Make no mistake, the roll-out of AI is now considered such big potatoes at London Tech Week that the main stage was this year rebranded as the AI Stage. And these rollouts are beginning to get serious, even if you’ve not fully noticed them. For instance, London unicorn Eleven Labs confirmed its next-gen AI “voice agents” already serve four million customers in 30 languages. If you talk with Deliveroo, Revolut or Trainline — all of which are clients — about, say, a refund, it’s plausible you’ll already be speaking to a sophisticated bot. At London Tech Week, the company announced a deal with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) “to find new ways to use voice AI to improve public services”. So, next time you suspect you might not be conversing with a human when you call HMRC about a tax return, there’s a fair chance that you are not.
