UK Officials Relied on Google-Funded Research for £400 Billion AI Claim

For nearly two years, UK government officials told the public that artificial intelligence would add £400 billion to the national economy. Ministers used this large figure to ease public worries about widespread job losses and economic crashes.

AI Minister Kanishka Narayan admitted in Parliament that the government's actual projection is much lower. That original £400 billion estimate came entirely from a 2023 report paid for by Google and written by a British consultancy firm then known as Public First, which is now called PF Global.

The government's own central estimate is now £120 billion, with a projected range between £55 billion and £140 billion by 2030. Narayan described even this newer estimate as a hugely uncertain calculation.

Jonathan Dupont, the head of economics at PF Global, said the large gap between the numbers is partly due to slower AI adoption by the government than expected. Dupont noted that technology moves fast and requires updated assumptions, adding that their older 2023 model assumed a much faster adoption rate than what actually took place.

Government departments used the Google-backed figure for nearly two years across two different administrations. Ministers received the lower estimate by November 2025 at the latest, yet a government agency responsible for apprenticeships was still publishing the old £400 billion figure four months later. Narayan's parliamentary answer marks the first recorded instance of the government presenting both numbers side by side or acknowledging the Google connection, though the response did not formally withdraw the higher figure.

Dame Chi Onwurah, a member of Parliament who chairs the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, warned that overstating technology benefits creates hype and risks undermining the case for digital changes in public services. Conservative Lord Holmes of Richmond noted that it would have been better for the government to clarify the numbers much sooner, stressing that robust data is critical when deciding how to spend billions of pounds of public money.

Sumedha Deshmukh of the Ada Lovelace Institute called it concerning that ministers relied for two years on research paid for by an industry player. Deshmukh urged the government to test numbers before building policies on them and to fund independent research.

PF Global stated that its work for Google continues, but maintained that all of its research is independent and that its judgments and assumptions are entirely its own.

Summary

The revelation that a widely cited government economic forecast came directly from tech industry-funded research highlights the risks of relying on unverified projections. Experts suggest governments must closely examine the assumptions behind economic claims before shaping public policy around them.