As billions continue to pour into Artificial Intelligence and the world’s largest technology companies race to build ever more powerful models, an important question is emerging for UK business:
Do we really need to compete with the giants — or should we concentrate on the areas where Britain can genuinely win?
That was at the heart of the latest Corum Six, hosted by Robert Pilkington, Joint CEO of Ebbon Group, bringing together a small group of senior business leaders to discuss technology, innovation and the opportunities available to UK PLC over the next decade.
The conversation encompassed AI, robotics, intellectual property, investment, regulation, skills and Britain’s long-established strengths in science and engineering.
But one theme repeatedly surfaced.
The UK’s opportunity may not lie in building the next ChatGPT. It may lie in becoming exceptionally good at applying technology to difficult, valuable, real-world problems.
The Conversation
Robert began with a reminder that today’s AI revolution has been a remarkably long time coming.
The term Artificial Intelligence dates back to the Dartmouth workshop of 1956, when scientists began exploring whether machines could learn and solve problems previously reserved for humans.
Seventy years later, that ambition has spawned an industry attracting extraordinary amounts of investment.
Yet the discussion at Ebbon wasn’t really about whether AI will become more powerful. It was about what happens around it — and where a UK technology business should invest when competing head-on with the financial firepower of US and increasingly Chinese technology giants simply isn’t realistic.
Ebbon itself provided a fascinating case study.
Founded in Oxfordshire in 2000, the company grew by identifying specific problems within automotive and fleet markets and using technology to remove inefficient manual processes. Its platforms now sit within a substantial automotive ecosystem, including vehicle procurement, compliance and digital handovers.
Robert described a philosophy that has served the business well: rather than trying to dominate technology generally, become the leader within a valuable niche.
That philosophy is now influencing where Ebbon goes next.
The Insights
Don’t compete where scale has already decided the contest
One of the most important distinctions in the discussion was between creating foundational technology and applying technology.
The capital required to compete at the frontier of large language models is enormous. For most UK businesses, attempting to replicate what the world’s largest technology companies are building makes little commercial sense.
Ebbon reached much the same conclusion.
Robert explained that the business recognised it did not have the capital required to become a foundation AI laboratory. Instead, it began exploring where its existing automotive knowledge, customer relationships and technological expertise could provide an advantage.
That could provide an important lesson for UK PLC.
The physical economy could be the bigger opportunity
Much of the excitement surrounding AI has concentrated on the digital economy — language, data, content and software.
But manufacturing, transport, engineering, logistics, life sciences, energy and robotics all present opportunities where AI becomes part of a broader solution rather than the entire product.
For Britain, that distinction matters.
The UK already possesses globally respected expertise across engineering, motorsport, aerospace, automotive, biotech and scientific research. Rather than viewing AI as an industry Britain must somehow dominate, perhaps the greater opportunity is using it to amplify industries where we already have credibility.
Ebbon’s own investment in autonomous systems demonstrates the point.
The company has been developing a small autonomous drone system capable of producing consistent vehicle photography and video. Rather than requiring expensive fixed photographic infrastructure, the system can automatically capture and process a vehicle in around six minutes, with Ebbon estimating a four-to-five-times efficiency improvement over existing approaches.
It is AI and robotics applied to a specific commercial problem — potentially a far more instructive model for UK businesses than trying to create another general-purpose AI platform.
Innovation starts with the problem
Perhaps the clearest lesson from Ebbon’s journey was that successful innovation rarely begins by asking:
“How can we use AI?”
It starts with:
“What problem are we trying to solve?”
Ebbon’s history illustrates that approach. Its technology replaced emails, fax machines, paperwork and inefficient processes within highly specialised markets. The technology mattered, but the commercial value came from understanding the problem.
The dot-com boom provides an obvious parallel. Businesses rushed to become internet companies because the technology itself was fashionable. Yet the enduring winners were those that eventually understood what the internet actually enabled.
AI may follow a similar path.
The winners won’t necessarily be the organisations talking about AI most loudly. They may be those quietly working out where it removes friction, creates competitive advantage or makes something possible that previously wasn’t.
Specialist knowledge could become Britain’s advantage
Another fascinating part of the discussion concerned the difference between simply using AI and interrogating it with genuine expertise.
