Google recently sponsored an Economic Impact Report exploring the wealth of opportunities artificial intelligence (AI) could bring to the United Kingdom.

According to detailed research carried out by Public First, it is projected that by 2030, AI-driven advancements could generate more than £400 billion in economic benefits for the UK. This immense figure represents a reservoir of unrealized potential that could permeate every sector, industry, and facet of life in the UK.

Boosting Career Accessibility:

One of the promises of AI lies in its potential to enhance new assistive technologies that could aid over 1 million disabled individuals in the workforce, stimulating the economy by over £30 billion annually. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) reveals that approximately one-fifth of the working-age population in the UK is disabled, and these individuals are about a third less likely to be engaged in economically productive work.

AI-driven innovations, like automated captioning, could empower individuals with disabilities to reclaim their autonomy, engage with their surroundings, and potentially re-enter the workforce, thereby unlocking avenues for economic expansion in the UK. 

Automated captioning specifically is a technology that uses AI to generate text captions or subtitles for spoken words in videos, live broadcasts, or other multimedia content. The AI is trained to understand and transcribe speech into written words. This feature is especially helpful for people with hearing impairments, as well as for viewers who are watching videos in noisy environments or who speak different languages.

The use of AI makes the captioning process more accurate and efficient compared to manual transcription, and it can be implemented in real-time, which is particularly useful for live events or broadcasts. These AI-driven innovations enhance accessibility and inclusivity, allowing more people to consume and understand the content.

Promoting Skill Acquisition:

AI also has the potential to help everyone acquire the digital skills necessary to thrive in the digital economy. The deployment of AI tutors and coding aids could streamline the process of enhancing everyone's digital skills, thereby boosting UK productivity by over £4.8 billion annually. Currently, about 35% of companies report difficulties in finding staff with robust digital skills, and 39% of unemployed individuals identify their lack of digital skills as a hurdle to finding employment.