The Scottish Government has announced a new initiative to help small and medium-sized businesses harness the potential of artificial intelligence.
The national programme will be delivered by Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise, The Data Lab, and the Scottish AI Alliance. It offers tailored consultancy and grants to support businesses in developing new products, expanding market share, and attracting investment.
Launching the scheme at the Edinburgh Trams depot, Business Minister Richard Lochhead said: “Artificial intelligence is a hugely powerful, rapidly-evolving tool that can support and drive our economy. It can enable businesses to work smarter, to innovate and empower and support its workforces. The project being developed by Integrated Human Factors and Edinburgh Trams is a great example of this.”
He added: “This national programme will help ensure SMEs across the country have the right support and guidance in place to explore and develop how the adoption of AI could support expansion, competitiveness and open new markets.”
The initiative is the first step in establishing AI Scotland, a transformation programme designed to support national adoption of artificial intelligence.
Research commissioned by Scottish Enterprise suggests AI could raise Scotland’s GDP by between £2.74 billion and £19.33 billion by 2035 compared with a no-AI scenario. Despite this potential, three quarters of Scottish SMEs are not currently using AI technologies.
Rhona Allison, Managing Director of Productivity & Business Growth at Scottish Enterprise, said: “The potential for AI to drive efficiency and productivity gains and increase companies’ competitiveness is immense. Yet research shows that three quarters of Scottish SMEs aren’t using any AI technologies and don’t have plans to adopt AI in the short term.”
She argued the programme would help firms take practical steps: “It highlights the transformative potential of AI, considers the challenges of adoption, and makes practical support available to companies looking to embed AI in their operations.”
Businesses can access support available through the programme at: AI Scotland National AI Adoption Programme | Find Business Support.
We need to see this written in Scots !
Interestingly, a UK public sector trial using MS Copilot doesn’t appear to have yielded any real gains in terms of productivity or process efficiency. It seems that ‘AI’ models are in fact best suited to bureaucratic processes of a kind that are almost simple enough to be automated by traditional means. So far this seems to be classic Gartner hype-cycle behaviour- we are in the midst of the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ that preceded the ‘trough of disillusionment’.
“For Expectations, press one, for Disillusionment, please hold for hours untill the dead tone and then hang up”.