One participant described the difference between the “AI sheep” and the “AI lions.”
The former effectively use AI as a sophisticated search engine. The latter challenge it, question its answers and combine its capabilities with their own expertise.
Their organisation is developing a specialist small language model containing technical documentation, safety information, white papers and product knowledge. Crucially, the best results come when experienced employees interrogate the system rather than simply accepting its first response.
Britain may not own the largest models, but British businesses possess enormous amounts of specialist knowledge.
Combining powerful general technology with proprietary data, intellectual property and decades of practical experience could create highly defensible specialist applications.
Knowledge isn’t the same as experience
AI can understand rapidly analyse a data sheet, compare specifications and process enormous quantities of technical information.
But understanding what happens when something reaches a factory floor, workshop or customer environment is different.
As the discussion highlighted, the theoretically correct answer can change dramatically depending on whether a production line makes one item an hour, ten or one hundred.
That gap between knowledge and application could become increasingly valuable.
AI possesses increasing amounts of the former with so much of the worlds textual and numeric information being connected since the Internet boom. Experienced people still possess much of the latter.
The opportunity lies in combining both.
The Takeaways
Several conclusions emerged.
UK PLC doesn’t have to win the AI arms race to benefit from AI. Applying technology intelligently may matter more than owning the underlying model.
Britain should play to its strengths. Engineering, science, automotive, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and specialist professional knowledge provide strong foundations.
Physical AI deserves greater attention. Robotics and autonomous systems connect digital intelligence with valuable real-world problems.
Niches matter. Ebbon’s experience demonstrates that businesses don’t need to dominate enormous markets if they can become indispensable within valuable specialist ones.
Proprietary knowledge becomes more valuable, not less. AI combined with specialist data, expertise and intellectual property can create meaningful differentiation.
And perhaps most importantly: start with the problem.
Businesses asking “What can we do with AI?” risk chasing technology. Those asking “What valuable problem can we solve?” are far more likely to create something sustainable.
The extraordinary investment being made by US and Chinese technology companies can make Britain’s position appear relatively small.
But scale isn’t the only competitive advantage.
Knowledge, ingenuity, engineering expertise, intellectual property, specialist markets and the ability to solve difficult problems all matter.
Britain has plenty of those.
The bigger question is whether we have the confidence — and create the right environment — to turn them into globally significant businesses.
Why Corum Matters
This was exactly the kind of conversation Corum Six was created to encourage.
The smaller Corum Six format deliberately creates space for discussions that go beyond conventional networking. Hosts choose the subject and a changing group of business owners, CEOs and senior executives bring different experiences and perspectives to the table.
There was no attempt at Ebbon to arrive at a neat answer to where UK PLC should place its bets.
That was precisely the point.
A technology entrepreneur, accountant, lawyer, patent specialist, manufacturer and AI specialist will inevitably view innovation differently. Put those perspectives around one table and assumptions get challenged.
People leave knowing something they didn’t know when they arrived.
And in a business environment increasingly dominated by digital communication and AI-generated information, the value of trusted, face-to-face conversations arguably becomes greater, not smaller.
Corum. Better conversations. Better decisions. In person.
Looking Ahead
The discussion at Ebbon Group followed July’s Corum Six at Silverstone Museum and continues a growing programme of intimate leadership conversations across the region.
The next Corum Six takes place on Wednesday 23rd September, hosted by Ben Dudley at Oxford Direct Services, followed by Andy Whittard at B4 HQ on Wednesday 7th October.
Different venue. Different subject. Different perspectives.
But the same principle: put experienced people around a table, create an environment where they can speak openly and see where the conversation goes.
Who Was Present?
The Corum Six at Ebbon Group brought together:
Robert Pilkington – Joint CEO, Ebbon Group
David Finch – Thinking in Fields
Peter Swanson – Intertronics
Andy Cowie – James Cowper Kreston
Phil Gray – Freeths
Nick Sylvester – IP Asset
Richard Rosser – CEO, B4
The group brought experience spanning technology, AI, manufacturing, accountancy, law, intellectual property and business leadership — exactly the breadth of perspective that makes Corum Six conversations so valuable.