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Who are OpenAI?

Over £200m in government funding just landed for UK businesses adopting AI, ChatGPT has a new flagship model and free money for London SMEs is now available if you know where to look. This issue breaks down what OpenAI actually makes beyond the name you already know, gives you an honest review of whether ChatGPT Plus earns its place in your business and covers the funding you can act on right now.

Prompt Engineer

Most AI advice tells you what a tool does in general, not what it does for you. This prompt fixes that. Fill in the blanks, paste it into your AI tool and you’ll get a straight answer.

You’re an AI advisor for a UK small business. Using my details below, show me the most useful, realistic ways this tool can help. Be honest. If it’s the wrong tool, say so and name a better one.

  • Tool: [e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini]
  • Sector: [e.g. retail, trades, professional services]
  • My role: [e.g. sole trader, agency owner, office manager]
  • Business size: [e.g. just me, or 8 staff]
  • What I want to fix, save or grow: [e.g. save time on admin, win more clients]
  • My AI experience: [none, beginner or confident]
  • Monthly budget: [£ amount, or ‘free only’]

Keep it short and scannable:

  1. Quick read: Is this a good fit for me and why? If not, what should I use instead?
  2. Top 3 uses: Ranked by impact. For each, a one-line heading, the practical payoff and a ready-to-use starter prompt with [placeholders].
  3. Watch out for: One or two honest limitations for my situation.
  4. Cost reality: Realistic cost in pounds and what the free tier covers. If unsure on pricing, tell me where to check.
  5. First move this week: One small action. Just one.

Use UK English and pounds. Be direct and don’t oversell.

  • Code

AI Updates Roundup

It has been a big week for AI funding as London Tech Week prompted a wave of government money aimed squarely at helping smaller firms adopt AI.

Overview

  • The government has put more than £200m behind helping businesses test, adopt and scale AI.
  • The Mayor of London has launched a £12m AI support fund for the capital’s small businesses.

The government has announced over £200m to help businesses test, adopt and scale AI, with £100m going towards matching firms with British AI providers.

  • So what? Grants to trial AI tools in your business are coming, so it could be worth checking what BridgeAI offers.

The Mayor of London has launched a £12m fund offering small businesses AI readiness assessments, expert mentoring and tailored guidance over three years.

  • So what? London firms can get free readiness checks and mentoring, and similar schemes often follow in other regions.

“Today we are going further and faster to drive AI adoption.” –
Liz Kendall, Technology Secretary, speaking at the AI Adoption Summit

Who Are OpenAI and What Do They Actually Make? 🔍

You’ve heard the name and probably used at least one of their tools. But OpenAI is now more than just ChatGPT, so here’s what’s what.

OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT, the AI assistant most people think of first. The business has grown well beyond that one app and it helps to see the whole picture.

Overview

  • OpenAI makes several products, but ChatGPT is the core one.
  • They’ve cut side projects lto focus on core tools and prepare for a possible stock-market listing.
  • It’s the most familiar name in AI, not the only one. Google and Anthropic are worth weighing too.

The Main Products

  • ChatGPT: the assistant you type questions into. It writes, summarises, researches and drafts. For most owners, this is the one you’ll touch daily. It runs on underlying models (the ‘engine’ doing the thinking), and the current flagship is GPT-5.5, the default for paid users since 23 April 2026.
  • Codex: their tool for writing software. It can write code, edit a codebase and run commands. Relevant if you build things or employ developers, less so if not.
  • The API: how other businesses plug OpenAI‘s models into their own software. When an app says it’s ‘powered by AI’, there’s a good chance a company like OpenAI sits underneath. You won’t touch this directly unless you’re building something.

The Latest

  • OpenAI discontinued Sora, its video app, on 26 April 2026 (the developer version closes in September).
  • The move was about focusing on core, money-making products like ChatGPT and Codex, ahead of a possible stock-market listing.
  • The plan now is to fold ChatGPT, Codex and its browser into a single desktop ‘superapp’, with smaller side projects being cut.

Where this leaves a UK business

For most SMEs, the only OpenAI product that matters day to day is ChatGPT. The rest is useful context, not something to act on.

The honest read is that OpenAI is consolidating: trimming the experiments, leaning into business use. That usually means a more stable core product. Just remember it’s one company among several, alongside Google and Anthropic. The most familiar name, not the only option.

The Takeaway 🚀

You don’t need to follow every announcement. Focus on ChatGPT, ignore the rest unless it touches your work, and check back when a major update lands.

Quick Review: ChatGPT🤖

You’ve probably heard of ChatGPT. The question is whether the paid version earns its place in your business. It now handles voice, images and long documents, and works best as a thinking partner for research, drafting and problem-solving rather than a one-off novelty.

Key Takeaways

What’s Good ✅:

  • The latest GPT-5.5 models offer strong reasoning across writing, analysis and coding
  • Deep Research mode can browse the web and produce cited, multi-page reports in minutes
  • Custom GPTs let you standardise repeat tasks like customer replies or report drafting

What’s Less Good ❌:

  • Privacy varies by plan. Data on Free and Plus may be used to train future models unless you opt out
  • It can be confident and wrong, so you still need to check anything that matters
  • Free and Go tiers now carry ads, which can interrupt the experience

Impact on Your Business 📈: The practical win is time. ChatGPT takes the first pass on admin, drafting and research so your team starts from something rather than a blank page. Custom GPTs go a step further by locking in a consistent process, which helps when several people need to produce the same kind of work to the same standard.

Financial ROI 💰: The return comes from hours not spent on routine drafting and early-stage research. One Plus seat costs less than an hour of most professionals’ time per month, so even modest weekly savings cover it. The main cost to watch is review time, since unchecked output can create more work than it saves.

Price Point 💳: ChatGPT Plus is £16 per month plus VAT, which works out at roughly £19.20. A free tier is available.

Upcoming Events & Conferences 📅

  • Legal Tech Talk ⚖️
    • Date: 17–18 June 2026
    • Location: London
    • Cost: See website

A large-scale legal transformation event for in-house legal teams and professional services firms weighing up AI in legal workflows.

A cross-industry congress on implementing AI across business operations, best suited to CTOs, operations and transformation leads benchmarking enterprise strategy.

A free techUK half-day summit with an FCA keynote, essential for financial services, risk and compliance leaders who want the regulator’s current line on AI deployment.

A one-day fintech AI conference where qualifying leaders from banks, insurers and financial institutions can apply for a free pass, making it a low-cost way to benchmark against peers.

A free half-day conference for operators, suppliers and risk teams working in regulated or resilience-critical sectors.

A Reuters leadership summit for CIOs, CDOs and CTOs in financial services, retail and insurance, and one of the better-curated senior AI forums in the UK calendar.

Training & Skills Development 🎓

A three-day executive education programme covering productivity, decision-making and responsible deployment, aimed at senior leaders with serious development budgets.

A free online primer for teams ready to move beyond chatbots into multi-step AI agents.

A hands-on one-day masterclass for founders, CEOs and SME leaders moving from AI experimentation to strategic implementation.