[Author: Liam Pape]
Last Thursday, Hogan Lovells brought together leading voices from across the tech, legal, business, and policy spectrum for its inaugural UK AI Summit: AI Investment and Law at Atlantic House, London. The afternoon featured sharp insights, bold ideas, and pragmatic discussions, culminating in an optimistic outlook for the UK’s role in the global AI ecosystem.
Anchored by two compelling keynote addresses from The Times’ Technology Business Editor Katie Prescott and Emran Mian CB OBE, Director General for Digital, Technology and Telecoms at DSIT, the summit took stock of the accelerating pace of AI, its investment landscape, and the pressing legal and regulatory challenges that demand both agility and foresight.
The promise, the power, and the perils – Katie Prescott
Katie Prescott set the tone with an overview of the AI revolution. As one of the UK’s most influential tech journalists, she brought both clarity and urgency to the discussion. "It sounds like an overly dramatic title, but I don't think it is," she said of her keynote’s framing. "It's happening faster than anyone can imagine… but it's really fun."
Prescott highlighted the UK’s unique position as one of the top three AI nations globally, while drawing attention to energy infrastructure limitations, talent clusters, and geopolitical imbalances in compute power. Notably, she cast a spotlight on the next wave of AI: autonomous agents. With projections suggesting over 1.3 billion autonomous agents could be deployed by 2028, the question is no longer if, but how we shape their rollout responsibly.
She urged policymakers and investors to look beyond the tech giants to home-grown AI talent, from Cambridge-founded Wayve to scale-ups like ElevenLabs and Synthesia. "It does feel like the investment is coming here," she noted, "but scaling remains the challenge."
What does it mean for business? – The panel
Prescott then moderated a lively panel debate with speakers from BP, Salesforce, Google, Wordsmith AI and Hogan Lovells. The discussion ranged from regulatory divergence to responsible innovation.
William Malcolm (Google) was optimistic about the UK’s regulatory trajectory and his remarks echoed the panel’s consensus that agile, principles-based frameworks - especially those fostering public-private collaboration - would help to unlock AI’s full economic potential. Uthman Ali (BP)
Danielle Gilliam-Moore (Salesforce) pointed to clarity around definitions as key to regulatory effectiveness. Uthman Ali (BP) cautioned against viewing Europe as a hegemonic bloc, noting that “Germany, France, Romania for example have very different ideas around privacy,” and warned that regional variation in regulatory approaches would shape how AI products are developed and deployed across markets. Eduardo Ustaran (Hogan Lovells) stressed the importance of interoperability across borders: “To truly thrive, AI must be viewed as a global issue.” Meanwhile, Lucy Tyrrell (Wordsmith AI) flagged legacy questions around copyright and IP that are now at the forefront of the AI debate.
A closer look: Breakout insights
The Summit’s breakout sessions allowed delegates to explore the legal and commercial dimensions of AI more deeply, with strong alignment to the work Hogan Lovells is delivering across sectors.
- AI & IP: Following an exposition from Leo von Gerlach about potential use cases for AI, Katie McConnell considered how AI impacts on patentability, including whether AI can be an inventor (spoiler: it can’t - according to the UK Supreme Court), while Alastair Shaw and Penelope Thornton examined copyright, database and licensing issues around what can be protected and how businesses should be structuring their AI-related IP strategies now. The Government’s response to the recent UK copyright consultation remains pending, reflecting how IP issues continue to evolve to meet advances in AI technologies.
- EU AI Act: With compliance deadlines approaching, the firm’s regulatory experts outlined the concrete steps multinationals can take to meet obligations across risk classifications. Hogan Lovells is already advising clients on how to align governance and deployment strategies with the Act’s requirements.
- AI in Financial Services: In a session led by Jonathan Chertkow and Michael Thomas, it became clear that existing frameworks (such as FCA/PRA rules, GDPR, and the Equality Act) already apply to many AI use cases. But the risks - especially around market-facing functions - are evolving fast. Delegates explored how AI can both increase efficiency and heighten systemic risks, especially if models behave similarly in volatile conditions.
- AI & Privacy: Nicola Fulford and Katie McMullan explored how organisations can meet GDPR requirements around lawfulness, transparency, and fairness when deploying AI, while also addressing practical risks like data leakage, bias, and adversarial attacks.
- Developing a Global AI Governance Framework: Eduardo Ustaran and Louise Crawford discussed how companies can develop pragmatic, scalable governance frameworks that meet growing global regulatory expectations and support the safe, responsible use of AI across the supply chain.
- Investing in AI: Simon Grimshaw led a session on how investors are assessing AI-driven businesses, focusing on target identification, proprietary technology, data readiness, transaction readiness, execution risk, and how aligned AI strategies are with long-term commercial goals.
- AI M&A: James Cross and Louise Crawford led a session focused on how buyers can conduct effective due diligence on AI-driven businesses, assessing everything from data rights and model integrity to technical infrastructure, team dependencies, and the credibility of AI strategies.
- The Role of the Board in AI Governance: Peter Watts led a conversation on how boards can take an active role in overseeing AI strategy and risk, ensuring that innovation aligns with legal obligations, ethical standards, and broader corporate objectives.
Closing vision: Emran Mian on UK’s AI ambition
The summit closed with an optimistic and forward-looking address from Emran Mian CB OBE, Director General at DSIT. His message was clear: the UK has a strong foundation for AI innovation, but more needs to be done to create the right environment to help businesses grow.
He detailed how the Government is working to support a thriving AI ecosystem, across public services, skills, compute access and the investment landscape. The focus is not only on innovation for its own sake, but for building resilient, inclusive and high-impact AI businesses.
A shared purpose: Taking AI to the next stage
In his opening remarks, Charles Brasted (Partner, Hogan Lovells) described the summit as “how we take AI to the next stage.” The conversations throughout the day made clear that clients are no longer asking whether to invest in AI, but how to do so responsibly, compliantly, and with long-term value in mind.
As AI continues to disrupt markets and transform sectors, Hogan Lovells stands ready to support clients at every step, from governance frameworks and regulatory compliance to IP protection, M&A strategy and should disputes ensue. The summit was not just a moment of reflection, but a confident step forward in shaping the legal infrastructure for AI’s future.
see video here.
[View source.]
