Roadmap to trusted third-party AI assurance

Statement

I am repeating the following Written Ministerial Statement made today in the other place by my Honourable Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government, Feryal Clark MP.

I wish to inform the House of the publication of the DSIT Roadmap to Trusted Third-Party AI Assurance. The Roadmap builds on the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which included commitments to support the UK’s AI assurance ecosystem. By creating a world-leading AI assurance market, we can increase trust and confidence in AI, drive economic growth and make the UK the most attractive home for businesses seeking to adopt AI.

AI capabilities are advancing at an extraordinary pace and will play an increasingly important role in driving forward the government’s ambition to boost economic growth, provide jobs for the future and improve people’s everyday lives. Ensuring businesses have the confidence to develop and deploy these technologies responsibly will be critical to seize the opportunities AI presents.

This Roadmap is intended as the next step to set us on this path and ensure the widespread adoption of secure and trusted AI across the UK. It sets out our ambitions for the third-party assurance market and the immediate actions that government will take to support this emerging sector. The Roadmap commits to:

• Convening a multistakeholder UK consortium to work towards a future AI assurance profession to ensure market quality;
• Developing a skills and competencies framework for AI assurance to support these efforts and create clear learning pathways for future professional development;
• Establishing an AI Assurance Innovation Fund, focused on the eight industrial strategy sectors, to develop novel assurance solutions to future-proof the market.

Establishing a world leading AI assurance market will build confidence in and drive adoption of AI, ensuring the UK can fully capitalise on the opportunities AI presents. If present barriers to widespread adoption are overcome, the UK’s assurance market could be worth as much as £18.8 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) by 2035. The initiatives in the Roadmap, such as the AI Assurance Innovation Fund, will ensure the UK’s assurance market is ready to respond to rapid developments in AI capabilities, while efforts such as the Consortium will establish the building blocks for a future AI assurance profession.