment, but say little about the councils and city governments where most people actually deal with the state. Oxford Insights argues that gap matters because city services are where AI touches daily life most directly.

The report, “City AI Readiness: A Deep Dive into Abu Dhabi and the Global Landscape”, was written with two Abu Dhabi universities, Khalifa University and MBZUAI. It uses a six-pillar framework and sorts cities into four types: infrastructure-led “Platform Cities”, research-led “Cognitive Cities”, service-focused “Delivery Cities”, and “Strategic Cities”, where AI is central to economic planning and to government itself. That last group includes Abu Dhabi and Seoul.

“Cities are where most people deal with government, yet there has been no shared way to judge how ready they are for AI,” said Richard Stirling, chief executive of Oxford Insights. The firm wants to test the index in 15 to 20 cities.

What it says about London

The London profile credits the city with deep research and business strength, a long history of tech clustering, gigabit connectivity and a chief digital officer role created early on. Boroughs, as the tier nearest to residents, do much of the hands-on AI work. City Hall backs them with the London Datastore and with LOTI, the pan-London office for technology and innovation.

But AI is spread across wider programmes rather than set out in its own strategy, and the report treats it as an open question whether City Hall will focus on it more sharply.

Looking forward

In our view, the absence of a London AI strategy will matter more once a comparable index exists, because rankings invite comparison. The report also leans heavily on Abu Dhabi, its research partner’s home city, so UK readers should weigh the London findings on their own terms. We have looked at the risks of the city’s reliance on AI in our analysis of London’s invisible AI layer.