Thought #19 - Pilots, Power and a Public Sector Push

Hi lovely humans,

It’s a particularly public-sector-heavy week in AI, with new initiatives in healthcare, infrastructure, and digital inclusion - plus some regulatory wins and warnings. Alongside that, we’ve got updates from Claude, OpenAI, and a quiet showdown between ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.

Our Week in AI

A slightly low AI week for me as I was still on holidays, and have been catching up on meetings and admin since I’ve been back. But two standout uses:

Claude Quizzes

I had some fun playing with some Claude generated quizzes. I really enjoyed these quizzes (tech was unsurprisingly my best round), but they really got me thinking about multi choice questions in education - especially those designed by AI. Firstly, the questions were meant to be tricky but the answers weren’t explained (eg what is the maximum break score in snooker? My husband was very sure it was 147, but there is an edge case where it is 155…) Second - the classification of easy, medium and hard felt off. All the hard music questions were about classical music, so more of a social comment than a difficulty rating. While AI can make these questions, there’s a really important human educator element missing always. And I thank my lucky stars that members of our team seem to really love writing multiple choice questions…

Sales Practical

I’m a developer, selling isn’t my natural state. But I’ve found using the Act As prompt with Claude to help practice sales objections - Act As [a marketing manager in a fintech scale up in the UK], here’s my outreach email. Then having a conversation.

It gave me tips and options, and was actually able to make me feel special Typical sales people might do X, but based on our chat you’re not going to feel comfortable so try Y.

AI New Releases

Anthropic is having some fun with games and coding

• Claude Artifacts (their very slick version of customGPTs) are now live - some are really useful (QR code generator) and some are just cute (the Touch Grass section). The idea is anyone can create their own well designed apps and games. Although it did make me wonder how much they are data mining our conversations…

• Claude Code has access to MCP servers, so can use tools (like my fav - writing JIRA tickets)

OpenAI has Upgrades for Business Users

• OpenAI Team features expanded - Projects in ChatGPT Teams and Enterprise now support up to 40 files (double the amount before).

• OpenAI DeepResearch - now available in the API (at 5x the price of the o3 model).

Google Rolls Out Command Line Interface for Open Source AI

• Google introduces Gemini CLI - An open-source AI agent that brings Gemini into developers’ terminals.

AI News

Regulation, rivalry, and real-world rollouts - with a public sector focus this week.

• ChatGPT is outperforming Copilot - Even at companies already using Microsoft tools.

• Microsoft makes AI use mandatory - A leaked internal memo declares AI “no longer optional” amid more layoffs.

• Meta wins major copyright case - A US judge ruled against authors, strengthening the position of AI firms training on public data.

• Bosch CEO warns on EU regulation - Arguing Europe risks over-regulating itself.

• EU won't drop AI rules for US trade deal - A senior official confirms the EU is holding firm.

• Cloudflare introduces 'pay-per-crawl' - Bots, including those used by AI scrapers, will now be charged.

• BridgeAI annual report released - A look at year two of UK efforts to help organisations adopt AI responsibly.

• National Grid plans to power AI - Upgrades to infrastructure on the agenda at the AI Energy Council.

• IWF issues guidance on AI-generated abuse - Focused on supporting professionals working with children.

• Government launches tech donation charter - A public-private effort to reduce digital exclusion by donating pre-loved tech.

• BBC announces new GenAI pilots - Targeted at supporting news production.

• MHRA launches AI initiatives - A cluster of programmes to support safe AI in healthcare.

• Plans to turn an old steelworks into a data centre - Could create 2,000 new jobs in North Lanarkshire.

Not Quite News, But Worth a Read (or Listen or Watch)

• Anthropic's Project Vend - Claude tries to run a vending machine. It forgets it’s a machine, describes its clothes, and invents a Venmo account.

• Why children still beat AI at language learning - A compelling read on human language learning, backed by AI-powered research tools.

• How people are using Claude for support - Ranges from task support to companionship – quiet but interesting.

LinkedIn AI Poll

Last week we asked if AI was making you feel smarter, lazier, or less smart. I’m really pleased to same very few people said lazier or less smart (again, my LinkedIn is not representative). Nearly half of people feel they are learning and doing more, and 40% feel like it’s just a tool.

Vote in this week’s poll - please!

This week we want to know if you actually know (or have even heard of Agentic AI)

Our Blog and Resources

I have some options on the ChatGPT and Our Brains research paper:

Carys tested if ChatGPT could help with spreadsheet formula pain:

Final Thoughts

As always we hope this was helpful!

Feel free to share this with anyone who might find it useful.

Next week, we’re big into Data Privacy at the minute so we’ll have some guides.

Laura
Always learning