The AI Pulse
Issue #66 — 16th February 2026
Editor: Professor Alan Brown
This week’s AI Pulse is supported by Sopra Steria Next. For many, AI still feels unclear - complex, overhyped and hard to translate into real, responsible action. AI for Leaders is a three-part AI literacy course designed to create confidence for those in non-technical roles. Click the link below to find out more.
Highlights in this edition include:
AI for Good
Accelerating science with AI and simulations (MIT News) - MIT is showing how AI can move R&D beyond traditional materials science, helping organizations reach breakthroughs significantly faster.
The surprising case for AI judges (The Verge AI) - Automated "AI Arbitrators" are being tested to resolve commercial disputes, potentially offering a faster, cheaper alternative to traditional legal proceedings.
What agentic AI makes possible in healthcare (Fastcompany) - Beyond just analyzing data, "agentic" AI is beginning to coordinate patient care and handle the heavy administrative lifting for clinical staff.
Bias and Ethics
AI governance around the world – UK (Alan Turing Institute) - How the UK is taking a lead role in AI regulation by balancing domestic safety with international policy leadership.
New study warns of risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice (OII) - A new study suggests that AI chatbots still struggle with medical accuracy, trailing behind traditional search engines and highlighting a need for tighter rules in healthcare.
Is AI the Paperclip? (Nicholas Carr) - A look at the "alignment problem": if AI development focuses only on scaling up, we risk losing sight of safety and human goals.
Cyber Security
The State of AI Cybersecurity 2026 (Darktrace) - It’s a double-edged sword: CISOs are adopting AI-powered defense tools just as attackers are using those same technologies to build more elusive threats.
Police start live facial recognition trial at London stations (BBC) - British Transport Police have begun testing live facial recognition, sparking a debate between public safety and personal privacy.
AI is already making online crimes easier. It could get much worse. (MIT Technology Review) - Experts are divided on whether AI-driven cyberattacks are a future threat or an immediate reality, but the need for better defense is urgent.
Trust in the age of agentic AI systems (CIO) - As autonomous AI agents enter the enterprise, verifying their identity is becoming a critical security hurdle to prevent high-speed system breaches.
Is a secure AI assistant possible? (MIT Technology Review) - Despite safety updates, experts still have lingering questions about whether today’s large language models are truly ready for sensitive corporate data.
The dark side of AI meeting notes (Fortune) - AI transcription tools are convenient, but they raise serious privacy questions—especially when they keep "listening" after the meeting ends.
Data & Decision Making
As data centers drive up electricity costs, the fight over who’s footing the bill continues (Fastcompany) - The massive energy needs of data centers are causing friction between tech companies and utilities over who should pay for the infrastructure.
AI is booming - but the debates are just beginning (WIRED) - IBM executives suggest that while generative AI is growing fast, we still have more questions than answers regarding its long-term strategy and implementation.
AI Is Getting Scary Good at Making Predictions (The Atlantic) - AI models are nearing human-level accuracy in forecasting, which could fundamentally change how businesses plan for the future.
Does AI already have human-level intelligence? The evidence is clear (Nature) - Current AI systems have achieved human-level intelligence across multiple domains, requiring business leaders and policymakers to move beyond speculation and develop concrete strategies for managing this technological reality.
7 Key Components of AI Data Center Infrastructure (Thedatascientist) - Running AI at scale requires more than just software; it takes a specific mix of GPUs, specialized cooling, and massive power systems.
DWP unveils seven-year data strategy (UKAuthority) - The UK’s Department for Work and Pensions has shared a 2030 roadmap to modernize how it manages data to improve public services.
Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study - Nature Medicine (Nature) - A recent study found that AI models occasionally outperformed human-AI collaborations in diagnosis, suggesting we need to rethink how doctors and bots work together.
AI-augmented data quality engineering (Infoworld) - New AI tools are automating the process of "trust scoring" data, helping companies ensure their information is reliable without manual oversight.
Innovation & Collaboration
AI and International Security Pathways of Impact and Key Uncertainties (OpenAI) - AI is set to shift the global balance of power, changing how nations handle everything from diplomacy to defense.
What’s next for Chinese open-source AI (MIT Technology Review) - China’s open-source models are gaining traction globally, forcing Western governments to look closely at technological competition and dependency.
The AI Divide (Foreign Affairs) - U.S.-China competition risks leaving developing nations behind, making international cooperation more important than ever.
Is AI killing open source? (Infoworld) - AI tools are making software easier to build but harder to maintain, which may favour large, established projects over small, independent ones.
Productivity & Efficiency
Solving enterprise AI’s ROI problem (CIO) - To see a real return on investment, companies are moving toward "agent automation" to scale their AI initiatives effectively.
Why the AI attack on software has unnerved so many industries (Financial Times) - The rise of AI agents that can act autonomously is causing disruption as industries figure out how to integrate—or compete with—these systems.
Software at the speed of AI (Infoworld) - New development tools are helping non-technical workers build applications, potentially changing the traditional software development workflow.
Why New Technologies Don’t Transform Incumbents (Harvard Business Review) - To truly benefit from AI, leaders need to do more than just add a new tool; they need to redesign how their organizations actually function.
A New Economic World Order May Be Based on Sovereign AI and Midsized Nation Alliances (Stanford HAI) - Mid-sized nations are forming alliances around "Sovereign AI," creating new economic partnerships as they build their own digital infrastructure.
Regulation and Compliance
The AI Trilemma (Foreign Affairs) - Policymakers are struggling to find a balance between fostering innovation, maintaining national security, and protecting democratic values.
AI for Fintech: Trust, Compliance, and Responsible Decision-Making (Thedatascientist) - In the financial sector, the challenge is using AI to innovate without compromising on security or regulatory rules.
How to fight the AI revolution (The Spectator) - The debate between AI enthusiasts and skeptics highlights the need for a middle ground that protects jobs while embracing productivity.
Sustainability
The glaring flaw in Keir Starmer’s AI plan (The Spectator) - As the UK pushes for AI growth, it faces a major hurdle: how to power an industry that consumes as much energy as heavy manufacturing.
AI Is Here to Replace Nuclear Treaties. Scared Yet? (Wired) - With some nuclear treaties expiring, some believe AI-powered satellite monitoring could fill the gap in arms control, though diplomats remain cautious.
User Experience
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It (Harvard Business Review) - Research shows that instead of lightening the load, AI can actually increase the pace and volume of work, leading to higher rates of employee burnout.
Institutions are drowning in AI-generated text and they can’t keep up (Fastcompany) - Schools and government offices are struggling to manage an explosion of AI-generated content, creating a backlog that current tools can't yet solve.
Workforce & Skills
Why Gen AI Feels So Threatening to Workers (Harvard Business Review) - Leaders need to move beyond technical implementation and address the very real psychological fears employees have about job security.
America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs (The Atlantic) - The US lacks a clear strategy for the job displacement AI might cause, making the need for workforce retraining policies more urgent.
How the growing AI workforce is changing the CIO role (CIO) - The role of the CIO is shifting from managing hardware to leading human-AI teams, requiring a new approach to leadership.
Have a comment or a story you’d like to share with us?
Just get in touch at: [email protected]
Do you know anyone who might be interested in AI Pulse
© 2025 Digital Leaders
Digital Topics Ltd, 239 Old Street, London, ec1v 9 ey, United Kingdom