The AI Roundup – March 2026 – Part 3
Your regular look at what’s happening in AI
No new Prompt Fiction episode this week, but it’s been a busy one at Techosaurus. I gave a talk at the Somerset AI Summit, ended up on BBC Radio Somerset the morning after, and then the Chancellor announced £2.5 billion for AI and quantum, which sounds brilliant until you look at where the money is actually going. I’ve also got some news about our training programmes and a brand new initiative I’d love your help with. Let’s get into it.
🔥 The Big Stories
The Artisan, the Factory, and the Future: My Talk at the Somerset AI Summit
On 10 March, around 80 businesses gathered at the Firepool Centre for Digital Innovation in Taunton for the Somerset AI Summit, hosted by Somerset Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Clarke Willmott and the University of Exeter. It was a full day of talks from the likes of Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and a handful of local tech companies, including us.
My session focused on something I’ve been thinking about for a long time: the three mindsets businesses fall into when they encounter AI. I call them the Traditionalist, the Shortcutter, and the Amplifier. The Traditionalist does everything by hand, and there’s real honour in that, but it becomes a conscious choice rather than a default as the world speeds up. The Shortcutter sees AI as a way to cut costs and replace people, which sounds like innovation but is actually just the Victorian factory with a digital coat of paint. And then there’s the Amplifier, the business that gives its best people the best tools and watches what happens when exceptional humans get technology that can keep up with them.
The core message is one I’ll keep saying until people stop needing to hear it: AI is not coming for your job. What might be coming for your job is a leader who doesn’t understand AI, doesn’t understand your value, and sees you as a line item on a spreadsheet. That’s not a technology problem. That’s a leadership problem. And it was a leadership problem long before ChatGPT existed.
The morning after the summit, I was invited onto BBC Radio Somerset with Charlie Taylor to talk about the event and about how businesses in the county are using AI. We covered everything from Netflix algorithms to robotic cats (long story) to why you should never trust AI implicitly without checking its work. I’ve written a longer piece that goes deeper into the three mindsets and what they mean for leaders.
If you’ve got 10 minutes, watch the talk:
🎥 The Artisan, the Factory, and the Future (YouTube)
🎙 BBC Radio Somerset interview with Charlie Taylor (YouTube)
Sources: Somerset Chamber of Commerce (Mar 2026), Techosaurus (9 Mar)
£2.5 Billion for AI and Quantum. But Who’s Going to Use It?
On Monday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves stood at the National Quantum Computing Centre in Oxford and announced the UK’s most ambitious tech investment to date: £2.5 billion across AI and quantum computing. A £500 million Sovereign AI Fund launching in April. A record £2 billion for quantum capabilities, including a first-of-its-kind procurement programme worth up to £1 billion. And the ambition to achieve the fastest AI adoption in the G7.
The direction is right. The sovereignty question is real: too much of our AI infrastructure sits on American servers owned by American companies, and if geopolitical relationships shift (and recent months have shown how quickly that can happen), that’s a vulnerability, not just an inconvenience. Backing British AI companies to stay and scale here rather than being acquired overseas? That’s sensible, long-term thinking.
But here’s my frustration. The government’s own research says only 21% of UK workers feel confident using AI at work. Only one in six businesses were using AI in any meaningful way as of mid-2025. And 97% of organisations report at least one AI skills gap. You cannot win the AI adoption race if the people who are supposed to be running it haven’t been taught how to tie their shoes. While the headline investment goes to infrastructure and frontier technology, the funding for the Skills Bootcamp programmes that are actually putting trainers in rooms with real businesses has been cut. Somerset’s allocation saw roughly a 68% reduction. That’s the bit that keeps me up.
I’ve written a longer piece on what the announcement actually means, where the genuine opportunity lies, and where the government still has a rather large blind spot.
Sources: GOV.UK (17 Mar), Computing (17 Mar), Techosaurus (17 Mar)
📰 Other News
87 People on the Waiting List. 20 Places Available.
We’ve had confirmation of two Skills Bootcamp cohorts for September 2026: one in Yeovil and one in Salisbury. That’s good news, and I’m genuinely grateful for it. But here’s the reality check: we currently have 87 people on our waiting lists and only 20 places to offer them. That gap tells you everything you need to know about how important this training is for the region, and it’s exactly why the funding cuts I mentioned above are so frustrating.
