21 Aug 2025

Preparing for AI: lessons from the UK’s only AI trade association

UKAI CEO Tim Flagg on preparing your organisation for AI

When the UK’s only trade association dedicated to artificial intelligence chooses an AI platform for its own operations, the decision carries unusual weight. That’s why hearing directly from Tim Flagg, CEO of UKAI, is such a rare opportunity. With seven years of experience building AI businesses and now leading the body that represents the entire UK AI ecosystem—from startups to multinationals, academia, government, and the public sector—his perspective goes beyond theory.

As the voice bridging government and industry, Flagg is uniquely placed to share what really matters for AI adoption. Under his leadership, UKAI has shaped national AI policy and driven responsible development standards, while also navigating its own AI-powered transformation with Ready Intelligence and Ready Membership.

At TechSmart this year, Flagg joins Pixl8 Group’s Alex Skinner to unpack what “AI readiness” means in practice. His dual role, AI industry leader and membership CEO steering digital change—offers rare, actionable insight into how professional bodies can approach AI with clarity, trust, and confidence.

We caught up with Tim ahead of his session to explore his journey, the realities of AI adoption, and why mindset, data, and trust are at the heart of getting AI right.

Q: Tim, could you tell us about your background and how UKAI came about?

Tim: I’ve been an AI entrepreneur for the past seven years, building AI businesses and seeing the technology’s potential first-hand. Over the last year, I realised there was a need for a bridge between government and industry — a place where the sector could share its needs, and government could work with us to shape policy and delivery. That’s why we formed UKAI. We now represent the entire AI ecosystem in the UK, from tech builders to consultancies, academia, and public sector bodies — all working towards making the UK a leader in AI.

AI success starts inside your organisation, with your people and processes.

Q: Where are organisations getting AI adoption right — and wrong?

Tim: We’re still early in the AI journey, so experimentation is vital. The organisations doing well tend to have already gone through a digital transformation, they’ve built a data-first culture grounded in curiosity, humility, resilience, and agile working. They test, learn, and adapt quickly. Others are under pressure from boards, shareholders, or customers to ‘do AI’ without the mindset or structures in place. They often focus on tools before preparing their people and processes.

Q: Why is data the real starting point for adopting AI rather than tools?

Tim: At the heart of any meaningful digital transformation is data. AI is essentially data science applied through software and systems to generate predictions, the businesses we’re building are still fundamentally data businesses. The real challenge for many organisations now is figuring out how to use their data effectively.

Some organisations that have already been through digital transformation get this: they understand the value of their data, they’ve cleaned it, built decent tech stacks, and addressed privacy and security — everything’s neat. Others are still wrestling with legacy databases, messy data, and gaps in security and privacy, which makes transformation much harder.

For membership organisations specifically, the core data is about your members. You’ve got the long-standing concept of a CRM — it’s a database at its core and when you layer in your CMS, the really interesting part is joining all that data up so you can start to predict things about your members.

And your members aren’t one homogenous group. You may have very large multinationals, lots of medium-sized firms, UK-only and European businesses, small teams, technical and non-technical, all behaving differently. Marketers have chased that “holy grail” of understanding behaviour to serve relevant content for years, but it’s been hard to do in practice.

What’s changed in the last year or two is that machine-learning predictive tools can finally do the heavy lifting — crunching the data to predict, analyse, and act on it. Crucially, this is becoming accessible: you don’t always need a data scientist or software engineer to plug it all in. With developments like “vibe coding” and smarter platforms, any employee can pull data together and drive productivity and efficiency.

Q: Trust and risk are big concerns around AI. How should organisations address them?

Tim: Risk management is essential. Like cybersecurity, we need clear guidelines for AI safety and security. Testing tools in a sandbox environment is a great way to identify vulnerabilities before scaling. Working with a trusted partner who has already invested in testing and de-risking tools is another way to build confidence.

Building greater trust is essential to driving consumer adoption and employee engagement. Trust grows through education, transparency and demonstrating the everyday benefits that AI can deliver in people's lives.

Q: What do you mean by ‘responsible AI’?

Tim: It’s about ethics, sustainability, and accountability. AI has real environmental impacts - for example, the energy and water use of data centres, but the same technology can also help solve these problems. In the UK, we have an opportunity to lead in ‘green AI’ and ethical AI, including upholding copyright protections. For us at UKAI, that means working together across industry and government to set high standards.

Q: Which AI applications excite you most right now?

Tim: Health is a standout, from automating note-taking to improving diagnostics and accelerating drug discovery. Education is another huge opportunity, especially for personalised learning. I’m also excited about ‘everyday AI’ — making tools easy and accessible so people of all ages and regions can benefit, not just those in tech hubs or under 50.

Q: What’s your advice to organisations preparing for the future of AI?

Tim: Focus on mindset first — curiosity, humility, agility, and a willingness to test and learn. These qualities will help you adapt to whatever technologies come next. Invest in data quality and governance early, and involve people from across the organisation. As an individual, keep learning: listen to podcasts, read regularly, find champions in your organisation, and learn together. Now is the time to get involved.

From strong data foundations to building trust and resilience, Tim Flagg’s message is clear:

AI success starts inside your organisation, with your people and processes.

Join Tim and Pixl8 Group CEO Alex Skinner at TechSmart for “AI-Ready: What membership and NFP organisations need to know” on 23rd September, 10:15–10:45, and take away practical steps to get your organisation AI-ready — smartly, securely, and sustainably.

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