The AI Pulse
Issue #80 — 15th June 2026
Editor: Professor Alan Brown
This week’s AI Pulse is supported by our new “AI Pulse Briefing”. Ask a question and AI Pulse Briefing will search Digital Leaders thought-leadership to generate a briefing from trusted sources with useful summaries, author and publication dates and links for further reading. Click here to read our latest briefing on AI Safety.
Highlights in this edition include:
AI for Good
PoliceAI to speed up investigations and fight crime (GOV.UK) - Police across England and Wales are getting AI tools designed to cut down paperwork and administrative tasks, freeing up officers to focus more on actual policing and community protection.
Shaping the Future of Learning: Education Readiness for the Age of AI (WEF) - AI is transforming how people learn, access knowledge, and develop skills - but education will not be determined by technology alone. As AI adoption accelerates across classrooms and learning environments, education systems face a critical challenge: ensuring that innovation strengthens human learning, equity, and trust rather than undermining them.
Bias and Ethics
The consequences of relying on AI for accurate news (MIT) - MIT researchers discovered that people who used AI chatbots to fact-check news for a month became worse at spotting misinformation on their own, suggesting our growing reliance on AI might be weakening critical thinking skills.
CIOs plagued by growing AI accountability gap (CIO) - Companies are letting employees launch AI tools across their organisations while holding CIOs responsible for what goes wrong—but most tech leaders have no idea what’s actually running on their systems.
Cyber Security
Enterprises know AI-generated code is vulnerable; they’re shipping it anyway (Infoworld) - Organisations are knowingly shipping AI-generated code despite recognising its security vulnerabilities, creating a dangerous race between AI discovery of flaws and responsible deployment practices.
AI red teaming comes of age (CSO Online) - Security teams are scrambling to learn new red teaming techniques as companies deploy AI copilots and agents, discovering that traditional cybersecurity testing methods don’t work on AI systems.
New taskforce to put AI on the UK’s frontline (GOV.UK) - The UK is launching a new taskforce to fast-track AI tools directly to its military, aiming to keep Britain’s armed forces ahead in modern warfare.
Data & Decision Making
Public data is the core infrastructure we need to deliver services (UKAuthority) - Why the National Data Library is one of the most consequential long-term projects in government right now.
What it feels like to work with Mythos (Ethan Mollick) - Claude’s new Fable model shows major improvements in AI reasoning and problem-solving, potentially giving businesses a more reliable tool for complex decision-making tasks.
Banking and AI: When the tech starts doing the work, not just assisting it (McKinsey) - Banks are shifting from AI-powered assistance to full automation, letting algorithms handle entire processes from loan approvals to fraud detection without human oversight.
AI is breaking the economic logic of the public cloud (CIO) - AI workloads are forcing companies to rethink their cloud-first strategies, as the economics that made public cloud the obvious choice for most applications simply don’t apply when you’re running resource-intensive AI models.
CIOs are being held accountable for AI they don’t fully control (CIO) - IBM research reveals CIOs face growing pressure to take responsibility for AI systems they didn’t build or directly manage, highlighting a concerning gap between accountability and actual control in enterprise AI governance.
Innovation & Collaboration
The seven operating truths of AI-native companies (McKinsey) - McKinsey identifies seven key principles that separate companies built around AI from those simply adding AI tools, revealing how true AI-native firms fundamentally rethink their operations and culture.
Physical AI: What It Is and What It Is Not (Towardsdatascience) - A clear breakdown distinguishes Physical AI from similar-sounding concepts like digital twins and embodied AI, helping leaders navigate the confusing landscape of AI terminology that’s flooding boardrooms and budget discussions.
Government aims to make UK top spot for open source AI (Computer Weekly) - AI minister Kanishka Narayan is rolling out new funding to give developers better computer access, hoping to cement the UK’s position as the global leader in open source AI development.
A decisive shift to power British AI: new £1.1 billion plan to back chip firms, boost computing power and skills for the AI revolution (GOV.UK) - The UK government is investing £1.1 billion to help British chip companies compete in the AI race, aiming to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers while building homegrown talent and computing infrastructure.
Productivity & Efficiency
The AI adoption spending spree is over. Time to focus on value. (CIO) - Organisations are hitting the brakes on AI spending sprees and shifting focus to getting actual value from their investments, with IT leaders now hunting for cost-effective ways to keep employees engaged with AI tools.
