Salesforce launches UK AI Readiness Index Showing the UK is Ready to Lead the Third Wave of AI Innovation

UK sees above-G7 average performance on AI Adoption

Leading UK businesses including Capita, Heathrow, Bionic and Secret Escapes realising productivity benefits of AI agents

London — December 2, 2024 — Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, today announced findings of the Salesforce UK AI Readiness Index, highlighting that the UK is well-placed to be a world leader of the third wave of AI innovation: agentic AI. At the same time, UK businesses are reporting that they are realising productivity benefits of AI agents with Salesforce.

The report highlights the UK’s above-G7 average performance in AI adoption, while identifying key opportunities for improvement, including SME support, fostering partnerships and upskilling talent.  

Salesforce has led customers through AI’s evolution — predictive, generative and now agents. At the forefront of this transformation is Salesforce’s Agentforce, which is enabling businesses to deploy agents to act autonomously, delivering real-time, actionable results.

“Agentic AI is revolutionising enterprise software by enabling humans and agents to collaborate seamlessly and drive customer success. The UK AI Readiness Index positively highlights that the UK has both the vision and infrastructure to be a powerhouse globally in AI, and lead the current third wave of agentic AI. At Salesforce, we are enabling businesses to embrace AI-first strategies that deliver growth, resilience, and world-class customer experiences. To realise this potential, it is imperative that we continue to collaborate with all stakeholders to ensure that AI is not only a tool for economic advancement, but also a force for good.” Zahra Bahrololoumi CBE, UKI CEO, Salesforce

The UK is ready to lead the next wave of AI

The Salesforce UK AI Readiness Index finds that both public and private sectors in the UK have embraced the transformational opportunity offered by AI. A strong innovation culture, robust tech investments, and pragmatic regulations position the UK ahead of its G7 peers.

The report assesses the UK’s readiness for AI adoption and innovation across three areas:

1.      UK overall readiness for AI adoption/innovation

2.      Government readiness and how AI is being used across the public sector

3.      Business readiness and how UK industry is approaching AI and its level of readiness

The UK’s readiness score is 65.5 against the G7 average of 61.2, putting clear daylight between the UK and other advanced economies. Both government and business readiness scores are also higher than the respective G7 averages.

At government level, readiness to adopt and innovate is supported by strong citizen participation in e-services. The UK is seen as a stable, safe environment in which to invest in large-scale IT projects. 

Initiatives such as last year’s AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, and the new Government’s proposed risk-based AI legislation serve to highlight the UK’s global AI leadership on critical issues such as transparency, privacy and security.

On business readiness, the UK score of 52 again compares very favourably with the G7 average score of 47.8. UK industries are performing well on adoption of AI, supported by the increasing prioritisation among SMEs for AI adoption. 

Adam Evans, EVP & GM, Salesforce AI Platform, predicts that in 2025, autonomous agents will evolve into business-aware intelligence — understanding the unique context, challenges, and needs of your industry to carry out meaningful, strategic business tasks and decisions on your behalf.

Investing in the future of AI

The UK is a world class AI hub with a thriving ecosystem. Last year, Salesforce committed to invest $4 billion in its UK business in the next five years. Since opening the Salesforce UK AI Centre in London in June 2024, over 3,000 customers, thought leaders and wider community members have attended AI training and workshops. 

As part of the Index, key areas of continued investment across all stakeholders will reinforce the UK’s leadership position:

• Further development of a collaborative ecosystem to encourage greater partnership between government, business and academia.
• Developing an adaptive regulatory framework as the UK is primed to act as a bridge between the rules-based EU approach to AI regulation and a more relaxed US approach.
• Support SMEs in adopting AI as they often lack the capital to invest in training and development.
• Sustained and enhanced investment in innovation and R&D.

Among the most pressing priorities is investment in people and digital skills and defining centralised structures to support widespread training and development.

Minister for AI and Digital Government, Feryal Clark, said:

“These findings are further proof the UK is in prime position to take advantage of AI, and highlight our strength in spurring innovation, investment and collaboration across the public and private sector. There is a global race for AI and we’ll be setting out plans for how the UK can use the technology to ramp-up adoption across the economy, kickstart growth and build an AI sector which can scale and compete on the global stage.”

