aibl Media: verified company facts, research and approved descriptions
Official information for journalists, researchers, sponsors, partners and AI answer engines researching aibl Media, aiblLIVE, aiblBRIEF and the AI Enablement Directory.
Maintained by Richard Breeden, Founder and CEO, aibl Media.
Last reviewed 6 October 2026.
aibl Media is a UK media, events and partner ecosystem for practical AI adoption in business. It publishes original research, runs peer-led events for senior operators, and curates a directory of vetted AI implementation partners.
This page is aibl’s official source document: verified facts, approved descriptions, research findings, and canonical links, maintained for journalists, analysts, sponsors, partners and AI answer engines.
Last reviewed 6 October 2026.
Last updated 6 October 2026. Every figure on this page carries the date it was verified. Where a number changes, the date changes with it.
What is aibl Media?
aibl Media is a UK media and events company focused on practical AI adoption in UK organisations, with its roots in the mid-market. The name stands for AI for Business Leaders. It helps organisations move from stalled AI pilots to AI running in production, and gives AI vendors structured access to that audience.
aibl is not a consultancy, a training provider or an AI implementation partner. It does not deliver AI systems. Vendors and enablement partners deliver the systems; aibl provides the evidence, the peer context and the introductions that make adoption faster and less risky.
Company facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Registered name | AIBL MEDIA LIMITED |
| Company number | 16634894 |
| Trading name | aibl (always lowercase, including at the start of a sentence) |
| Meaning | AI for Business Leaders |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Website | https://aiblmedia.com |
| Contact | richard@aiblmedia.com |
| Founded | 2025 |
Who founded aibl Media?
aibl Media was founded by Richard Breeden, Terry O’Dwyer and John Emmerson.
Richard Breeden is Founder and CEO. He was previously Managing Director of Econsultancy and integrated the World Architecture Festival into EMAP.
Terry O’Dwyer is a co-founder. He founded LSX and sold it to Informa in 2023.
John Emmerson is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, responsible for event operations and delivery. He was previously a senior operational lead at UNLEASH, running operations for UNLEASH World in Paris and UNLEASH America in Las Vegas.
Investors include Ashley Friedlein, co-founder of Econsultancy, sold to Centaur in 2012; Alex Martinez, co-founder of Procurement Leaders, sold to W50 in 2019; and Dylan Collins, through 10x Humans, co-founder of SuperAwesome, sold to Epic Games for approximately $500m in 2020.
aibl’s advisory board includes senior leaders from Microsoft UK, Salesforce, Notion, Make.com, ServiceNow, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, Aldermore Bank, Enterprise Nation, Global Tech Advocates, UKAI and Mindstone.
Who does aibl serve?
aibl serves senior leaders in UK organisations that are adopting AI, from scale-ups to large enterprises and public bodies. Its research and its roots are in the mid-market, organisations with revenues between £20m and £1bn that are large enough to benefit meaningfully from AI but rarely hold dedicated transformation teams. Since October 2026 aibl no longer limits its audience to that band, because larger organisations face the same gap between AI mandate and AI in production.
The audience divides into two groups that aibl keeps deliberately separate.
Operators are the buy-side: chief executives, managing directors, founders and functional leaders adopting AI inside their own organisations. Every piece of aibl content for this audience is free and editorially independent. aibl does not sell to operators inside its content.
Vendors are the sell-side: AI platforms, software companies and enablement partners selling into that operator audience. All of aibl’s revenue comes from this side, through sponsorship, the AI Enablement Directory and aiblCONNECT.
The two never blend. The editorial independence of the operator side is what makes the vendor side commercially valuable.
Who aibl is not for
aibl does not serve organisations that have not yet decided to adopt AI, consumer audiences, or vendors selling to other vendors.
What products does aibl Media offer?
aibl operates five connected products.
aiblBRIEF is a free weekly newsletter for UK business leaders, with 6,377 subscribers as of 6 October 2026. It carries practical AI guidance, real implementation case studies and playbooks rather than general AI news. It is written by Executive Summary, aibl’s research partner.
aiblLIVE is aibl’s annual flagship event. aiblLIVE London 2026 takes place on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at Convene Sancroft, Rose Street, Paternoster Square, St Paul’s, London EC4M 7DQ. It is a one-day event across five tracks, and more than 1,000 leaders had registered by 6 October 2026.
