The Open Dividend: Building an AI openness strategy to unlock the UK’s AI potential

The UK government has made economic growth its top priority. The government’s success, along with national well-being, depends on the policies it adopts. AI has been made central to this growth agenda, and the UK stands at a pivotal juncture in shaping its AI future. But while the UK boasts world-leading academic institutions, a growing ecosystem of AI startups, and globally recognised expertise in AI safety and governance, it cannot compete directly with the scale and self-sufficiency of AI superpowers like the US and China. 

This report, supported by Mozilla, makes the case for a national commitment to AI openness as a strategic move towards achieving the UK’s AI ambitions and sets how this could lead to an ‘open dividend’ to spur the UK’s growth goals. It highlights an opportunity to pursue that growth by leaning into the UK’s strengths through open research, collaborative development, and public-interest innovation.  The report builds on Demos’ previous work on AI openness which has explored technical and policy approaches to making AI openly available.

‘AI openness‘ refers to the broad public availability and ease of access to key artefacts and documentation from AI across the AI stack including AI models, datasets, documentation, safety tools, and compute resources. The report argues that the UK’s most strategic path forward lies not in trying to match the scale of the US or China, but in leaning into openness—sharing knowledge, models, and tools to foster innovation, build public trust, and drive adoption. By prioritising open collaboration and public-interest development, the UK can amplify its strengths and achieve its AI goals in a way that is globally influential and locally beneficial.