Freeway

Everything is changing. Fast. And AI is just the beginning.

We spent the week listening, learning, and connecting with global leaders, investors, and builders across Europe. London Tech Week didn’t feel like a conference — it felt like a mirror to the future. Below are our raw takeaways, shaped by the voices of people doing the work.

The opening moment set the tone

Jensen Huang (NVIDIA) and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer kicked things off with a vision that was both urgent and inspiring.

Jensen reminded us that AI is an equalizer — a tool that can empower anyone, anywhere.

He called the UK a Goldilocks country for innovation: uniquely positioned with top-tier universities, world-class researchers, and the third-largest VC ecosystem globally — behind only the US and China.

But it’s missing one key piece: infrastructure.

“We have the largest AI ecosystem without its own instruments,” he said.

That’s why NVIDIA is backing a new AI lab in the UK — to help build an ecosystem where science has the tools it needs, and where discovery (like the UK’s own discovery of DNA) can flourish again.

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Read on for more powerful statements from global leaders in tech and our memorable moments from specific strategy sessions.

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AI won’t replace you

According to Darren Hardman, CEO of Microsoft UK: "It’ll make you faster. Smarter. More focused. AI is already touching every industry, and it’s here to stay."

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Play with the tools, but lead with strategy

Tanuja Randery, Managing Director of Amazon Web Services (AWS) EMEA, told us "Don’t just plug AI into broken workflows. Use imagination. Start small but think big. If it’s not being used, let it go. The bottleneck now isn’t engineering. It’s vision and clarity."

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Can the UK and Europe compete with China and the US?

In a panel discussion with representatives from Balderton Capital, Bolt, CoreWeave, Bloomberg, and the British Chamber of Commerce, we heard,

"There’s optimism, but also urgency. Europe is connected. What’s missing is a faster pace of risk-taking, investment, and regulatory flexibility."
"Empathy and human-centered design must lead the charge."
"The UK wants to be a bridge — not a competitor, but a connector."

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Culture is the moat

As startups scale, risk shifts from product to people. Building culture is hard. Keeping it alive is harder. At a certain point, everything depends on who you hire, how they’re managed, and how aligned your team is. Strategy and leadership become the biggest constraints — not code.

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Agents, LLMs, and data

Everyone is talking about agents and fine-tuning. LLMs can do a lot, but clean, well-structured data is the advantage. Your unique dataset might be your biggest asset.

AI is moving toward invisible infrastructure — when it’s working right, you won’t even notice it.

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Humans still run the show

Even with all this tech, human behavior is the X factor. Most decisions are emotional, not logical. Know your customers better than they know themselves. Defaulting to discounts isn’t strategy — persuasion is.

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