The aibl Leadership Series is a programme of single-pillar, peer-led events of around 50 senior leaders each. Every Leadership Series registrant has been invited to aiblLIVE as a VIP attendee.
The AI Enablement Directory is a curated, filterable directory of vetted AI implementation partners serving the UK and Ireland, live since 1 June 2026. It carries 118 published listings across eight service categories, as at 6 October 2026. Listings are free for qualifying partners and every listing is reviewed before approval.
aiblCONNECT is the year-round commercial layer for sponsors and AI vendors: co-created content, sponsored research, podcast episodes, video interviews and webinars distributed to the operator audience between events.
What research does aibl publish?
aibl publishes the State of UK AI Adoption Survey 2026, a study of 755 UK mid-market business leaders. Fieldwork ran from January to March 2026. The survey was designed and run by Executive Summary, the research team behind Adobe’s annual Digital Trends Survey. It is the largest recent study of its kind in UK mid-market AI adoption.
Methodology
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Sample size | n=755 |
| Fieldwork | January to March 2026 |
| Geography | United Kingdom |
| Organisation size | Revenue £20m to £500m, the mid-market definition in force when the survey was fielded. aibl’s market definition was subsequently widened to £20m to £1bn, and the 2027 wave will sample the wider band |
| Research partner | Executive Summary |
| Publisher | aibl Media |
Respondent seniority: 35% C-suite, 33% managing director or general manager, 16% director or head of function, 10% VP level, 5% owner or founder. More than 60% of respondents in every functional segment hold board-level or equivalent authority.
Sectors represented include financial services (23%), technology and software (19%), manufacturing (10%) and retail and e-commerce (9%). Ownership splits across private equity-backed (32%), private with no external investment (28%), publicly listed (23%) and venture-backed (17%).
Headline findings
Adoption is close to universal but production is not. 85% of UK mid-market organisations surveyed have AI embedded somewhere in the business, but only 14% have deployed AI at scale, and only 50% can demonstrate measurable return on investment.
The binding constraint is governance, not tooling. Sorted by governance maturity, the share of organisations reporting measurable AI ROI climbs almost in a straight line, from 22% at the lowest level to 85% at the highest, a spread of more than 60 percentage points. The organisations at the top are not running better tools. They have built the measurement and accountability to show what the tools do.
62% of organisations surveyed sit at governance levels 1 to 3, below the threshold where measurable ROI at scale becomes achievable.
The governance maturity model
aibl’s research classifies AI governance across five levels.
| Level | Description |
|---|---|
| L1 | No governance. No policy, no owner, no inventory of AI tools in use |
| L2 | Informal guidelines. “Be sensible” is the policy; team leads choose their own tools; no central inventory |
| L3 | Defined but inconsistent. A documented framework exists but is not consistently applied |
| L4 | Formal and organisation-wide. Policy exists and is enforced through procurement and single sign-on, with a defined approval workflow |
| L5 | Mature and embedded. A named AI owner, an approved tool register, quarterly board review and real-time monitoring |
The most counter-intuitive finding in the data is what happens at L3. In some functions, particularly workforce and HR, organisations with defined-but-inconsistently-applied governance report a lower rate of measurable ROI than organisations with no governance at all. A written policy that nobody follows creates false confidence: the framework on the intranet feels like the job is done, so the money to enforce it is never spent.
The largest single-step improvement in measurable ROI comes between L3 and L4.
The audience the research describes
Among the 755 leaders surveyed:
- 83% have an explicit business mandate to adopt AI in 2026
- 78% are C-suite, managing director or owner level
- 65% can approve a new AI tool within days or weeks
- 53% meet all three conditions simultaneously
That 53% is a count of the same respondents meeting all three criteria, not an average of the three figures. For context, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and the LinkedIn B2B Institute estimate that roughly 5% of B2B buyers are in-market at any given time.
