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Alan Brown
Alan Brown

Alan is a digital technologist, researcher, and entrepreneur. He holds a Professorship in Digital Economy at the University of Exeter, UK and held a Fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK National institute for data science and AI.

Digital Economy Dispatch #303 -- What Am I Worth?

Oct 11, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #303 -- What Am I Worth?

What am I worth? AI makes that question unavoidable. Professional services have priced hours, not value; now clients want AI’s savings passed on, and advisers must explain what they sell.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #302 -- What the AI Evidence Can and Cannot Tell You

Oct 4, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #302 -- What the AI Evidence Can and Cannot Tell You

Academic evidence on AI adoption is rigorous but narrow. Practice evidence is broad but harder to test. The most useful lessons lie where they meet.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #301 -- Is Your AI Deployment Running on Faith?

Sep 27, 2026

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7 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #301 -- Is Your AI Deployment Running on Faith?

We have moved from seeing pilot trials of Microsoft Copilot to organisation-wide deployment in under two years. The evidence underneath that journey has not travelled nearly as far.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #300 -- Who Decides the Future of AI?

Sep 20, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #300 -- Who Decides the Future of AI?

A few thoughts on Cory Doctorow, Carissa Véliz and Joseph Stiglitz exploring why the AI future is being decided rather than arriving, and what that means for your next business case.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #299 -- The Return of the Software Factory

Sep 13, 2026

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6 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #299 -- The Return of the Software Factory

The recent appearance of unsupervised AI "dark software factories" misreads both dark kitchens and the 1990s software factory movement. Agile delivery is the better starting point for putting AI to work.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #298 -- The Most Important AI Company in the World

Sep 6, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #298 -- The Most Important AI Company in the World

It’s not in California, it doesn’t build models, and it doesn’t make chips.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #297 -- What is AI For?

Aug 30, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #297 -- What is AI For?

Senior leaders are finally asking the harder question about the value of AI. The answer may be less about seeing further, and more about seeing themselves in a new light.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #296 -- Three Paradoxes of AI Adoption

Aug 2, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #296 -- Three Paradoxes of AI Adoption

Three paradoxes are derailing AI adoption. AI helps most where you are already expert. Supervising it demands more skill, not less. And the productivity gains arrive last, not first.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #295 --  Rethought, Not Restructured: Britain's AI Strategy After DSIT

Jul 26, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #295 -- Rethought, Not Restructured: Britain's AI Strategy After DSIT

Andy Burnham scrapped DSIT on day one. That's two restructurings of Britain's AI machinery in three years, with no rethink of what the strategy is for. The real signal comes in the Budget, not the org chart.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #294 -- Why Shouting "Must Act Now" is Not an AI Strategy

Jul 19, 2026

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3 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #294 -- Why Shouting "Must Act Now" is Not an AI Strategy

Over 200 economists say we must act on AI but cannot agree how. IBM's crash shows the transformation is already here. My work on “Making AI Work for Britain” sets out four moves that can help make sense of this in your AI strategy.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatches #293 -- Where is the Intelligence in Your AI Strategy?

Jul 12, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatches #293 -- Where is the Intelligence in Your AI Strategy?

Enterprise AI stalls when leaders assume intelligence sits in the product, service, or infrastructure. Instead,think about it as the interaction between user, organisation, and system. With that focus, you'll see more measurable success from AI adoption.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #292 -- The Defence Investment Plan's Sovereign Challenge

Jul 5, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #292 -- The Defence Investment Plan's Sovereign Challenge

The UK has published a £298bn defence plan that is underpinned by AI. But the £7.3bn digital architecture that decides whether the UK controls key AI components is largely undefined.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #291 -- Why the Regulator's Limited Grasp of AI is Your Problem Too

Jun 28, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #291 -- Why the Regulator's Limited Grasp of AI is Your Problem Too

The regulator’s limited grasp of AI shapes how fast, and how well, you can adopt it. Whether you like it or not.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #290 -- Does the UK Need an AI Bill?

