Author: Ritam Gandhi, founder and director, Studio Graphene

The Budget will do little to shake off the prevailing cloud of negativity hanging over the private sector, even with the Chancellor’s promise that ‘If you build here, Britain will back you’.

Consultations will not help in the here and now; from startups to corporates, the challenges that businesses are facing – from access to finance and talent through to stagnant economic growth and higher taxes – are not going away.

Such challenges place greater pressure on organisations of all sizes and sectors to improve productivity and find ways to do more with what they’ve got. Invariably, the answer will be technology and, in particular, AI. And that’s where, from a business and technology perspective, the government had already actually played its trump card late last week in announcing a raft of new reforms and investments under its AI strategy.

This was a welcome move and, amidst all the negativity that has surrounded this Budget, the fact that the government is pursuing different options to improve AI startups’ access to funding and routes to market is really positive.

They will likely be lost amidst all the noise today, but the AI Growth Zones, Sovereign AI Unit and ‘first customer’ policy were all good steps forward.