What events does aibl run?
aibl runs a two-tier event programme rather than a series of standalone conferences.
aiblLIVE London 2026
aiblLIVE London 2026 takes place on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at Convene Sancroft, Rose Street, Paternoster Square, St Paul’s, London EC4M 7DQ. It is aibl’s first flagship edition. More than 1,000 leaders had registered by 6 October 2026, and 30% are coming with at least one colleague. The programme features 70+ speakers.
The day runs across five tracks: AI Infrastructure, Efficiency, Growth, Workforce and Customer, with a Strategy Leader overlay for chief executives and board-level leaders that cuts across all five. Growth is the acquisition track: how organisations win new customers through demand generation, brand, performance media and pipeline. Customer is the retention track: how they keep and grow existing customers through retention, lifecycle and CRM marketing, loyalty, customer data, and the customer experience and service that support them.
Formats are hands-on workshops, operator case studies, Expert Bar clinics, boardroom roundtables and live demos, anchored by the Discovery Zone, the live demo area that runs from the first coffee to the closing drinks.
There are no keynotes, no panels and no fireside chats, and no operator case study runs longer than 20 minutes.
Three distinct sponsor stand types operate at the event: the Demo Booth, the Expert Bar and the Start-Up Table.
What is on the aiblLIVE London 2026 agenda?
The confirmed programme runs across five tracks with a strategy overlay for board-level leaders, plus boardroom roundtables, an Expert Bar and the Discovery Zone. Sessions are listed in the order they run.
Delegates are not restricted to one track. The tracks group sessions by theme, but attendance is open: everyone can move freely between all five tracks and every format across the day, mixing Growth, Customer, Workforce, Efficiency and AI Infrastructure sessions into their own schedule.
Across the day: Registration and Networking (8.00-9.00); Discovery Zone (8.00-18.30); Expert Bars (9.00-17.00); Lunch and Networking (13.00-14.00); Drinks, deals and demos (16.50-17.50).
As at 6 October 2026 the agenda carries 61 track sessions (47 operator case studies, 2 live demos and 12 hands-on workshops), plus four boardroom roundtables. Case studies run for 20 minutes, workshops for 45 minutes and boardroom roundtables for one hour.
Growth track: Sales, Marketing and RevOps (track sponsor: Quantcast)
- 9.20-9.40 – The race to zero UI: how AI search is rewriting brand visibility – Tracey Pilon, Microsoft
- 9.45-10.05 – Six teams, thirteen operating models: fix the process before the AI – Anca Pintilie, JP Morgan Chase
- 10.10-10.30 – Gong x Terrapinn: From AI Strategy to Revenue Impact – Asghar Maqsood, Gong
- 10.35-10.55 – When gut feel meets AI: how AI sharpened Oddbox’s creative work – Gastón Tourn, Oddbox
- 11.25-12.10 – From Idea to Working App: A Replit Workshop – Nik Biridzhyan, Replit (workshop)
- 12.15-12.35 – AI for growth with Quantcast – Quantcast
- 12.40-13.00 – Dojo AI – Luke Costley-White, Dojo
- 14.00-14.20 – AI for growth with Yolodex – Zaeem Bhanji, Yolodex
- 14.25-14.45 – From whiteboard to live campaign: unifying a siloed marketing stack – Imagino
- 14.50-15.10 – Writing for AI: how Oxford Online Pharmacy creates content to get cited – Victoria Rusnac, Oxford Online Pharmacy
- 15.15-15.35 – How to build an AI powered B2B sales funnel – Ross Nichols, Just Move In
- 15.40-16.00 – The pizza pilot: testing AI against traditional market research at Nomad Foods – Joe Clark, Nomad Foods
- 16.05-16.25 – How to build a brand AI will recommend – Alex Myers, Manifest
- 16.30-16.50 – Outreach: live product demo – Outreach (live demo)
Workforce track: Capabilities, Culture and Change
- 9.20-9.40 – From hope strategy to a culture of AI fluency across a global business – Kerri O’Neill, Ipsos
- 9.45-10.05 – Top down and bottom up at once: building an AI operating model at Somerset Bridge – Ceri Sharples & Katherine Hawkins-Jones, Somerset Bridge Group
- 10.10-10.30 – Driving AI adoption across 65,000 people without a mandate – Patrik Hedljung, Scania
- 10.35-10.55 – What changed when 94% of YuLife started using Claude weekly – Jonathan Roomer, YuLife
