The AI Pulse

Issue #32 — 2nd June 2025

Editor: Alan Brown

Welcome to the latest edition of The AI Pulse for Digital Leaders. An expertly curated collection of essential articles, commentaries, and news stories from reputable sources. Do you know anyone who might be interested in AI Pulse. Have some news or looking to partner? Just get in touch at: [email protected]

Highlights in this edition include:

How LLMs think .

Businesses are concerned about the security threats of AI .

Extending our minds with GenAI .

UK workers are overwhelmed by AI .

Do governments have the necessary data foundations to achieve their AI goals ?

AI will play an increasing role in UK armed forces .

AI for Good

An interesting essay by Andy Clark in Nature Communications explores how we should look at recent AI advances as extending our minds with GenAI.

An article in Renewal describes why UK government AI policy needs to focus on democratised access, independent research, and aligning technology with the public good .

A report from the Ada Lovelace Institute provides four recommendations to strengthen the foundations for AI in the public sector to ensure trustworthy use of AI.

Rest of World reviews Karen Ho’s new book, “Empire of AI”, that focuses on why AI companies don’t have to choose between exploiting workers and chasing growth .

The Guardian reports on an AI tool trial “to design out waste” that could save the equivalent of 1.5m meals in food waste .

Bias and Ethics

EthicAI reviews an experiment being carried out at Carnegie Mellon University involving “The AI Company” and considers what happens when AI runs the company.

A Chatham House report considers the US–China AI race and why it is forcing countries to reconsider who owns their digital infrastructure.

The Guardian reviews the book “AI Con” which asks if new technology will help to make the world a better place, or if AI is just another tech bubble that will benefit the few.

Cyber Security

TechRadar reports on a Thales survey of 3,000 IT experts and concludes that businesses are overwhelmingly concerned about the security threats of AI

A primer from Data & Society maps GenAI’s role in scams, discusses the communities most at risk, and reviews the broader economic and cultural shifts that are making people more willing to take risks.

The Guardian reports that the UK defense secretary has said that AI will play an increasing role in UK armed forces as he prepares to announce a new defense strategy.

ZDNET outlines a report that states 96% of IT professionals believe AI agents pose a security risk, making them significantly larger potential liabilities — but they are deploying them anyway!

Data & Decision Making

As AI adoption in governments accelerates, CapGemini asks whether they have the necessary data foundations to achieve their goals?

The Atlantic reports on how GenAI generates personalized responses and looks at what happens when people see the assumptions an LLM makes about them ?

UKAuthority highlights a report from the Local Government Authority (LGA) that focuses on how effective cyber, digital, data and technology functions are vital in periods of organisational shift to help ensure the safe and reliable transition of services.

Toward Data Science provides a useful tutorial on how to generate synthetic data with applications in predictive maintenance .

Innovation & Collaboration

An InfoWorld article discusses why GenAI rollouts fail and how to fix them.

Anthropic has produced an excellent report describing the internals of how LLMs think.

The Economist reports on China’s innovation approach and how China plans to overtake the US in AI.

Productivity & Efficiency

The latest research from Lexis Nexis looks at how consultants are already using GenAI in their day-to-day work with their clients.

The UK government reports that 25 councils are trialing new AI tech to speed up admin in areas like planning and social care .

BCG considers how AI companies can take the right approach in implementing AI to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Civil Service World reports that internal reviews at the UK Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) estimate that 62% of tasks carried out by low grade officials could be automated.

Regulation and Compliance

The UK's new Government Digital Service has shared a new blog post providing an update on the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS), recent work to roll out its mandatory use across central government.

White & Case has launched a useful EU AI Act Handbook with an overview of the regulations and their interpretation.

Sustainability

MIT Technology Review has produced a substantial set of reports looking at AI’s energy and resource usage, where it is now, and where it is headed in the future.

The Guardian reports that AI could account for nearly half of data centre power usage by the end of the year . The UK energy agency predicts AI systems will need as much energy by the end of decade as Japan uses today.

User Experience

An Economist article describes how many users believe that AI has entered “the trough of disillusionment” and while Tech giants are spending big, many other companies are growing frustrated.

The Data Scientist has a useful article summarising how AI is driving smarter customer engagement.

Fast Company looks at ways to use AI for deep research.

Workforce & Skills

The Register reports on a survey from Harvey Nash that finds the number of UK tech leaders reporting a dearth in AI skills has more than doubled in the last year.

Harvard Business Review explores how agentic AI is already changing the workforce.

The BBC summarises a Henley Business School study of 4,500 people from 30 different employment sectors that concludes UK workers are overwhelmed by AI.

Apolitical has published a useful article that reminds us that for governments (and others), AI adoption is a skill, not an inevitability.

Tim O’Reilly explains why he believes “AI-First” does not mean using AI to replace people.

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