AI talk of the town at Scotland's first Innovation Week, by Nick Freer
/The inaugural Scotland’s Innovation Week wrapped up yesterday, following five days of related events across the country - aimed at bringing together innovators, entrepreneurs, and leading experts to discuss Scotland’s role in transformative technologies and the industries of the future.
Unsurprisingly, AI was never far from anyone’s lips throughout the week, including at Hampden Bank in Edinburgh on Monday, where a panel including execs from Nile and Valla considered AI’s impact on relationship businesses of which private bank Hampden is one.
Like every industry, AI is transforming banking and financial services, but for Hampden Bank it’s a balancing act. Recent Accenture research found that 72 per cent of customers choose their banks according to how personalised they think those banks are, and while generative AI is undoubtedly helping to drive innovation, by their very nature relationship businesses still need that human factor.
Back to the bigger picture. In Scotland, we always hark back to our pioneering history in technology and innovation, whereas the real question we need to ask ourselves today is whether or not we can continue to innovate in a meaningful way on the global stage.
Scotland’s university sector has a strong tradition in machine learning, where computers learn patterns from data and of which Generative AI is a sub-set, and our report card is relatively strong when it comes to academic R&D output. But in industry itself, where R&D becomes commercialised, how are we doing as an AI nation in 2025?
This week, Europe’s leading tech startup news site Sifted, owned by the Financial Times, ran a feature - “The rise of the AI healthcare ecosystem” - in which Sifted wrote: “Driven by world-class research, academic strength and NHS collaborations, Scotland is positioning itself as a rising hub for AI healthtech and attracting growing interest from investors.”
This would certainly seem like encouraging news, and perhaps no surprise that Scotland is translating a proud centuries-long history in medical innovation into cutting-edge healthtech startups.
The Scots legal profession is another sector steeped in history, and perhaps our most promising AI-enabled startup is to be found here. Former canny lawyer turned coder Ross McNairn founded legaltech startup Wordsmith here in Edinburgh, backed by highly-rated global venture capital firm Index Ventures.
Back to the macro. Where is AI taking us over the next few years and how is it going to impact the global economy? Speaking to a few ‘high heidiyns’ from the Scottish tech scene at ScotlandIS’s Innovation Summit at the EICC on Thursday, the main takeaway seems to be that success will not lie in completely automating human tasks, but in integrating AI systems to enable continuous operations while maintaining human oversight where it matters most.
This hybrid approach will likely define the next phase of the economic evolution, creating a more responsive and efficient economy that never sleeps.
So, Scotland’s challenge, and opportunity, will be to harness AI, not as a replacement for human ingenuity, but as a co-pilot in shaping a smarter, faster, and truly global future.