23.10.2025

UK Businesses to Ramp Up AI Investment by 40% — But Strategic Change Required

UK Businesses to Ramp Up AI Investment by 40%…

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New research from SAP SE and Oxford Economics shows UK companies are set to increase their AI spending by an average of 40% over the next two years

Currently, firms are already spending around £15.94 million on AI this year, and they report average returns of about 17% (≈ £2.7 million) from those investments. By 2027 the expected ROI jumps to 32% (≈ £7.5 million). 
However — the same report highlights a major gap: only 7% of UK firms say their AI initiative is part of a strategic, enterprise-wide plan, while 42% describe investment as piecemeal and 37% say it’s led by a single department. 

Why This Matters for Businesses & Service Providers Like mutherboard

  • Rising AI investment means more demand for implementation, training, governance, integration and change-management.

  • But fragmented adoption means many firms will waste money on tools that don’t deliver — the “tech project” without operational change.

  • This is an excellent opportunity for firms that can help companies adopt AI in context — aligned with workflow, strategy, governance, and people.

Here are concrete ways mutherboard can support businesses turning AI ambition into outcomes: Strategic alignment first

We work with you to define what “success” looks like for your AI investment — aligning it with business goals, workflows, metrics. That ensures spend isn’t just “pilot this tool”.

Workflow & integration design

We help model how AI components fit into your established processes: where human work should shift, which tasks are automated, how approvals & exceptions are handled.

Change management & adoption

Since many firms struggle to scale because teams revert to old ways, we design rollout plans, training, governance and usage monitoring so AI becomes embedded, not abandoned.

Governance, data & risk controls

With AI comes data risks, model drift, shadow AI, and compliance questions. We build audit logs, usage dashboards, permissioning, and tie AI usage into your broader operational risk architecture.

ROI and outcome tracking

We put in place measurable KPIs (time saved, error reduction, revenue uplift) and dashboards so you can see the benefit of your AI investment, not just hope for it.

The forecast 40% rise in AI investment signals big opportunity — but also big risk if firms don’t treat AI as transformation, not just a tech tool.
mutherboard is positioned to help you shift from “tool bought” to “tool working, value realised”.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • automation
  • Workflow Improvement
  • AI
  • mutherboard

We help you automate your business workflows and processes to improve productivity and efficiency.  We are Platinum Partners of monday.com and help users get the most out of the platform.

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