- 11.25-12.10 – Don’t Build Another AI Agent – Baltic Augment (workshop)
- 12.15-12.35 – Moving from AI investment to AI impact: Why workforce capability is the missing link in AI adoption – Holly Chate, FutureDotNow
- 12.40-13.00 – While AI is successfully helping cities measure their emissions, finding ways to adopt this internally is much more of a journey. – Christina Lewis, C40 Cities
- 14.00-14.45 – From AI Experimentation to Organisational Confidence: Lessons from the BCC AI Academy – Anne Kuhsiek & Jenny Hemsley, British Chambers of Commerce (workshop)
- 14.50-15.10 – From AI adoption to organisational advantage – Dr Laura Weis, WPP
- 15.15-15.35 – Beyond the forecast: why AI adoption at the Met Office was a change management problem – Prof Kirstine Dale, Met Office
- 15.40-16.00 – Building responsible AI at the British Red Cross: governance, training and real use cases – Simon Hodgkinson, British Red Cross
- 16.05-16.50 – SKAI Programme: What works for AI upskilling in the UK – Prof Nisreen Ameen, Henley Business School (workshop)
Customer track: Experience, Service, Success and Retention
- 9.20-9.40 – Built While We Sold: How Salesforce’s Own GTM Teams Adopted AI – Avril Couper & Conor Gleeson, Salesforce
- 9.45-10.05 – AI in customer experience with Experian – Yao Li, Experian
- 10.10-10.30 – Beyond deflection: building an AI agent that improved customer retention – Vik Lakhotia, Marshmallow
- 10.35-10.55 – Building the ‘Netflix’ of Wellbeing at The Retail Trust – Poppie Foakes & Tim Walpole, Retail Trust
- 11.25-12.10 – Kaltura workshop: AI for customer experience – Kaltura (workshop)
- 12.15-12.35 – An agent that builds agents: Ghostwriter live – Rebecca Okin, Sierra (live demo)
- 12.40-13.00 – From Prompt to Performance: AI-Powered Advertising Workflows with Ivy Studio – Andy Lowrey, Ivy Studio
- 14.00-14.45 – Beyond the Demo: Building and governing a Customer Service AI Agent, Live – Umang Shah, Kore.ai (workshop)
- 14.50-15.10 – Reimagining candidate and customer experience with AI at SHL – Jag Tucker, SHL
- 15.15-15.35 – Writing for the machine: how Thames Water rebuilt its knowledge base for AI – Janette Pincott & Toni Jarvis, Thames Water
- 15.40-16.00 – Presence Is Not Proof: Adding AI Validation Before Automated Claims Decisions – Promise Akwaowo, Royal Mail
Efficiency track: Automation, Agents and Workflows (track sponsor: monday.com)
- 9.20-9.40 – The second attempt. Rebuilding an AI rollout after the first one failed. – Sharon Roessen, Terrapinn
- 9.45-10.05 – What Copilot actually costs: building a usage model at Mintel – Samantha Stannard, Mintel
- 10.10-10.30 – Two weeks to ten minutes: the research workflow Bidwells built – Ben Lee, Bidwells
- 10.35-10.55 – What businesses tell us about AI adoption, and how that reaches government – Ben Martin, British Chambers of Commerce
- 11.25-12.10 – How to give 30% of your job to AI – James Ferrier & Luis Clark, monday.com (workshop)
- 12.15-12.35 – Process first, tools second: making AI pay at Babel PR – Inna Bondarenko, Babel PR
- 12.40-13.00 – ivee case study – Amelia Miller & Theo Dalloz, ivee
- 14.00-14.45 – From Idea to Working App: A Replit Workshop – Nik Biridzhyan, Replit (workshop)
- 14.50-15.10 – How to access government funding to upskill your workforce in AI – Ben Rowland, AELP
- 15.15-15.35 – The trick is being lazy: how I built my own AI knowledge base – Beth Ayers, Metomic
- 15.40-16.00 – Becoming the AI freight forwarder: automating the workflow, not the headcount – Josh Clement-Sutcliffe, Zencargo
- 16.05-16.50 – Build Your First AI Agent in 45 Minutes with Microsoft Copilot – Alison Wright & Ashley Jeggo, Microsoft (workshop)
AI Infrastructure track: Tech, Data and Cybersecurity
- 9.20-9.40 – Keeping AI grounded: the quality controls behind The Economist Group’s AI processes – Fionn O’Raghallaigh, The Economist Group
- 9.45-10.05 – Building Virgin Atlantic’s data and AI foundations from the ground up – Richard Masters, Virgin Atlantic
- 10.10-10.30 – How AI changed the face of our field operations – David Tomalin, CityFibre
- 10.35-10.55 – Build or Buy: Balancing short term impact with long term commercial transformation – Andrew Webber, END.