Antony Walker, Deputy CEO at techUK, said:

“The Salesforce UK AI Readiness Index highlights the UK’s strong position to lead the next wave of AI innovation. In the year ahead, new productivity tools such as AI agents have the potential to deliver real productivity benefits to businesses. To build this progress, government and industry must collaborate to foster innovation, support SMEs, invest in skills, and ensure flexible regulation, cementing the UK’s leadership in the global AI economy.”

Unlocking productivity with autonomous agents

Businesses leveraging this third wave of AI are already seeing the power of agentic AI and Agentforce to unlock new productivity capabilities. Salesforce UK customers including Capita, Heathrow, Secret Escapes and Bionic are already realising the benefits of autonomous agents: 

“With Agentforce, we want to transform Capita’s recruitment process into a fast, seamless and autonomous experience that benefits candidates, our people and our clients. With autonomous agents providing 24/7 support, our goal is to enable candidates to complete the entire recruitment journey within days as opposed to what has historically taken weeks. At Capita, we give time back to our clients so they can focus on what they do best – and Agentforce will improve our ability to do just that. This is just the start of our Agentic journey with Salesforce, where we believe an Agentic Economy can drive big growth potential for UK businesses.” Adolfo Hernandez. Chief Executive Officer, Capita

“The travel industry is a 24/7 business, often involving unique and urgent requests. As our website which offers luxury travel deals continues to grow and attract new customers, we wanted a solution that could deliver a personalised service efficiently to our 60 million European members. Agentforce uses our unified data to automate routine tasks like processing cancellations, updating booking information, or even answering common travel questions about luggage, flight information and much more, freeing up our customer service agents to handle more complex and last-minute travel needs to better serve our members.” Kate Donaghy, Head of Business Technology, Secret Escapes 

“We’ve been really impressed with how Salesforce’s AI platform has improved our service operations, boosted customer satisfaction, and helped increase our digital revenue by over 30%. As Europe’s busiest airport, we’re committed to providing extraordinary service to the over 80 million passengers who pass through our Terminals each year. We’re excited about Salesforce’s new AI features, which will help us enhance the travel experience even further and keep Heathrow at the cutting edge.” Peter Burns, Marketing and Digital Director at Heathrow

“Embracing autonomous agents is a game-changer for Bionic. We’re on a mission to make life radically easier for Britain’s small businesses by combining smart technology with expert human service. With Agentic AI, we’re streamlining tasks like meter readings and switch tracking to deliver 24/7 support. This innovation empowers our 200,000 SME customers to save time and hassle so they can focus on growing their business.” James Lomas, Chief Technology Officer, Bionic

The Agentic Economy in 2025

The UK’s AI readiness is a testament to the combined efforts of government, businesses, and academia. Sustaining leadership requires a continued focus on collaboration, skills development, and innovation. At Salesforce we are ready and we will continue to play our part.

By 2025, autonomous agents will define how AI delivers business value at scale, helping UK businesses realise significant gains in productivity and efficiency. The UK must continue to invest in this potential to remain a global leader in the AI-powered economy.

Learn more:

• Read the full UK AI Readiness Index here
• Read about Salesforce UK’s AI Centre in London

Salesforce UK AI Readiness Index Methodology

Commissioned by Salesforce and prepared by Access Partnership, the UK AI Readiness Index 2024 (the Index) aims to help policymakers in the UK to assess business and government readiness to adopt, deploy, and integrate AI. The Index provides an assessment of UK business and government AI readiness, and its impact on socio-economic opportunities, relative to G7 countries. 

The UK AI Readiness Index is a composite index that measures different components of AI frameworks and ecosystems for the UK and G7 countries. The Index combines qualitative research and quantitative modelling to demonstrate how business and government leaders can better focus the efforts and resources they are devoting to AI. 

The Index uses 15 proxy indicators clustered into two key dimensions:

• Business readiness (7 indicators): How the private sector—start-ups, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and enterprises—are equipped to adopt AI. This is important to understand businesses’ ability to drive and sustain the growth of AI. 
• Government readiness (8 indicators): How the public sector—regulators, policymakers, institutions, and organisations—are enabling AI through funds and frameworks. This is important to evaluate governments’ ability to make AI a key driver of economic growth and competitiveness.