Text and data mining is becoming a foundational capability for United Kingdom companies seeking to harness artificial intelligence and data-driven tools, with high stakes for national competitiveness and the success of the government’s Industrial Strategy (Invest 2035). New research commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by Public First links the design of text and data mining rules directly to whether artificial intelligence can deliver the government’s targeted productivity gains of up to 1.5% annually across sectors such as life sciences, financial services and advanced manufacturing. The study combines a nationally representative survey of 1,000 United Kingdom businesses with an economic model that assesses how four different policy scenarios could affect artificial intelligence adoption and its contribution to GDP by 2035.
The findings indicate that around a million United Kingdom businesses already use text and data mining, and that this number is likely to increase over the next two to three years as firms deepen their use of artificial intelligence and cloud technologies. Three-quarters of United Kingdom businesses have used artificial intelligence tools at least once, and almost one in five (19%) use specialised text and data mining tools to analyse large datasets. Usage is particularly advanced in strategic sectors, where 34% of life sciences firms and 33% of financial services firms are already mining and analysing data to maintain competitiveness. Companies using text and data mining rely on both internal sources such as customer records, transaction data and clinical notes, and external sources such as market feeds, research databases, news and public websites. 74% of text and data mining users say external data is essential to their business, and over a third of users (39%) report that legal uncertainty is holding them back from further artificial intelligence innovation.
The economic modelling underscores how much growth is at risk depending on the regulatory approach. Under the most innovation-friendly scenario of a full commercial text and data mining exemption, artificial intelligence adoption could contribute £510 billion to United Kingdom GDP by 2035. Under the most restrictive scenario, where licences are required for all copyrighted content, that figure falls to £290 billion, a loss of £220 billion or 43% of the potential gain that artificial intelligence adoption could bring to United Kingdom businesses. A scenario that mirrors the European Union approach would still leave the United Kingdom £60 billion worse off than the most optimistic outcome, which the report equates to losing the entire United Kingdom defence budget in 2025/26. In life sciences alone, up to £26 billion of potential GDP could be at risk, in financial services up to £23 billion and in manufacturing up to £20bn. With Japan, Singapore and the European Union already allowing commercial text and data mining, the research concludes that the United Kingdom has fallen behind and risks higher costs, legal uncertainty and even relocation of business functions overseas unless it adopts a pro-data availability strategy, including a commercial text and data mining exemption, rapid enabling regulation and pro-growth regulatory tools such as sandboxes.
