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The AI Brief


The UK AI economy is defined this week by two clear forces: a £500 million government fund for domestic growth and a serious official warning on the £400 billion national skills deficit. The opportunity is massive, but it hinges on one factor: proactively closing your internal skills gaps now

Prompt Engineer

Use this prompt for classifying and standardising incoming queries, ensuring consistent logging and routing!

Copy and paste this into your AI assistant:

`I have received the following customer query: [Copy and paste the full customer email/ticket text here].

Based on the content, please provide a structured analysis and suggested next steps:

  1. Query Type Classification: Categorise the query using one of the following terms only: ‘Technical Bug Report’ ‘Billing Inquiry’ ‘Feature Request’ ‘General Support’ ‘Partnership Opportunity’.
  2. Required Action: A short summary of the specific action needed (e.g., ‘Escalate to Level 2 support for database check’ or ‘Send standard pricing sheet’).
  3. Suggested Draft Reply Opener: A 1-2 sentence draft of the professional opening line for the reply, acknowledging the issue.
  4. Priority Level: Assign one of the following priority levels: ‘High’ (needs response within 1 hour) ‘Medium’ (needs response within 4 hours) ‘Low’ (needs response within 24 hours).’

Replace the bracketed section with the customer query. This ensures that every ticket is classified consistently.

The National Picture

Targeted government investment and a serious new official warning on the national skills deficit are defining the UK’s AI trajectory this month.

Overview
  • Government launched a new £500 million fund for UK AI scale-ups.
  • A Skills England report warns of a critical £400 billion national AI skills gap.

Government Investment: The government has established a new Sovereign AI Unit, backed by almost £500 million, to provide funding and support for promising British AI start-ups.

So What? This new government-backed capital pool directly supports the growth of future domestic AI solutions, giving your business easier access to proven UK-developed tools.

Workforce Skills: A new Skills England report identified a critical national AI skills deficit that could hold back up to £}400 billion of UK economic growth by 2030.

So What? You should now investigate government-supported resources like the Skills England AI Skills Framework to start proactively assessing and closing skill gaps within your own teams.

Around 10 million workers will be in roles where Artificial Intelligence is part of their daily responsibilities by 2035. – Gov UK

How to Upskill

The UK economy is projected to gain up to £400 billion from AI adoption, but only if the workforce is equipped to use it. This is not a technical problem. It’s an education challenge.

Experts agree that most important investment is not in chasing external “AI experts,” but in empowering your existing, non-technical teams in administration, sales and marketing.

Overview

  • ROI is found in upskilling existing, non-technical teams (admin, sales, marketing).
  • Recommended strategy is to focus on in-house training, concentrating on simple AI tool integration and practical application.
  • Government-funded bootcamps are a great option for significant subsidies on staff AI proficiency training.

How Can You Upskill Their Teams Today

  • Audit for High-Impact Tasks. Identify one or two repetitive, high-volume tasks like generating first-draft emails, summarising documents and creating social media captions. Focus on the AI tools that automate these tasks for an immediate win.
  • Leverage Government-Funded Skills Bootcamps. Utilise the UK government’s Skills Bootcamps program. These are flexible, up to 16-week courses that are often fully funded for self-employed individuals and those seeking new roles. Or subsidised (up to 90%) for employers looking to upskill their current staff in areas like “Applied AI for Business and Productivity.”
  • Focus on Prompt Engineering. The most valuable, non-technical skill is effective prompt engineering. Invest in training, like this Google Prompting Essentials course, that teaches your team how to ask AI tools the right questions to get commercially useful, accurate output.
  • Start with AI-Adjacent Tools. Implement AI features within tools your team already uses (e.g., Microsoft 365 Copilot, Canva’s AI features or Mailchimp’s AI-powered marketing). This reduces the complexity and resistance associated with introducing an entirely new system.
The Takeaway 💡

AI upskilling is a low-effort, high-return investment in your existing workforce. Prioritise budget for in-house AI literacy and integration. This is the most efficient path to turning new digital assets into sustainable productivity.

Quick Review: Freshdesk Freddy AI💬

Freshdesk Freddy AI is an embedded AI suite within the Freshdesk platform. It automates routine customer queries and boosts support agent productivity. Freshdesk is a widely-used, all-in-one platform for managing customer service tickets across multiple channels.

Key Takeaways

  • How it Works ⚙️: Freddy AI provides two functions: the AI Agent for customer self-service, and the AI Copilot for human agents. The Copilot works inside the agent workspace. It generates ticket summaries and suggests drafted replies instantly.
  • Use Case 📈: This is perfect for e-commerce and service businesses with high volumes of common questions. It handles routine queries like order status or password resets. This allows for reliable 24/7 support without increasing staff.
  • Impact on Your Business ⏱️: It can resolve up to 80% of basic queries autonomously. This dramatically boosts the first response time. Staff gain more time to focus on complex, strategic customer needs.
  • Price Point 💰: AI features need at least the Pro tier at £35 per agent per month, billed annually.

Upcoming Events & Conferences 📅

This event features industry presentations focused on collaborative agent systems, robotics and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

The conference focuses on practical AI applications across key business sectors including economics and finance.

Training & Skills Development 🎓

A specialised focus on advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Data Science techniques for academic and industry practitioners.

A highly specific technical seminar covering the latest deep learning methodologies for the healthcare and MedTech sectors.