Rewiring retail in Europe: The AI imperative (McKinsey) - European retailers are racing to integrate AI across their operations, with early adopters already seeing significant improvements in inventory management, personalised shopping experiences, and cost reduction that could determine who thrives in the next decade.
How AI and Digital Twins Are Transforming Modern Manufacturing (Thedatascientist) - AI and digital twins are helping manufacturers create virtual replicas of their production lines, enabling them to spot problems and optimise operations before they affect real-world output.
From AI-assisted to AI-native: Rethinking the software delivery model (CIO) - Software teams are discovering that handing developers AI coding tools is just the starting point—the real gains come from reimagining their entire development process around AI capabilities.
Agentic AI: What Leaders Wish They Knew Sooner (MIT Sloan Review) - MIT researchers are helping business leaders navigate the tricky challenge of blending human teams with AI agents, offering practical advice for making these partnerships actually work.
Regulation and Compliance
Anthropic disables Fable and Mythos AI models after U.S. government bars it from giving foreigners access (Fortune) - The U.S. government blocked Anthropic from letting foreign users—including its own international employees—access two AI models called Fable and Mythos, forcing the company to shut them down entirely.
UK Government launches £200 million initiative to accelerate AI adoption (UKAuthority) - The UK Government has launched a national initiative backed by more than £200 million in funding to accelerate AI adoption across the UK and train workers in AI skills.
Reimagining federal procurement in the digital and AI age (McKinsey) - McKinsey argues federal procurement needs a complete overhaul to handle AI and digital tools, as outdated buying processes are slowing government innovation when agencies need tech solutions faster than ever.
Beware of the GenAI token trap (Infoworld) - Cloud providers are luring enterprises with cheap AI tokens today, but businesses risk facing massive cost spikes as usage scales and pricing inevitably rises.
Introducing the AI Economics Institute (GOV.UK) - The UK government has established the AI Economics Institute (AIEI), the first government-backed Institute of its kind in the world. It will build the data infrastructure, analytical capability and external relationships needed to assess AI’s economic impacts rigorously.
Sustainability
Strengthening Supply Chains through Efficiency, Resilience, AI and Environmental Performance (OECD) - How trade facilitation policies and tools enabled by AI and broader digital technologies can enhance supply chain resilience, efficiency, and environmental performance, while effectively responding to new data and verification needs.
Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land (The Guardian AI) - The US plans to build most of its new AI data centers in drought-stricken regions, potentially worsening water shortages as these facilities require massive amounts of water for cooling their power-hungry servers.
User Experience
What we learned from the Prime Minister’s AI Exemplars programme – and how it is shaping the next phase (GDS) - The UK government’s AI Exemplars programme wrapped up its first 10 months, offering insights that will guide how public services integrate artificial intelligence moving forward.
Elevating the customer experience: IKEA’s agentic AI journey (McKinsey) - IKEA is using autonomous AI agents to enhance customer service, helping shoppers navigate their massive product catalogue and get personalised recommendations that could transform how furniture retailers interact with customers.
How Do You Market to an AI Customer? (Harvard Business) - Brands face a new challenge as AI agents increasingly act as gatekeepers between companies and consumers, making purchase decisions and controlling product discovery—forcing marketers to learn how to influence artificial rather than human customers.
Workforce & Skills
AI reshapes global labour market into two distinct paths, rewarding human skills: PwC 2026 AI Jobs Barometer (PwC) - PwC's latest research reveals AI is splitting the job market in two: companies that effectively use AI are hiring faster while prioritising uniquely human skills like creativity and leadership over technical abilities.
To Thrive Alongside AI, Focus on Mindset—Not Skillset (Harvard Business) - Instead of clinging to 10% of old skills that AI can’t touch, Harvard Business Review suggests we should reimagine our entire approach—like a horse rider learning to drive rather than finding which reins still matter.
Learning to lead in a hybrid human-AI enterprise (MIT Technology Review) - MIT Technology Review explores how business leaders must rethink their management approach as AI becomes a true workplace partner, requiring new strategies for roles, skills, and company culture to maximise both human and artificial intelligence.
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
© 2026 Digital Leaders
Digital Topics Ltd, 239 Old Street, London, ec1v 9 ey, United Kingdom