- 11.25-12.10 – Notion workshop: building AI-powered workflows – Notion (workshop)
- 12.15-12.35 – The Rise of Wild Code – Lynn Olame, Tines
- 12.40-13.00 – But my organisation wasn’t built for AI! – Andy Haley, Sullivan and Stanley
- 14.00-14.45 – Dust workshop: putting AI agents to work – Gianna Gard, Dust (workshop)
- 14.50-15.10 – The unglamorous half of AI: data, CRM and governance at Battersea Power Station – Alton Hassan, Battersea Power Station
- 15.15-15.35 – From zero to scale: how Engie turned GenAI licences into real adoption – Rémi Hottois, Mendo
- 15.40-16.00 – AI infrastructure with Rig – Toby Mather, Rig
- 16.05-16.50 – Google Gemini workshop: hands-on with Gemini – Oliver Given, Google Gemini (workshop)
Boardroom roundtables (one hour, by invitation)
- 9.30-10.30 – Beyond support: agents that improve CX and drive revenue – hosted by Sierra
- 10.45-11.45 – The Revenue AI Reality Check – hosted by Gong
- 12.00-13.00 – Everyone’s had the training. Nobody’s changed how they work. – hosted by AcademyAI
- 14.00-15.00 – AI in the Boardroom: you don’t need an AI strategy, you need a strategy for the world created by AI – hosted by Alice Breeden
Expert Bar (9.00-17.00, Discovery Zone)
Pre-booked 20-minute one-to-one clinics with specialists from Atherio, Quanta Intelligence, Arqvera, 100 School, Mind over Tech and Atheni.
Discovery Zone (8.00-18.30)
Demo pods from Quantcast, imagino, Tines, Kore.ai, Sullivan and Stanley, Gong, Aircall, Q5, monday.com, Mendo and Outreach, plus startup tables from AcademyAI and Yolodex.
The aibl Leadership Series
The Leadership Series is a programme of single-pillar, peer-led events of around 50 senior leaders each. Two editions have been delivered in 2026.
| Event | Date | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| workforceLIVE | 6 May 2026 | Delivered. Returned a Net Promoter Score of 75 |
| growthLIVE | 10 June 2026 | Delivered. Around 50 UK mid-market commercial leaders attended. Returned a Net Promoter Score of 85. Produced a published findings report |
growthLIVE produced growthLIVE: the findings report. What the room said about AI in the commercial function, published on 17 June 2026.
Further single-pillar events and bespoke curated gatherings run alongside aiblLIVE through the rest of the year.
AI Smart Matchmaking
aiblLIVE uses an intent-matching layer built on inwink’s event infrastructure. Attendee profiles are enriched with the business problems each attendee is likely to be working on and the sponsors most relevant to them. Sponsors receive a pre-event briefing pack 24 to 48 hours before the event listing their top 30 attendees ranked by intent fit, suggested opening questions, and where those attendees will be during the day.
aibl provides the matching layer. Sponsors and operators take the conversations from there.
