Yorkshire AI: Firms See Growth but Few Have Scaled

New research from investor BGF finds strong appetite for artificial intelligence among Yorkshire businesses, but says using it at scale is still the exception

Most Yorkshire business leaders now see artificial intelligence as a driver of growth, but few have managed to put it to work across their business. That is the finding of new Yorkshire AI research by BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active growth-capital investor, carried out with data firm Beauhurst. It found that 56% of regional business leaders view AI as a growth driver and 60% say it matters to their longer-term ambitions, yet the report concludes that genuine adoption at scale remains the exception rather than the rule. The gap between ambition and delivery, it suggests, is the real challenge now facing firms.

Why This Matters For Leeds

AI is shaping up as one of the biggest factors in which businesses grow fastest, so how well Yorkshire firms adopt it matters for the regional economy. The encouraging news is that appetite and confidence are high. The concern is that intent is running ahead of delivery and the firms that turn ambition into embedded use could pull away from those that don’t. Closing that gap is the opportunity for the city to seize.

What the Yorkshire AI Research Found

The study, based on a survey of more than 250 SME founders and senior leaders, points to a market that has largely settled the question of whether AI matters. Nationally, 72% of businesses say AI already plays an important role, and 84% have grown more optimistic about it over the past year. However, around a fifth of firms are still piloting or prototyping, another 16% are exploring where it could add value, and 68% say it is integrated in only some functions, or barely at all. Among Yorkshire and North East leaders, the biggest barriers cited were security concerns, poor data quality and getting staff to adopt new tools. Encouragingly, governance is taking hold: more than two-thirds of regional firms say they have a responsible-AI policy, and most have put a senior leader in charge of driving it.

“The debate is largely finished about whether AI matters strategically, but a gap remains between ambition and integration. While confidence in AI has rarely been higher, implementation at scale remains the exception.”

— Chris Boyes, Partner and Head of BGF in Yorkshire

Closing the Gap Between Intent and Impact

The findings land in the middle of a live debate about the region’s AI potential. Leeds was recently ranked among the UK’s ten most AI-ready cities. BGF’s Chris Boyes argued that the obstacles to getting started have never been lower, and that the firms held back are usually held back by organisational and cultural issues rather than technology. The report frames the task ahead as helping businesses move from seeing AI as an emerging technology to using it as a genuine value driver. As a survey commissioned by an investor, its findings naturally reflect BGF’s interest in backing growth, but the underlying message remains; the region has the ambition and now needs to convert it into scale.