PROGRAMME 6

DEVELOP SUPPORT PLAN FOR BUSINESSES TO ADOPT AI

 
 
A young woman sitting in front of a computer in an office while another woman standing next to her is pointing at something on her screen. They are both dressed in casual clothes - a bright blue top and furry waistcoat, and a denim jacket.
 
 

Image: Nacho Kamenov & Humans in the Loop / Better Images of AI

YEAR 1

3.6 Create opportunities for people, businesses and organisations to get hands-on experience of AI

3.8 Conduct an audit of Scotland AI Ecosystem, across industry, academia and public sector identifying strengths and opportunities

 

Hands on experience of AI 

Limited progress has been made on Action 3.6 due to capacity but plans are underway to explore how this can be incorporated into the Scottish AI Playbook as well as the engagement mechanism going forward.  

 

Exploring Business Adoption of AI 

To help inform our work to develop opportunities for businesses and organisations to develop their awareness of AI, and a number of other Strategy actions that relate to business, we felt it would be worth researching the current state of play.  

We were delighted to work with the University of Edinburgh Business School to develop a research proposal. As part of their Masters course, a team of students conducted a short project exploring why businesses adopt AI, particularly those in sectors with traditionally low uptake of new tech, and how they were informed and supported on their journey towards using AI.  

The outputs from the project, which was completed in early 2022, will help to improve the Alliance’s understanding and inform recommendations to be taken forward.  

Our experience inspired us to call out to other business schools seeking potential projects for their postgraduate students to get in touch, as we anticipate having similar opportunities in future. 

Audit of Scotland’s AI Ecosystem 

During ongoing discussions with the Scottish Technology Ecosystem (STER) team, a potential collaboration was identified related to a mapping exercise of technology businesses in Scotland 

A proposal to create a "single truth" map of the Scottish tech business landscape emerged with the desired output a comprehensive data set about the tech sector in Scotland, ranging from standard company data (location, number of employees, turnover, tech category) to more nuanced data around diversity (ethnicity, gender, age, education level etc) and to information around interactions across the Scottish ecosystem and beyond.  
 
The project will encompass multiple phases and it was proposed to undertake this in collaboration with other Scottish Government initiatives such as the Digital Strategy and the Trade and Investment, in addition to the AI Alliance and STER teams and Scottish Enterprise with each partner contributing budget and input. 

Despite best efforts to pull something together before end March, it was decided to not rush the process. A scoping process will take place in April/May 2022 and current efforts are focused on identifying appropriate budgets and procurement routes.