Key takeaways from London Tech Week

Seven lessons from London Tech Week to take into the second half of 2025

London Tech Week, held in June 2025, was an eye-opening experience. Far bigger than its humbler beginnings in 2014, when the gathering was more focused on start-ups and funding for tech entrepreneurship in the UK, Tech Week’s remit has widened and adapted to the need for a closer connection between leadership, technology, people and profit. This year’s event brought together global technology leaders, representatives from more than 100 countries and a combination of enterprise, scale-up and start-up organisations, investors, policymakers and politicians, and Big Tech. 

The three-day event’s new home in Kensington Olympia was sponsored and supported by technology heavyweights such as NVIDIA, Microsoft and AWS, with an opening keynote from the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and speakers from a wealth of international and global organisations. There were also myriad fringe events across London throughout the week to take a deeper dive into the topical technology issues and themes of today and tomorrow. 

Themes unsurprisingly centred around AI across all three days, with areas of focus ranging from the bigger picture and investment landscape on day one, to sustainability and leadership on day two, and strategy and communications on day three. There was high energy on display on the first day of proceedings, with speakers echoing appetite and enthusiasm for the UK as a tech leader, investment and opportunities in the sector.

Darren Hardman, Corporate Vice President and CEO, Microsoft, sums it up: “Trust means building AI that is secure and responsible from the ground up”.

From not enough employees trusting their employers to make the right AI decisions (50% using generative AI at work are self-procured, e.g. using ChatGPT on their own devices), to crediting creatives for their work, to hallucinations, misinformation and disinformation, trust in AI – and most importantly, how it is trained and used – is not there yet. 

This was discussed in a panel session on ‘How to Stay Human in an AI World’ with Alex Mahon, CEO, Channel 4, and Rebecca Swift, SVP Creative, Getty Images. Getty does a lot of testing, ever since Midjourney “became a thing”. They have been exploring if AI has changed how we trust images. Do people trust images more or less when they know it’s not AI-generated? There is a positive aspect to this. Research shows younger people trust AI bots more to answer questions as they are impartial and won’t judge – a positive aspect in the drive to eliminate bias. If you’re training data that is factual and unbiased, that is… 

A key consideration is how to label content as AI-generated or having had AI involvement to ensure the audience is not being deceived, and copyright of artists and creatives is being recognised. There are also still questions about quality, with Alex Mahon considering where AI-generated content fits within an organisation that wants to be known for quality. Especially when you want to be known for independence and lack of bias, where does that fit with the current AI offerings?

There is undeniable curiosity and interest in AI across the workforce, if not trust at this stage. An Accenture study found that 50% of employees using generative AI at work are using tools that are self-procured. How can we harness that appetite to experiment and use as organisations?

Whether it’s to fact check outputs, rubber stamp a project or draw on the deep expertise of thought leaders in AI-generated research and content, the value of human experience, judgement and decision making is increasingly important.

Our take is that humans are still very much needed. Intelligence will become a commodity with AI – strategic thinking and human judgement for decision making will be rarer and prized in the industry. Trust and growth will be built on critical thinking and connecting intelligence. 

All business leaders will need a combination of skills to maximise AI use and value alongside the strategic capabilities and entrepreneurship needed to lead and drive a business in a challenging environment. Their workforces will need the right tools and training to maintain this balance and deliver on these new hybrid strategies.

What does good look like? We see it as a combination of emotional and social intelligence with tech capabilities and applying industry knowledge. Charlie Muirhead, Co-founder and CEO of Neevie.com, Proxxi.AI and CogX 2.0, echoed this sentiment at the Tech London and Global Tech Advocates fringe event: “Those with deep domain knowledge, the people who know what they do really well, are going up… if you are experienced, it will be easier…”.

“AI governance is going to be very important” – Tanuja Randery, Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), AWS.

The key is to think about the use and implementation of technology, including AI, responsibly and in line with the organisation’s business and vision. It has to be “applied to the core of what you do,” says Tanuja Randery, Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), AWS. 

Tim Loake, Vice President and General Manager for Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell, said that agentic AI gives the opportunity to take humans out of the loop, so if they haven’t been created and defined in a responsible way, it will act in a way that may not be what you need.

“Risk management is not about fearmongering” says Irina Mirkina, Chief AI Scientist, Fugro. Regulatory frameworks are beneficial as long as they are not stifling innovation. She finds it vital that there is someone “to tell me the exact regulatory framework I need to use”. She also stressed the importance of data protection.

Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA, positioned the UK as being in an enviable position when it comes to tech, AI innovation and research, but was clear that the right infrastructure is needed to be able to scale and capitalise on the opportunities this presents: “Every field of science needs its own instruments.” 

Irina Mirkina emphasised the importance of strategy and agility. “We will have to change and adapt to other markets and competition – it’s very important to be agile, but you need to have your AI strategy right. You can’t pick and choose what to implement or move forward otherwise.” 

