The AI Pulse
Issue #84 — 13th July 2026
Editor: Professor Alan Brown
This week's AI Pulse is supported by our friends at AI Week 12-23 October. They are currently doing a call for talks for AIWeek and you can submit your talk idea here. They, also want to know which of their 15 AI topics you are most interested in, so they have created a fun voting tool where you can vote for your top 5 by sector here.
Highlights in this edition include:
AI for Good
And now for the AI forecast (UKAuthority) - The Met Office and the Alan Turing Institute have developed FastNet, a machine learning weather prediction model that demonstrates how AI can produce trustworthy, physically realistic weather forecasts.
How AI Is Transforming Clinical Documentation in Modern Healthcare (Thedatascientist) - Doctors are drowning in paperwork instead of focusing on patients. AI tools are stepping in to automate clinical documentation, giving physicians their time back and reducing burnout across healthcare systems.
The public deserves socially beneficial technology in return for its AI investment (ComputerWeekly.com) - Governments and citizens are powering the AI boom through data, infrastructure, and reduced privacy protections, making it crucial that these companies deliver real social benefits in return, not just profits.
Bias and Ethics
The Hidden Cost of AI-Assisted Creativity (MIT Sloan Review) - MIT Sloan Review finds that while AI tools help individuals produce more creative work, they’re causing everyone’s ideas to look increasingly similar, raising questions about how companies can harness AI’s benefits without losing the diversity that drives real innovation.
Can AI Keep a Parent Alive? (The New Yorker) - The New Yorker explores services that let you create AI versions of deceased loved ones, raising hard questions about whether a digital replica can truly offer comfort or closure, and what we might be losing in the process.
Can AI equalize political campaign ads – or will it remain a tool for spreading lies? (The Guardian AI) - Political campaigns are ramping up their use of AI and deepfakes to shape voter opinions, raising alarms among experts about how quickly misleading content can spread at scale.
Leadership’s Blind Spot in the Age of AI (MIT Sloan Review) - MIT Sloan Review warns that executives risk missing what AI can’t see, such as genuine human intuition and contextual awareness that no algorithm can replicate, urging leaders to safeguard skills beyond data-driven decision-making.
Cyber Security
AI Models Overthink Problems—and It’s a Security Risk (IEEE) - Researchers at IEEE found that AI reasoning models can spiral into endless loops when fed deliberately confusing questions. This creates an easy path for attackers to overwhelm systems with denial-of-service attacks that exploit the models' tendency to overthink.
Data & Decision Making
Three keys to deployining AI agents (Infoworld) - AI agents are deceptively simple to build, but only a thoughtful three-layer architecture will separate the prototypes from the tools you can actually trust in production.
IT isn’t holding AI back, your business processes are (CIO) - Most IT leaders say outdated business processes—not technology—are the real barrier preventing their companies from getting real value out of AI investments.
AI Is Reshaping How Leaders Monitor Markets and Competitors (Thedatascientist) - AI tools are now scanning markets and competitors around the clock, giving executives real-time signals and forecasts that help them spot trends (and threats) before they become headlines.
Why is it so hard to measure the ROI of AI? (CIO) - Companies are struggling to pin down AI’s actual business impact because traditional ROI metrics don’t capture things like faster decisions, better customer experiences, or gradual workflow improvements. This leaves leaders caught between hype and genuine uncertainty about what they’re really getting for their investment.
The data reckoning: How exponential growth is rewriting the rules of cost, risk and AI (CIO) - Companies are struggling with massive amounts of invisible data that's driving up storage costs, creating security vulnerabilities, and compromising the quality of information flowing into their AI systems.
Innovation & Collaboration
From adoption to impact: Three horizons of AI transformation (McKinsey) - McKinsey maps out how companies move from simply testing AI tools to fundamentally reshaping how they operate, creating a roadmap that separates organizations experimenting with chatbots from those rewiring entire business models around machine intelligence.
The foundational elements of AI architecture that IT leaders need to scale (MIT Technology Review) - MIT Technology Review identifies four building blocks for AI systems that will matter long after today’s models are outdated: clean data, smart prompting, strong oversight, and people who understand both the tech and the business problem it’s solving.
Productivity & Efficiency
The real AI advantage (McKinsey) - McKinsey research reveals that organizations capturing the most value from AI aren’t just deploying better models—they’re building distinct operating capabilities around data infrastructure, talent integration, and rapid iteration cycles that competitors struggle to replicate.
Companies embracing AI the most are hiring more people - including entry-level, report finds (ZDNET) - Companies going all-in on AI are actually *growing* their workforces (including entry-level roles) contrary to fears that automation would simply replace jobs, according to a new industry report.
GenAI Success Metrics: Look Beyond Reduced Workload (MIT Sloan Review) - MIT Sloan Review warns that tracking AI success purely by “hours saved” misses the bigger picture. The real gains come from rethinking how work itself gets done, not just speeding it up.
Mayor unveils £12m AI support package to help London’s small businesses boost productivity and growth (London City Hall) - The Mayor of London is putting £12 million toward helping small and medium businesses adopt AI tools, aimed at lifting productivity and spurring economic growth across the city.
AI Agents: The Next Generation of Business Automation (Thedatascientist) - AI agents are moving beyond simple chatbots to actively manage workflows, cut operational costs, and speed up decision-making across entire organizations, giving businesses a shot at scaling without proportionally scaling headcount.
Regulation and Compliance
EU Action Plan on Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence (Shaping Europe’s digital future) - The European Commission rolled out a new Action Plan linking cybersecurity with AI, aiming to help businesses and governments deploy AI safely without leaving digital doors open to hackers.
Mapping global AI security standards, regulations and guidance (GOV.UK) - The UK government has mapped international AI security rules and guidelines against ETSI's EN 304 223 standard, creating a clearer picture of how different regions approach AI cybersecurity and where they align or diverge.
Sustainability
Stymied datacentre projects threaten global AI revolution (The Guardian AI) - Major AI data center projects worldwide are hitting walls as communities and regulators push back at the massive power requirements that clash with local energy grids and environmental concerns.
Big tech’s lofty climate goals wrecked by energy-hungry AI (The Guardian AI) - Google and Amazon are watching their net-zero promises crumble as AI data centers devour electricity at unprecedented rates, while a desperate Meta scrambles to contain its own ballooning energy crisis.
Workforce & Skills
Chasing new skills, going back to basics and pushing for collective action: how software engineers are adapting to AI (The Guardian AI) - Software engineers, once among America’s highest earners, are now navigating a rougher landscape as AI reshapes their field, triggering layoffs and forcing many to retrain, refocus on fundamentals, or band together for advocacy.
Safe from AI: which jobs will help you thrive in the future? (The Guardian AI) - While AI transforms the workplace, experts predict strong futures for professions requiring complex human judgment and emotional intelligence, such as teachers building student connections, hospitality workers creating memorable experiences, and lawyers navigating nuanced cases where empathy and ethics matter most.
How leaders must upgrade their talents for the AI Age (Fastcompany) - Leaders need to rethink how they develop their teams as AI reshapes what skills matter most by focusing less on routine expertise and more on creativity, adaptability, and the judgment calls machines can’t make.
A New Phase of the AI-Jobs Panic (The Atlantic) - Silicon Valley companies are now publicly positioning themselves as champions of workforce retraining, even as their AI tools threaten to displace millions of jobs. This raises questions about whether tech giants are genuinely concerned or simply managing their own image amid mounting public anxiety.
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