It’s also exactly why we’ve launched something new. More on that below.
Introducing Open Learning by Techosaurus
Until now, most of our training has been delivered through government-funded Skills Bootcamps. Those programmes changed lives, but they came with eligibility criteria, geographic restrictions, and limited availability. Open Learning is different. It’s the same proven, practical training, delivered by the same team, but open to anyone who wants to learn. No funding criteria. No waiting lists. No jargon. Just practical skills that make a genuine difference to how you work.
Before we launch, we want to hear from you. What skills matter most? AI? Automation? Microsoft 365? Cyber security? Something else entirely? Your answers will directly shape what we build. It takes a few minutes, it’s completely anonymous unless you choose to share your details, and it genuinely makes a difference. You can chat with our AI bot (which is itself a good example of practical AI in action) or fill in a quick survey form.
If you know anyone who’d benefit from affordable, practical tech and AI training, please share the page. The more people who tell us what they need, the better we can build something that genuinely serves the region.
💬 Scott’s Soapbox
Billions for the Roof, Nothing for the Foundation
I want to dwell on the government announcement for a moment longer, because it connects to something I see every single week in my work.
Last month, I worked with a small manufacturer who was spending three hours a week on manual reporting. Within an hour, we had it automated using tools they already had. That’s not a quantum computing story. That’s not a sovereign AI fund story. That’s a person in a room with a trainer who showed them what was possible and helped them do it.
AI adoption doesn’t happen in Oxford research centres or Whitehall strategy documents. It happens in offices in Yeovil, workshops in Taunton, and training rooms in Somerton. It happens when a sole trader discovers that AI can help them write better proposals. It happens when a team leader realises they can automate a process that was eating their afternoon every Friday. It happens one person, one business, one skill at a time.
A “course completion” is not the same as competence. And it certainly isn’t adoption. People need their hands held. They need to sit with a trainer, try things in their own context, make mistakes, ask questions, and build confidence over time. If the government is serious about the fastest AI adoption in the G7, the money needs to reach the people doing the boots-on-the-ground work. Not just the people building the roof.
💡 Try This
This week’s challenge: Help us build what you actually need. Head to our Open Learning page and either chat with our AI bot or fill in the quick survey. Tell us what you’d want to learn, whether that’s AI, automation, Microsoft 365, cyber security, or something we haven’t thought of yet. It takes a few minutes, it’s anonymous unless you choose otherwise, and your answers will directly shape the courses we build. If it’s not for you, forward it to someone it might be for. The more people who tell us what they need, the better this gets for everyone.
📅 Come and See Us
Digital Hub, Yeovil – 31 March
If you’re local to Yeovil or nearby in Somerset, the next Digital Hub is on 31 March at Lane’s Hotel, West Coker. Doors open at 5:30pm, the main session kicks off at 6pm, and we wrap up around 8:30pm.
This month’s guest speaker is Pip Hellier, an IP expert and patent attorney, talking about intellectual property: what it is, how to protect it, and why it matters more than most businesses realise. Adam Pilton will deliver his usual cyber security briefing, and I’ll be doing live AI demos and covering the latest tech updates. No jargon, no hype, just plain English and things you can actually take away and use. Students and AI Bootcamp graduates get in free.
An Evening of Digital Marketing, Yeovil – 28 April
Digital Somerset are hosting their third Evening of Digital Marketing on 28 April at Yeovil College. Doors at 5:30pm, wrapping up at 8pm. It’s a relaxed evening of networking and practical digital marketing insights. Speakers are being announced soon, but if you’re a marketer, business owner, or just curious about what’s shaping modern marketing right now, it’s worth putting in the diary. Free to attend.
👉 Book Digital Marketing Evening
Scott Quilter Co-Founder & Chief AI & Innovation Officer Techosaurus LTD
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