AI Early Wins
Law
Independent TEI studies (Forrester, 2025) report strong ROI from legal research copilots, largely by reducing external spend and shortening turnarounds for clients. At the same time, A&O Shearman has moved beyond pilots towards agentic tools that automate complex, multi-jurisdiction tasks and intends to commercialise them, signalling a shift from internal efficiency to new client-facing products.
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Finance & banking
Payment networks report very large volumes of fraud prevented with AI—blocking attempts before they hit consumers. Industry disclosures cite tens of billions of dollars’ worth of fraudulent transactions stopped across 2023–2024.
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Accountancy & tax
Professional bodies and the UK regulator highlight client-facing benefits in audit and assurance (earlier risk identification, better evidence gathering) as AI tools bed in across the profession, with governance and assurance frameworks clarifying how tools should be used to support audit quality.
Management consulting
Firm-wide knowledge assistants are now embedded. McKinsey’s “Lilli” has high adoption and is credited with markedly faster access to firm IP, which brings client-side benefits such as quicker project kick-offs and faster synthesis of relevant prior work.
IT & software development
Controlled experiments show developers complete practical coding tasks much faster with AI pair-programming. That moves deployment dates forward and shortens time-to-value for customers.
Education
Randomised classroom studies in 2025 found students learned significantly more in less time with a research-based AI tutor than with business-as-usual active learning, pointing to direct gains for learners rather than mere teacher time-savings.
Fraud & public protection
UK regulators and industry have tightened the pipes used by scammers. Ofcom’s 2024 guidance (in force from Jan 2025) requires providers to block more spoofed international calls showing UK numbers; in Nov 2025 a new Telecommunications Fraud Charter committed major networks to further measures to curb number spoofing and improve fraud intelligence-sharing. Consumers benefit directly through fewer scam calls getting through.
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Retail
UK supermarkets have begun chain-wide roll-outs of AI shelf-monitoring and electronic shelf labels. Reported benefits include improved on-shelf availability for shoppers and less time on manual price changes, freeing colleagues for customer service.
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Logistics
Route-optimisation at scale reduces miles and emissions. UPS reports its optimisation platform now saves roughly 10–14 miles per driver per day, cutting fuel burn and delivery emissions while keeping service levels up.
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Manufacturing
Automotive plants now use AI-based visual inspection in series production (e.g., paint-shop and assembly), catching defects earlier and improving first-time quality—benefits that reach customers as better, more consistent vehicles and less waste on the line.
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Healthcare (screening)
Large, well-run trials in breast screening show AI can reduce workload while keeping detection performance on par with radiologists. The Swedish MASAI trial reported about a 44% reduction in radiologists’ screen-reading workload with non-inferior cancer detection, and the UK is scaling a major NHS trial on the back of that evidence. The public benefit is faster throughput without compromising safety.
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Road safety (autonomous taxis)
Published analyses of Waymo’s rider-only fleets show substantially lower injury crash rates than human benchmarks on comparable roads. That’s an on-road operational result where services run, translating to fewer people hurt.
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Wildlife & conservation
In Orkney, conservation teams are deploying AI-assisted thermal cameras to detect invasive stoats and alert field teams in real time, speeding response and supporting recovery of native species.