House byline

Owen Griffiths

AI correspondent

Owen Griffiths is a house byline for InfoHandle’s AI desk.

27 stories

Narrow corridor of a data centre with server racks and blue status LEDs, cool fluorescent light, no logos or readable labels

Burnham Signals G20 AI Safety Push as Security Institute Tests Stay Voluntary

Andy Burnham told Labour conference listeners he will put AI safety on the G20 agenda while the UK Security Institute still relies on voluntary frontier-model testing.

Owen Griffiths Oct 8, 2026United Kingdom

Data centre aisle with blinking server racks and cable trays, cold blue LED status lights, technician silhouette at far end, no logos or readable text

Bank of England Flags Frontier AI as Operational Risk in July Stability Report

The Bank of England’s July Financial Stability Report warned that rapid frontier-AI adoption is amplifying cyber and operational risks across UK banks and market infrastructures.

Owen Griffiths Oct 7, 2026United Kingdom

Hospital corridor with nurse in scrubs reviewing a tablet, muted NHS-style blue signage blurred, fluorescent corridor lighting, no identifiable faces or readable text

Damian Hinds Says NHS Must Put Clinicians Ahead of Vendors on AI Rollout

Shadow health secretary Damian Hinds told the Conservative conference the NHS should adopt AI only with frontline clinicians setting guardrails, citing the abandoned National Programme for IT as a cautionary tale.

Owen Griffiths Oct 6, 2026United Kingdom

Exterior of the Palace of Westminster on a cloudy morning, Thames visible, scaffolding on tower, no flags or readable text

Parliamentary Rights Panel Urges AISI Model Submissions Ahead of Ministerial Reply Window

The Joint Committee on Human Rights gave ministers until mid-November to respond to its call for mandatory pre-release testing of powerful AI models by the AISI.

Owen Griffiths Oct 5, 2026United Kingdom

Open-plan insurance office overlooking docklands towers, analysts at dual monitors with paper binders, overcast daylight, no logos or readable text

Cohere Opens Canary Wharf Fine-Tuning Pod for Lloyd's Syndicate Underwriting Assistants

Cohere has opened a fine-tuning pod in Canary Wharf for Lloyd's syndicate underwriters, letting London market firms train domain-specific assistants on claims text without shipping sensitive documents to generic public models.

Owen Griffiths Oct 4, 2026United Kingdom

Lecture hall at an Oxford college with wooden benches and projector screen showing blurred slides, autumn daylight through tall windows, no faces or readable text

Oxford Convenes International AI Governance Forum on Human Rights Benchmarks Monday

Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI hosts a Monday summit on embedding human rights in governance frameworks as Whitehall splits AI safety and industry policy.

Owen Griffiths Oct 3, 2026United Kingdom

Row of office server racks with blinking status LEDs in a cooled data room, cable trays overhead, cool white lighting, documentary photo, no readable labels

ICO Sets October Gen-AI Record-Keeping Rules for UK Employers

The Information Commissioner's Office told UK employers they must log prompts, outputs and human review steps when staff use generative AI on personal data from 31 October.

Owen Griffiths Oct 2, 2026United Kingdom

A secure server room aisle with blinking status LEDs on rack mounts, cool white corridor lighting and cable trays overhead, no logos or readable text

UK AISI Tests Open-Weights Models Against Banking Stress Prompts as FCA Watches Third-Party Risk

The UK AI Safety Institute ran open-weights language models through banking-themed stress prompts as the Financial Conduct Authority asked lenders how third-party AI vendors are audited before customer-facing deployment.

Owen Griffiths Oct 1, 2026United Kingdom

Row of black server racks in a UK data hall with blue status LEDs, cold aisle containment, cable trays overhead, documentary industrial photography, no logos or readable text

DSIT Names Five UK Startups for Phase-Two AI Compute Credits After September Benchmark Round

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology named five firms for the second tranche of AI compute credits after September benchmark tests on national GPU clusters.

Owen Griffiths Sep 30, 2026United Kingdom

Open government risk workbook and laptop on a desk in a plain Whitehall office with frosted windows, fluorescent ceiling panels, stacked paper files, no readable text on screen

Orange Book AI Workbook Gives Whitehall Teams Five-Point Likelihood Scales

Guidance tied to the AI Risk Management Toolkit gives departments five-point likelihood and impact scales, Orange Book risk language, and a monitoring dashboard as AI minister Kanishka Narayan’s taskforce absorbs the AI Security Institute.

