AI Growth Labs could accelerate AI innovation and deployment.

22 Oct 2025 08:21 AM

Yesterday, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) announced the launch of the AI Growth Lab, a new proposed framework for a cross-economy sandbox initiative designed to “accelerate innovation and cut bureaucracy in a safe environment.” 

DSIT has now launched a call for evidence, which will be open until 2 January 2026, on how the Lab should operate — including which sectors to prioritise, what regulatory changes could unlock innovation, and what safeguards are needed. 

The AI Growth Lab aims to: 

• Grant time-limited exemptions to allow responsible experimentation. 
• Operate issue- or sector-specific sandboxes where regulatory modification may be needed. 
• Maintain strict oversight and safeguards for the regulatory modifications the Lab has enabled. 
• Recommend that successful pilots inform future regulatory reforms, through guidance updates, codes of practice, or statutory changes. 

Why it matters 

In its call for evidence, government acknowledges that much of the UK’s regulation was written before AI existed. While most rules remain technology-neutral, many are not designed for systems that learn, adapt, and make autonomous decisions. Flexible and adaptive oversight can therefore be an essential way to maintain public trust, enable AI adoption, and attract investment. 

The AI Growth Lab offers a potential solution — a way to pilot novel approaches to regulation before reforms are made permanent. It aims to build on lessons from the FCA’s Innovate Sandbox, MHRA’s AI Airlock, and similar initiatives across the UK and abroad.  

What is the proposed model 

Two proposed styles of AI Growth Lab are being explored 

• A centrally operated lab: a single, government-led entry point that will establish and supervise pilots across sectors, working with sectoral regulators as part of its Oversight Committee 
• Regulator-operated labs: multiple labs led by sectoral regulators - one lead regulator per sandbox - for focused, domain-specific applications such as healthcare or transport. 

Initial pilots are expected to target sectors that align with the Sovereign AI’s strategic priorities and Industrial Strategy, where innovation potential is high but regulation is slowing adoption. In their call for evidence, DSIT highlighted three main examples: planning reform, clinical care, and robotics. The call for views also mentions the potential for place-based regulatory sandboxes that will complement AI Growth Zones. 

As part of the call for evidence, DSIT is also asking for what kind of mechanism could make successful regulatory modifications permanent through secondary legislation, ensuring pilots can translate into long-term change with appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. 

techUK’s view 

techUK welcomes the launch of the AI Growth Lab as a positive step toward a pro-growth regulatory approach that helps companies safely develop, scale, and deploy AI in key sectors of the UK economy.

 In response to the announcement techUK’s deputy CEO Antony Walker welcomed this as a strong step:

If we get this right, the AI Growth Lab can add real value by drawing on learnings from existing sandboxes and working closely with AI businesses to deliver tangible results and real-world impact. This is about accelerating innovation and the pace at which AI can be deployed into sectors of the economy where complex regulations apply. To do innovation at pace, we need to trial and test technologies in the real world – and the AI Growth Lab will provide a managed environment to do that safely. 

The call for evidence 

The government is seeking views on the full proposal they have set out through a call for evidence, that focuses on: 

• whether an AI growth lab will make it easier to develop or adopt AI; 
• the advantages and disadvantages of cross-economy or single regulator labs 
• lessons learnt from past sandboxes; 
• regulatory provisions needed to modify regulation for the lab; 
• which types of regulation should be off-limits; 
• how to design effective oversight, supervision, monitoring, and controls for the AI Growth Lab initiative; 
• how to enable an AI Growth Lab to make permanent legislative changes if a pilot is successful; and 
• whether this initiative could or should apply to other high-potential technologies. 

Responses are due 2 January 2026. 

Next steps 

techUK plans to respond to the call for evidence by the end of this calendar year. Any members interested in contributing to techUK’s responses are invited to share any of their feedback, including their views on: 

• regulatory barriers your AI products/services face yesterday; 
• the sandbox design and safeguards that would enable safe, faster deployment; 
• which sectors/applications should be prioritised first; and 
• how the route from sandbox to scaling onwards should work. 

Please email Kir Nuthi, Head of AI and Data at kir.nuthi@techuk.org with short written input or to register interest in a potential member roundtable, which we will confirm based on interest. Further information will be shared with members in due course. 

 

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