Liz Kendall urges the British public to embrace AI as the government makes its first £500m fund investment

Britain’s technology minister urged the country to “make AI work for Britain” and allayed fears about its impact on jobs and cybersecurity as the government announced its first investment under a £500m government AI fund.

Liz Kendall said the UK must “seize” the opportunity presented by AI, despite concerns expressed this month when US startup Anthropic revealed it had developed an AI model that posed a potentially significant cyber threat.

Asked about the government’s commitment to introducing technology that could disrupt jobs and now cybersecurity, Kendall said: “We need to harness this to make it work, for Britain, for our jobs, to solve the biggest challenges we face as a world.”

As the government unveiled its first investment in a UK company on Thursday as part of a £500m government AI fund, Kendall acknowledged that “people are worried about the risks and what this means for their jobs”, but AI entrepreneurs also believe they can “make it work…”