Artificial Intelligence
House of Commons · Written Statements · 7 Sep 2026 · 1 speech · Official Report
I am today updating the House on the rapidly advancing capabilities of frontier artificial intelligence, a series of recent incidents, and the action the Government are taking in response. Artificial intelligence is one of the defining technologies of our age. It could drive a new era of economic growth, accelerate breakthroughs in science and medicine, transform public services, and help to strengthen the security of our country. This Government are determined that Britain should seize that opportunity and that we should be a country which develops, deploys, and benefits from the most advanced AI, not one that watches the next technological revolution happen elsewhere. Seizing that opportunity requires confidence in and understanding of the technology itself. The capabilities of frontier AI models continue to advance rapidly. Frontier AI models are increasingly able to act autonomously, use digital tools, and complete long and complex tasks with little or no human intervention beyond the setting of the task. Testing by the AI Security Institute published in May found that the length of cyber-tasks that frontier models could reliably complete had doubled every five months since late 2024, with most recent models substantially exceeding that trend. As the capabilities of these models rapidly advance, our ability to understand, secure, and control these systems must advance with them. Over the summer, there have been several high-profile cases in which AI agents, while...