2025 was the year of AI, with the technology dominating discussions around the business and innovation table. Our work at White Label spans a diverse range of sectors – housing, logistics, film/TV – and it was fascinating to see both the debates and the practical applications of AI that emerged.
“Artificial intelligence will deliver a decade of national renewal,” the Government announced in January, as it pledged to throw “the full weight of Whitehall behind this industry” by agreeing to take forward all 50 recommendations in the game-changing AI Opportunities Action Plan. This announcement focused on the potential of AI to transform public services. In hospitals, patients would be discharged more quickly; in schools, teacher admin would reduce; and on highways, potholes would be spotted more easily.
Our Building New Communities programme reported how AI would support planning officers and local councils to speed up planning permissions. An initial trial of Google-developed Extract – which converts decades-old, handwritten planning documents and maps into data in minutes – has now been rolled out nationwide to cut the 250,000 estimated hours spent by planning officers manually checking these documents each year.
The Government also announced that the UK’s first ever AI Growth Zone would be based in Culham, Oxfordshire – home of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority. Culham benefits from faster planning permission to build AI infrastructure, including data centres, as well as readily accessible energy connections to power them. The site is also a testing ground for research on how sustainable energy, including fusion technology, can support the UK’s AI ambitions.
The AI Growth Zone is significant for the White Label UK Cities & Partners (UKCAP) programme: a powerful collection of the most prominent UK cities and regions, alongside leading private-sector organisations, driving growth and development nationwide. UKCAP boasts the UK Government as a Strategic Partner, together with the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster – a collaboration of industry leaders, universities, and investors with a scientific and innovation-led vision for investment and growth.
At UKREiiF, we supported a further group pf public and private partners as they set out their AI superpower ambitions. The ‘Essex AI Growth Zones Roundtable’ heard how SME growth, devolution, strategic and collaborative thinking, grid restraints and skills are key to the county’s AI strategy.
By the time the Budget was announced in November, Government ambitions for AI were firmly focused on businesses and high growth sectors announced in the Industrial Strategy.
“AI in particular has become a major engine of growth for the UK,” Whitehall said, “with more than £70 billion worth of investment committed to that sector alone since the government took office.”
An Entrepreneurship Prospectus now outlines the UK’s offer to founders looking to start new ventures, and the expansion of the BridgeAI programme across more Industrial Strategy sectors is tackling barriers for businesses adopting AI.
Our UK Screen Investment Summit – held on the same day as the Budget – heard how AI tools were reducing costs and timescales for film and TV production companies
“It’s not about replacing things — it’s about productivity and efficiency and asking what we can do now that we couldn’t do before,” said Guy Gadney of Charismatic.ai in his keynote address.
We also heard that AI was fuelling creativity within the sector. Ben Field from Deep Fusion Films, said AI could shorten a first rough cut of a production from 5/6 weeks to three hours. “AI reduces costs — people come to me because they don’t have the budget to do it traditionally,” he added.
Yet, AI has not been without its challenges – and the screen industry has been at the heart of debates around what the technology means for human creativity.
In summer, the British Film Institute (BFI) published its ‘AI in the Screen Sector: Perspectives and Paths Forward’ report which analysed the screen sector’s use and experimentation with generative AI technologies. A roadmap of key recommendations was set out including around IP licensing and ethical AI.
Rishi Coupland, the BFI’s Director of Research & Innovation said: “Whilst it [AI] offers significant opportunities for the screen sector such as speeding up production workflows, democratising content creation and empowering new voices, it could also erode traditional business models, displace skilled workers, and undermine public trust in screen content.”
The report followed a reversal of government plans to allow tech companies to use copyrighted material to train their AI models after an outcry over IP protection, copyright, fair pay and acknowledgement for creators. The subsequent, flagship Sector Plan for the Creative Industries – part of the Industrial Strategy – then pledged to set up a Creative Content Exchange, a trusted marketplace to protect creativity and address copyright issues.
As a creative business, we at White Label would also argue that the human element remains fundamental to AI use. As a small business, it helps us speed up productivity – offering suggestions for social media posts and tags; recording, transcribing and summarising roundtables and debates; and offering clear summaries of complex information.
Yet caution must be applied – AI is a productivity augmentation tool, not a replacement for human input. AI outputs must be cross-checked, double-checked – even hyper-checked – for AI not only gets things wrong, it can also invent information. As Leeds University succinctly explains: “It is very important to always check if the content produced is accurate and not an AI hallucination.”
A further challenge for AI lies in physical infrastructure – whether the UK has not only enough data campuses, but also the energy capacity to power them. Both our Building New Communities and Last Mile Conferences have heard how data centres are vital for growth, yet their energy demands have restricted the development of new warehouses and, in West London, new housing projects.
However, in June, in tandem with the Industrial Strategy, the Government announced it would double the amount of demand connected yearly to the grid; accelerate grid connection timelines for major infrastructure projects; provide price relief through the British Industry Supercharger and the reforming of grid connections for generation and demand projects.
In recent months, new data centres approved in West London and Hertfordshire have committed to 100% renewable energy – good news for both the energy and digital industries
So, with both Government and industry backing, it’s safe to say AI is here to stay – and the debate around its application is moving forward.
“You’re not going to lose your job to AI,” Dr Jon Wardle, National Film and Television School, told the sceptics at the UK Screen Investment Summit. “You’ll lose it to someone who can pull all the AI tools together.”
So perhaps 2026 will be the year in which AI and human creativity work truly hand in hand. With strategy, innovation, and imagination aligned, we may see greater creative empowerment, supercharged productivity, and new opportunities for businesses and talent as we continue to develop our AI skills.