Darren Hardman, Corporate Vice President and CEO, Microsoft, emphasised the need for resilience and resilient systems in a world of disruption. 

Ultimately, this comes down to leadership. Tanuja Randery’s refreshing presentation began with her telling the audience: “I’m not going to talk about technology. I will talk about how you, as leaders, can develop your AI mindset.”

Later she made one of the standout comments of the whole event: “Your own leadership style is key here too. Speed is a leadership choice”.

Tanuja emphasised that you need people with the right skills and platforms to be able to transform your company – the right humans to use the right tools in the right way to adapt, evolve and grow.

Dave Birss echoes this point: “If you want your workforce to follow the right path, you need to lead them. You need to sell them the destination, give them the map and provide generous training and resources.”

Niklas Zennstrom, Founder of Skype, Founding Partner and CEO, Atomico, was clear on the need for collaboration and structure – “Build fast, build responsibly, build together”.

Tech strategy is not just the remit of IT. Strategy and implementation cannot be siloed across an organisation. Leadership and senior stakeholders need to be involved, aligned and bought in at the outset. 

Tim Loake, Vice President and General Manager for Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell, says: “If IT is trying to ‘do AI to a company’, it will never get past the proof of concept stage.”

Yukiko Lorenzo, Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for Privacy, AI and Data Responsibility, Mastercard, echoes this: “If AI and tech implementation are considered purely technological initiatives, they won’t work – there are clear cross-functional responsibilities across finance and ethics.”

One of the other insightful speakers throughout the week, Lea Sonderegger, Chief Digital and Information Officer, Swarovski, was already actively discussing this topic in sharing Swarovski’s digitalisation journey and approach two years ago: “IT is no longer just an enabler,” she says. “It must generate value by supporting the core processes of creating, producing and selling. This is how digitalisation becomes a competitive advantage.”

Rayhan Beebeejaun, Co-Lead of the Global Tech Advocates Data and AI community at Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, put this succinctly at the Thursday fringe event, AI Future: Communities, Communication and Connectivity: 

“The future is not about AI OR tech; it’s about the people, the societies, the communities, the connections, the world we want to create. Innovation for innovation’s sake serves no purpose. Innovation for the betterment of humanity must serve as the core foundation – at the core of every activity we undertake.”

Alex Mahon, Chief Executive of Channel 4, says that creativity builds on what came before: extending or breaking… She believes that “anything brand new is where human creativity can really shine”.

Charlie Muirhead, Co-founder and CEO of Neevie.com, Proxxi.AI and CogX 2.0, emphasised the importance of the UK creative industry to the economy. He also says you should always look for people who are “incurably curious” to work with.

Tanuja Randery, Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), AWS, encouraged us to “start with imagination” as we evolve our AI mindset.

Dave Birss discusses the importance of communication and critical thinking in the human-AI relationship and organisational structure in a recent HR Magazine article: “Here’s what does endure: communication, judgement, human insight, empathy, persuasion. Skills that are refreshingly AI-resistant.”

Confidence appears high when it comes to the UK and London’s roles in tech innovation – particularly AI. The show started off with a bang as UK Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer, and NVIDIA made a series of announcements about Government investments and partnerships. Sir Kier Starmer announced significant investment of £1 billion for AI compute (key components such as microchips, cabling and other processing requirements of AI) and revealed targets for AI upskilling for 7.5 million workers by 2030 and training investment of £187 million. They also announced a new sovereign AI forum backed by NVIDIA.

These announcements are in line with the UK’s new industrial strategy, which is inextricably linked to tech investment, development and growth in the country. 

The UK’s status and future as a global hub for tech was echoed in the annual launch of the Tech Nation report on the first day of Tech Week, valuing the UK tech sector at $1.2 trillion, and highlighting the venture capital going into start-up companies and the sheer volume of these organisations across the UK.

Victoria van Lennep, Co-founder, Lendable, reinforced this position, saying: “Investors are backing the scale of the ambition”. She emphasised the appetite for investment and highlighted differences in strategic approach between tech investors in the USA and Europe. “In the US, we’re asked for three-to-four-year forecasts. In Europe, it’s ten years or more. No one can predict the future; risk tolerance is different. That’s why we chose to raise internationally.”

Tanuja Randery, Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), AWS, highlighted the return on investment that businesses are already recording from use of AI, saying that over 90% of businesses are reporting generating revenue from this new technology.

Speakers also acknowledged the problem-solving opportunities AI presents throughout the week. Charlie Muirhead, Co-founder and CEO of Neevie.com, Proxxi.AI and CogX 2.0, has been in this industry for some time and has been deep in experimentation with AI. At the Tech London and Global Tech Advocates AI fringe event, he pointed out that “used correctly and in a pragmatic way, AI can solve a number of big problems right now”.