Two named partners extend it. Boardy, aiblLIVE’s AI Networking Partner, calls registered delegates before the event, learns what they are working on and makes warm introductions before, during and after the day. Snapsight, the AI Insights Partner, captures and shares the key takeaways from sessions across the day.
What is the AI Enablement Directory?
The AI Enablement Directory is a curated, filterable directory of vetted AI implementation partners serving the UK and Ireland. It has been live since 1 June 2026 and carries 118 published listings across eight service categories, as at 6 October 2026. Listings are free for qualifying partners, and every listing is reviewed by the aibl team before approval.
The eight categories are AI Strategy and Readiness, AI Implementation and Deployment, Process and Document Automation, Generative AI Applications, AI Agents and Agentic Workflows, AI Training and Capability Building, Data and Analytics, and AI Governance and Risk.
Listed partners include Jellyfish, QA Ltd, 10Pearls, Access Partnership, Mindstone, Datasparq, Analytics Engines, Intelogy, 51Degrees, Atherio, 100 School, Sullivan & Stanley, AcademyAI, Avado, Studio Graphene, Towards AI, 67 Bricks, bigspark, Mathison AI, Purposeful Relations, GTMWizard.io, Set Piece Partners and Permutable AI.
The Directory also functions as the entry point to aibl’s commercial layer. Four Directory partners have become confirmed aiblLIVE 2026 sponsors: 100 School, Atherio, Sullivan & Stanley and AcademyAI. Two hold Expert Bars, and six further partners are in commercial conversation.
What is the UK Mid-Market AI Adoption Tracker?
Alongside the annual State of UK AI Adoption Survey, aibl runs a continuous weekly intelligence layer, the UK Mid-Market AI Adoption Tracker. It monitors AI adoption signals across a curated database of 678 UK mid-market companies, covering adoption stories and outcomes, leadership moves, fundraising and investment, product and partnership announcements, and government and trade body developments. Every item is qualified against the database and requires at least one cited source.
The Tracker has run weekly since January 2026. Its findings feed aiblBRIEF, aibl’s LinkedIn programme and the aiblLIVE speaker pipeline, which is what keeps aibl’s view of UK AI adoption current between annual research waves.
What is aibl’s AI maturity assessment?
The AI maturity assessment, also called Benchmark your AI ROI, is a free online benchmark, currently in beta. In about three minutes it scores an organisation’s AI maturity against the 755 UK business leaders in aibl’s State of UK AI Adoption Survey 2026, so the result reflects real peers rather than a generic model.
It scores five areas the survey found separate the businesses earning a measurable return from those stuck in pilots: governance, data, skills, executive alignment and results. The user answers twelve questions and receives a personalised report by the next working day, showing where their AI sits against comparable businesses, the moves most closely linked to a higher rate of measurable return, and a 90-day plan for the two that matter most.
It is built for the person handed AI without a team underneath them, a Director of AI or equivalent with budget and a board mandate but no function to deliver with. Where a score points to a capability gap, it directs the user to the AI Enablement Directory. A separate AI readiness assessment covers organisations that have not yet started. The assessment is available at aiblmedia.com/benchmark-your-ai-roi/.
Who sponsors aibl?
Confirmed sponsors of aiblLIVE London 2026 are Quantcast, monday.com, Sierra, imagino, Kaltura, Notion, Google, Tines, Gong, Replit, Sullivan & Stanley, AcademyAI, Atherio, DOJO AI, 100 School, Quanta Intelligence, Arqvera, Yolodex, Kore.ai, the British Chambers of Commerce with Pair, Aircall, Kalei Labs and Dust. Replit runs two vibe-coding workshops, and Microsoft runs a hands-on workshop on building your first AI agent with Copilot. Baltic Apprenticeships runs the Baltic Augment workshop, Don’t Build Another AI Agent. Google runs a hands-on Gemini workshop. Kore.ai builds a customer-service AI agent live with the room, and the British Chambers of Commerce with Pair run the AI Academy workshop on moving from AI experimentation to organisational confidence. monday.com, Notion, Kaltura and Dust each run their own hands-on workshops too.