Owen Griffiths Sep 29, 2026United Kingdom

Telecom customer service floor with agents wearing headsets at cubicles, LED status boards with blurred numbers, fluorescent ceiling panels, no readable branding

Ofcom Clarifies Telcos Must Keep Human Complaint Routes as AI Chatbot Use Rises

Ofcom told broadband and mobile providers they cannot use AI chatbots to block access to mandatory human complaint channels, citing General Condition C4 as chatbot use reaches one in four UK adults online.

Owen Griffiths Sep 28, 2026United Kingdom

Narrow Whitehall corridor with a closed laptop on a wooden bench and blurred server-room glass doors, flat overhead lighting, no logos or readable text

Narayan Faces Liverpool Conference Questions on Where AI Safety Institute Staff Will Land

AI minister Kanishka Narayan arrives at Labour's Liverpool conference with civil servants still mapping which teams move to the Cabinet Office after Andy Burnham abolished DSIT.

Owen Griffiths Sep 27, 2026United Kingdom

Photoreal wide shot of an empty Whitehall-style government briefing room at dawn, unopened folders and a switched-off desk microphone on a long oak table, cold light through tall windows, no people, no logos or readable text

Frontier AI Safety Bill Work Stalled as Burnham's DSIT Breakup Leaves Testing Rules in Limbo

Pre-release testing for frontier models has quietly stalled after DSIT was broken up in Andy Burnham's Whitehall reorganisation. Labs and buyers want statutory rules; this month, UK regulation asks nothing new of them before a model ships.

Owen Griffiths Sep 26, 2026United Kingdom

A British bank risk office late in the evening: an empty document review desk with a printed financial file open to a page of dense paragraphs, a pen resting on an added margin note, a second copy of the same page beside it with a few paragraphs bracketed in pencil, cooling tea in a plain mug and a keyboard at the edge of frame, no people, cool overhead light against dark ceiling panels casting long shadows, documentary photojournalism, shallow depth of field, natural muted colours, no logos or readable text

Lloyds Wholesale Bank Tests Internal LLM Summaries Ahead of FCA Model Governance Checks

Lloyds is testing internal large language models over risk documentation in its corporate and institutional arm, built on a summarisation pattern the group already runs in production for fraud and dispute calls. The regulatory question is narrower than the technology: what was evaluated, by whom, and can a supervisor follow the trail from the summary back to the file.

Owen Griffiths Sep 25, 2026United Kingdom

Telecom network operations centre with rack lights and cable trays, cool fluorescent light on metal flooring, operators shown from behind at monitors, no logos or readable text

Ofcom Opens Closed Door on AI Cyber Tools for UK Telecom Networks

Ofcom is running closed autumn 2026 engagements on how telecoms operators use AI for cyber defence, testing whether Telecommunications (Security) Act and NIS rules unintentionally block useful tools—with findings due early 2027.

Owen Griffiths Sep 24, 2026United Kingdom

Modern London research lab with stainless bench, pipette racks and a glass wall toward brick King's Cross warehouse architecture, cool fluorescent and window daylight mix, no logos or readable text on screens

Google DeepMind Opens Isomorphic Drug-Discovery Bench at King's Cross With NHS Data Pact

Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs opened a King's Cross drug-discovery bench tied to a narrow NHS England data pact for de-identified oncology pathways, with MHRA and National Data Guardian sign-off on scope and no direct patient identifiers.

Owen Griffiths Sep 23, 2026United Kingdom

Busy NHS accident and emergency waiting room with a freestanding touchscreen kiosk and plastic chairs, fluorescent ceiling panels, patients blurred in background, muted NHS blue signage without readable text

NHS England Expands AI Triage Pilots in A&E Waiting Rooms Across Five Trusts

NHS England widened waiting-room AI triage pilots to five hospital trusts after early data showed kiosk assessments shortened clerk time without routing stable patients into the wrong acuity track, subject to MHRA software scrutiny.

Owen Griffiths Sep 23, 2026United Kingdom

NHS call centre row with operators wearing headsets at curved monitors showing blurred patient intake forms, overhead fluorescent panels and grey carpet, no logos or readable text

NHS England Pilots LLM Triage Summaries in 111 Call Centres

NHS England expanded a pilot where large language models draft triage summaries for NHS 111 call handlers in two regions, with clinicians signing off before patients receive callback instructions.