Jun 21, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #290 -- Does the UK Need an AI Bill?

Britain has no AI law and arguing over whether to pass one misses the point. What protects people and drives growth is the same: capability and the freedom to switch suppliers.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #289 -- AI Tokenmaxxing: When the Meter Becomes the Metric

Jun 14, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #289 -- AI Tokenmaxxing: When the Meter Becomes the Metric

Tokenmaxxing, the search for AI's returns, and a lesson I first learned counting lines of code.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #288 -- How to Rewire the State

Jun 7, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #288 -- How to Rewire the State

UK Parliament's "Rewiring the State" report quotes my work and confirms my book's diagnosis: end vendor lock-in, build sovereignty. The right diagnosis, but still too little on how to deliver it.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #287 -- How Much AI Does the UK Government Actually Use?

May 31, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #287 -- How Much AI Does the UK Government Actually Use?

The UK government declares it uses just 131 AI systems. That is clearly too low. The mandated register reveals only the safest tools, leaving real deployment unknown and unknowable.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #286 -- Seven Hard Lessons from One of AI's Toughest Operating Environments

May 24, 2026

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6 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #286 -- Seven Hard Lessons from One of AI's Toughest Operating Environments

Bad data, brutal experimentation ratios, turf wars, and a programme that refused to die. Seven important leadership lessons from Project Maven.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #285 -- Find. Fix. Finish

May 17, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #285 -- Find. Fix. Finish

The Pentagon's AI playbook has three steps. Katrina Manson's new Project Maven book explains why most organisations — and Britain in particular — can’t get past the first.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #284 -- From Digitizing Government to Making AI Work for Britain

May 10, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #284 -- From Digitizing Government to Making AI Work for Britain

The GDS era showed Britain how to make progress in digital transformation, then ran into significant roadblocks. A decade later, AI is repeating the same structural mistakes. The key lesson for UK’s AI delivery is to ensure we focus: consolidate demand and diversify supply.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #283 -- Why AI Adoption is Not AI Delivery

May 3, 2026

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4 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #283 -- Why AI Adoption is Not AI Delivery

AWS published its annual Unlocking the UK’s AI Potential report last week. Read alongside Making AI Work for Britain, which I launched the same week, the two documents broadly agree on the diagnosis. Where they part company is more interesting.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #282 -- It's Time to Make AI Work for Britain

Apr 26, 2026

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3 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #282 -- It's Time to Make AI Work for Britain

Four forces converged in 2026 to make the case for institutional AI reform undeniable. My new book, Making AI Work for Britain, lands on Tuesday, offering five practical steps to close the gap.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #281 -- Can Britain Turn the Power of AI into National Advantage?

Apr 19, 2026

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5 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #281 -- Can Britain Turn the Power of AI into National Advantage?

Anthropic has built an AI model it considers too dangerous for public release. That’s not a reason for alarm. But it is yet another reason for the UK to move focus, urgently, from AI strategy to AI delivery.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #280 -- Why the "Fastest AI Adoption in the G7" is the Wrong Goal

Apr 12, 2026

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7 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #280 -- Why the "Fastest AI Adoption in the G7" is the Wrong Goal

Britain has real AI ambition. What it still lacks is a theory of how that ambition becomes embedded practice, and the Chancellor's Mais lecture didn't provide one.

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
Digital Economy Dispatch #279 -- The Rise of AI Factories: Will They Succeed Where Software Factories Failed?

Apr 5, 2026

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9 min read

Digital Economy Dispatch #279 -- The Rise of AI Factories: Will They Succeed Where Software Factories Failed?

AI factories, purpose-built infrastructure for training and running AI, are becoming a real, fast-growing category with a big role to play in AI sovereignty. The UK must act strategically or risk increasing its infrastructure dependencies..

Alan Brown
Alan Brown
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Digital Economy Dispatches

Digital Economy Dispatches

News and views on the digital economy by Alan Brown.


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