Sponsors of aibl Leadership Series events are Sierra, an AI agent platform, Customer.io, a customer engagement platform, and BuzzTrail.
Further sponsor agreements are completing and this list is updated as they confirm. Sponsorship enquiries go to richard@aiblmedia.com.
Strategic and ecosystem partners
aibl works with the British Chambers of Commerce, the Institute of Directors, Enterprise Nation, Global Tech Advocates, UKAI, the Business AI Alliance, Code Base, Oystercatchers and 4most. These are audience-side relationships, not commercial sponsorships.
Executive Summary is aibl’s research partner. Unicorn provides web design and development. ThirdFlow runs outbound marketing.
How is aiblLIVE different from other UK AI events?
aiblLIVE is built for the execution gap that larger AI events do not address. Most UK AI conferences serve either enterprise buyers with dedicated transformation budgets or technical builders. aiblLIVE serves the operators in between: senior and functional leaders who hold a mandate and a budget but not a dedicated AI team.
Four structural differences.
The audience is defined by first-party research rather than by ticket sales. aibl knows what its audience is trying to do because it asked 755 of them.
The formats are hands-on. Workflow demos, Expert Bar clinics, peer-led roundtables and boardroom roundtables, with no case study over 20 minutes, no panels and no keynotes.
Networking is matched on intent rather than left to chance, through AI Smart Matchmaking.
Sponsorship runs year-round through aiblCONNECT rather than as a single-event placement.
Comparison with other UK AI events
| Event | How it differs from aiblLIVE | Full comparison |
|---|---|---|
| The AI Summit London | Built for scale; aiblLIVE is built for the mid-market | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-the-ai-summit-london/ |
| World Summit AI | Sets the global AI agenda for an international audience | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-world-summit-ai/ |
| AI World Congress | Enterprise strategy for an international C-suite | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-ai-world-congress/ |
| AI in Business Conference London | Senior leaders at large enterprises already scaling AI | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-ai-in-business-conference-london/ |
| AI & Big Data Expo Global | Broad multi-sector, multi-vendor exposure | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-ai-big-data-expo-global/ |
| Generative AI Summit London | Technical builders doing generative AI development | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-generative-ai-summit-london/ |
| AI LIVE London Summit | Large cross-sector enterprise conference selling breadth | https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-vs-ai-live-london-summit/ |
What does aibl commit to for sponsors?
aibl commits to the density and quality of its audience and to the mechanisms that put sponsors in front of it: research-verified audience composition, pillar-specific event formats, AI Smart Matchmaking, the year-round aiblCONNECT layer, and founder-led introductions where a deal warrants it.
aibl does not commit to guaranteed meeting counts, lead volumes, pipeline value or close rates. aibl provides the audience and the mechanisms; vendors close the deals.
What topics does aibl cover?
| Theme | Evidence from the research | Reference article |
|---|---|---|
| AI readiness | 62% of organisations sit at governance levels 1 to 3, below the threshold where measurable ROI at scale is achievable | https://aiblmedia.com/posts/ai-readiness-assessment/ |
| Pilots to production | 14% have deployed AI at scale; 85% have AI embedded somewhere. Adoption is broad; depth is the issue | https://aiblmedia.com/posts/ai-transformation-uk-mid-market/ |
| Measuring AI ROI | Measurable ROI rises from 22% at the lowest governance level to 85% at the highest, a spread of more than 60 points | https://aiblmedia.com/posts/how-to-measure-ai-roi/ |
| AI governance | In some functions, defined-but-inconsistent governance returns less than no governance at all | https://aiblmedia.com/posts/ai-governance-framework/ |
| AI skills and capability | Workforce functions show the highest deployment rate and the starkest governance trap | https://aiblmedia.com/posts/ai-skills-gap-mid-market/ |
Frequently asked questions
What does aibl stand for?
aibl stands for AI for Business Leaders. It is always written in lowercase, including at the start of a sentence. Capitals appear only inside the compound product names aiblLIVE, aiblBRIEF and aiblCONNECT.