Owen Griffiths Sep 22, 2026United Kingdom

Government office conference table with printed benchmark charts and a closed laptop beside a wall-mounted screen showing blurred graphs, daylight through vertical blinds, no logos or readable text

UK AISI Publishes Foundation Model Evaluations Ahead of Enterprise Procurement Rules

The UK AI Safety Institute released evaluation summaries for three frontier models and told departments how to embed those scores in enterprise procurement before Christmas framework renewals.

Owen Griffiths Sep 22, 2026United Kingdom

Clinical workstation showing lung function charts on a monitor, handheld peak-flow meter on desk, fluorescent office light through blinds, no logos or readable text

Huma Therapeutics White City Rolls Remote Asthma Spirometry Dashboards for NHS ICB Pilots

Huma Therapeutics has rolled remote asthma spirometry dashboards from its White City lab into NHS integrated care board pilots, pairing home peak-flow uploads with clinician triage views audited for MHRA software-as-a-medical-device pathways.

Owen Griffiths Sep 21, 2026United Kingdom

Single-deck bus with roof sensor pod on a misty Camden side street, sodium street lamps, wet pavement reflections, safety driver visible through windscreen, no logos or readable text

Wayve Camden Autonomous Bus Pilots Log Fall Fog Interruption Thresholds

Wayve’s Camden autonomous bus pilots have begun logging fall fog interruption thresholds for TfL, recording when embodied-AI perception hands back to safety drivers as moisture and street glare breach confidence bands on north London test loops.

Owen Griffiths Sep 21, 2026United Kingdom

NHS hospital administrative office with a laptop showing a blurred productivity sidebar, teal fabric chairs and noticeboard in background, flat fluorescent ceiling panels, no logos or readable text

Microsoft UK Expands Copilot Data Boundary Controls for NHS Trust Staff Tenants

Microsoft UK widened EU Data Boundary controls to NHS trust staff Microsoft 365 tenants running Copilot, letting clinical administrators use summarisation without patient identifiers leaving UK processing enclaves.

Owen Griffiths Sep 20, 2026United Kingdom

Rows of labelled cardboard document archive boxes on metal shelving in a City of London basement with a glass-walled server rack aisle and cool fluorescent light, no logos or readable text

Cohere UK Offers On-Prem Legal Embeddings for City Law Firm Document Archives

Cohere’s London team began piloting on-premises legal embedding models for a Magic Circle alumni firm that wants semantic search across seven decades of matter files without shipping text to US cloud regions.

Owen Griffiths Sep 20, 2026United Kingdom

Olive military shipping containers stacked on a rain-damp RAF base apron, forklift parked nearby under flat overcast sky, puddles on tarmac, no logos or readable text on uniforms or crates.

Faculty AI Wins MoD Contract on Logistics Forecast Models for Bases

Faculty AI won a two-year Ministry of Defence contract to forecast spare parts and ration usage across UK bases, replacing spreadsheet models that failed during joint exercises in Estonia.

Owen Griffiths Sep 19, 2026United Kingdom

Broadcast waveform monitor and headphones on a cluttered UK newsroom desk, muted ceiling fluorescents, blurred glass partition and coffee mug, screen glow without readable text, no logos.

DeepMind London Unit Ships Watermark Tags for Synthetic Media in Newsrooms

Google DeepMind’s London team released an open toolkit that embeds watermark tags in synthetic images and audio, pitching UK newsrooms on provenance checks ahead of Online Safety Act duties on misleading content.

Owen Griffiths Sep 19, 2026United Kingdom

UK accountancy practice desk with stacked paper invoices beside a widescreen monitor showing a blurred accounting dashboard, afternoon window light, no logos or readable text.

Sage Rolls Out AI Invoice Matching for UK Accountancy Practices

Sage is switching on AI-assisted invoice matching for UK accountancy practices using its cloud ledger, promising to flag duplicate VAT lines before they reach HMRC’s Making Tax Digital pipelines.

Owen Griffiths Sep 18, 2026United Kingdom

Civil servants reviewing a laptop screen and printed checklist at a long Whitehall corridor desk, fluorescent lighting, muted suits, no logos or readable text.

Government Departments Must Run AISI Checks Before Renewing Chatbot Contracts

Cabinet Office guidance now requires departments to submit generative chatbot renewals to the AI Safety Institute for pre-deployment checks before signing extensions worth more than £500,000.

Owen Griffiths Sep 18, 2026United Kingdom