This was the exam question put to our panel of digital experts in the final Hertfordshire Futures online policy debates looking at key issues affecting the growth of the economy.  

In this last debate chaired by podcast presenter Matt Deegan, our panel of national and regional leaders covered a range of topics relating to the risks and opportunities of AI adoption, innovation and addressing digital exclusion.  

Ed Thomas, Research Director, Global Data Plc set out the wider context saying that 2025 was the year that AI had to deliver on its promises. He said: “There have been a number of waves of AI hype if you take this technology back to the 1950s when scientists started to ask the question whether machines could think. Since then there have been peaks and troughs in interest in AI.   

“Around 2010 there was a resurgence of interest, largely around voice AI, so there was a lot of chat about chatbots and virtual assistants. Shortly after then was the arrival of Alexa and Google Assistant. In each of those waves you had the promise of what AI could deliver and the reality of what it does – and often there has been quite a big gap between the two.” 

The audience then heard live examples of how AI has been successfully incorporated into business operations both within a retail giant and a very successful and growing air quality and energy monitoring company.  

Stewart Vincent led on creating an AI store for Aldi which he said removed the barriers around check-outs, particularly for parents navigating queues at the tills with children in tow. It also opened up a wider opportunity for employers to encourage staff to use and implement this new technology, upskilling employees to both support the store and the customers. As well as investment in people and training, the other big business benefit was data. This provided a lot more information on customers and how they shopped.  

Julia McNally, Director, Wellstat Limited, is a wireless entrepreneur, founder of Hertfordshire business Iknaia and creator of Airscan air quality monitoring. Iknaia was acquired by Wellstat , a US-based leader in energy management and air quality solutions, on 1 January 2025.  

Julia explained that incorporating AI had been an amazing achievement for them as it meant that they could bring a lot more insight back to customers and local authorities. AI can help them to predict pollution events, by bringing in multiple data sets and analysing pollution alongside traffic events, this can help traffic planners and environmental managers to plan for better roads layouts, and new housing developments.  

She said that as the business had scaled and is now on a global platform they have been able to automate certain functions that had previously been carried out manually, enabling them to divert that resource to other areas such as analysis.  

Preparing the future workforce for change is a key element, but will automation presage the end of work as we know it?  No, said Ed Thomas, not in the immediate future. AI tools, as their name often suggests, should be used as an assistant only: “It’s not machine versus human. It’s human plus machine.”  

So how is education responding? Jyoti Choudrie, Professor of Information Systems, University of Hertfordshire, said they had modules focusing on big data analysis and the university is also learning how this can be applied. With traineeships and apprenticeships now offered as part of post-graduate and doctorate programmes that knowledge can then be brought back to academia as well as vice versa. Jyoti also talked about the importance of inter-generational learning with young people showing the older generation how to use modern technology.  

Bringing this back to Hertfordshire, Neil Hayes, CEO, Hertfordshire Futures, says there was a potential opportunity for the county to benefit from becoming a designated AI Growth Zone to accelerate AI data centre development through streamlined planning processes and clean power provisioning. The trade off with these data centres could be in terms of energy usage to enable them to become more sustainable. This could also include water cooling, as water scarcity, Ed added, is a real issue that is often overlooked. However, Ed warned, as we have seen in the States recently, there has been a significant pushback against net zero which could result in companies shifting their focus away from reducing energy use to a greater emphasis on innovation.  

Michael Warr, Acting Director and Programme Manager at Essex + Herts Digital Innovation Zone (DIZ) said there was also a real opportunity for these data centres to seed new business clusters, particularly businesses that need connectivity. He also added that AI Growth Zone status could add to the totality of the place.  

So what can businesses, residents and places do now to get AI ready?

All agreed that AI is here, so rather than shying away you need to embrace it head on, collaborate and build skills for future success. For Julia in her business it is a ‘continuous process’ not just building a model for now. For Ed, he urged businesses and organisations to adopt sensible AI strategies and said that companies that invest early will secure advantage over their competitors. Michael agreed that increasing digitisation needs to be done responsibly and sustainably and also in such a way to make places more inclusive to ensure no one is left behind.  

In summing up, Michael provided the perfect conclusion to this series which chose as its starting point to delve deeper into how Hertfordshire can grow a more resilient, sustainable and inclusive economy.  

To find out how we are developing a new Economic Strategy for Hertfordshire and to watch the series again:

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