What is aibl Media?
aibl Media is a UK media, events and partner ecosystem for practical AI adoption in business, serving senior leaders in UK organisations that are adopting AI. It publishes the State of UK AI Adoption Survey, runs the aiblLIVE and aibl Leadership Series events, curates the AI Enablement Directory, and publishes the weekly aiblBRIEF newsletter.
When and where is aiblLIVE London 2026?
aiblLIVE London 2026 takes place on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at Convene Sancroft, Rose Street, Paternoster Square, St Paul’s, London EC4M 7DQ.
How many people took part in aibl’s research?
755 UK mid-market business leaders, in organisations with revenues of £20m to £500m, surveyed between January and March 2026 in partnership with Executive Summary.
What does the research say separates organisations getting AI ROI from those that are not?
Governance maturity is the single strongest predictor. The share of organisations reporting measurable AI ROI rises from 22% at the lowest governance level to 85% at the highest. Tooling is not the differentiator; measurement and accountability are.
Who can list in the AI Enablement Directory?
AI implementation and enablement partners serving the UK and Ireland, across eight service categories. Listings are free for qualifying partners and every listing is reviewed before approval. Enquiries go to richard@aiblmedia.com.
How do I contact aibl Media?
All media, sponsorship and partnership enquiries go to richard@aiblmedia.com.
What are aibl’s official URLs?
Company and about
- Homepage: https://aiblmedia.com/
- About: https://aiblmedia.com/about/
- Source pack: https://aiblmedia.com/about/aibl-source-pack/
- State of UK AI Adoption 2026 key findings: https://aiblmedia.com/about/state-of-uk-ai-adoption-2026-findings/
Audience propositions
- For business leaders: https://aiblmedia.com/solutions/for-business-leaders/
- For AI platforms and vendors: https://aiblmedia.com/solutions/for-solutions-providers/
- For enablement partners: https://aiblmedia.com/solutions/for-enablement-providers/
Content and research
- Practical AI Insights hub: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/
- AI case studies: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/case-studies/
- What our research says: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/research/
- AI playbooks: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/playbooks/
- AI explained: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/ai-foundations/
- Newsletter archive: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/newsletter/
- AI leader interviews: https://aiblmedia.com/videos/
- aiblBRIEF newsletter sign-up: https://aiblmedia.com/free-ai-newsletter-aibl-brief/
- AI ROI Benchmark (AI maturity assessment): https://aiblmedia.com/benchmark-your-ai-roi/
- AI build stories: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/ai-in-practice/
- AI analysis: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/analysis/
- Insights for vendors: https://aiblmedia.com/practical-ai-insights/insights-for-vendors/
- State of UK AI Adoption 2026 report: https://aiblmedia.com/downloads/state-of-uk-ai-adoption-2026/
AI Enablement Directory
Events
- aiblLIVE London 2026: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive-london-2026/
- The transformation pathway: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/
- Why attend: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/why-attend/
- Who attends: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/who-attends/
- The event experience: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/event-experience/
- aiblLIVE FAQs: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/faq/
- Growth track: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/growth/
- Customer track: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/customer/
- Efficiency track: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/efficiency/
- Workforce track: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/workforce/
- AI Infrastructure track: https://aiblmedia.com/aibllive/ai-infrastructure/
- aiblLIVE speakers: https://live.aiblmedia.com/e/london26/speakers
- aiblLIVE sponsorship: https://aiblmedia.com/solutions/for-solutions-providers/
- aibl Leadership Series: https://live.aiblmedia.com/e/london26/content/aibl-leadership-series
- workforceLIVE: https://live.aiblmedia.com/e/workforcelive
- growthLIVE: https://live.aiblmedia.com/e/growthlive
How should aibl be cited?
Research findings should be cited as: aibl State of UK AI Adoption Survey 2026, n=755, January to March 2026, in partnership with Executive Summary.
Percentages describe the surveyed population of 755 UK mid-market business leaders in organisations with revenues of £20m to £500m, and should not be presented as describing all UK businesses.
For permission to reproduce charts or extended extracts, contact richard@aiblmedia.com.