Agile, Trusted, and Moving Fast: Inside Digital Jersey's 2026 Annual Review

I spent yesterday morning at Digital Jersey’s 10th Annual Review. A good turnout (we filled the cinema), great bacon rolls and an insightful presentation, including a keynote from Katie King that reinforces much of our own thinking.

Katie has written three books on AI in business, sits on the All-Party Parliamentary Group for AI adoption, and works with organisations across 14 countries. She knows her stuff. And the message she delivered to a room full of Jersey business leaders was remarkably close to what we’ve been telling our own clients for the past 18 months.

Here’s what stood out to me:

The shift from “should we?” to “how do we?”

The live poll during Katie’s session told you everything. Most people in the room said they’re actively using AI, but a big chunk are still just exploring. The barriers? Time, budget, skills gaps, and that familiar resistance to change.

What’s reassuring is that the conversation has moved on. Nobody was asking “is AI relevant to my business?” anymore. The question now is “how do I actually implement this properly?” That’s a fundamentally different starting point, and it’s where the real work begins.

Katie also focused on using ML and augmented data on your own datasets, which aligns with the RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) systems we are starting to roll out.

Agentic AI is the next wave

Katie highlighted the shift from generative AI, using tools like ChatGPT to draft content, towards agentic AI, where systems make autonomous decisions with human oversight. This is precisely where off-the-shelf tools no longer suffice and bespoke solutions become essential.

We’ve been building towards this with our own clients. The 10-80-10 approach we use, where humans provide 10% strategic direction, AI handles 80% of the execution, and humans refine the final 10%, maps directly to what Katie described. It was good to hear that the framework was validated by someone working at an international level.

Jersey’s economic reality demands this

James Linder’s economic analysis earlier in the session painted a sobering picture. Productivity across the island has stagnated. Jersey allocates roughly 1.1% of GDP to economic development, compared with 4% in the UK. R&D investment sits at 0.01% of GDP.

The bright spot? Tech-intensive employment has grown 31% since 2014, with salaries 35% above the island average. The businesses investing in digital and AI are the ones growing. The ones that aren’t are falling behind.

Every Jersey business is now under pressure to do more with less. AI-driven efficiency isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s becoming a survival strategy.

Funding for innovation

Digital Jersey has committed £2 million in 2026 for innovation projects through Impact Jersey. They’ve already approved nearly £3 million over the past two years across CX tech, healthcare, and care technology.

Projects getting funded include AI-driven customer insight platforms, IoT health monitoring, digital retail tools, and even a positional data project using LIDAR and 3D scanning. The money is flowing towards exactly the kind of work we specialise in: bespoke software, AI implementation, and conversion-focused digital platforms.

If you’re a Jersey business with an idea that involves AI, better customer experience, or healthcare technology, the Impact Jersey rolling programme is open now at impact.je. Worth a look.

Katie’s scorecard and our 90-day sprints

Katie uses a 10-point scorecard to help businesses assess their AI readiness. It covers mindset, board buy-in, business case development, experimentation, talent, ethics, and momentum. Her closing advice was to think in 30, 60, 90-day sprints. Pick use cases. Prove outcomes with small pilots. Then scale.

Sound familiar? That’s essentially the discovery and sprint structure we use with every client engagement. Start with an audit, identify the quick wins, build the business case, then execute in focused phases. It works because it manages risk whilst building momentum.

What this means for local businesses

The gap Katie identified, between businesses that know they need AI and businesses that have actually implemented it, is exactly where we operate. Jersey has plenty of awareness now. What it needs is people who can build and ship solutions that work in production, not just advise on which tools to try.

Digital Jersey is doing a brilliant job of creating the ecosystem: the AI Hub, partnerships with OpenAI and Google, the Leadership Accelerator, the funding programmes. The infrastructure is there. The next step is execution.

Closing thoughts

It was reassuring to hear an international AI expert validate the direction we’ve been taking with our clients. The emphasis on practical implementation over hype, on human oversight alongside AI capability, on starting small and scaling what works has been our approach from day one.

Jersey’s digital economy is growing faster than most people realise. The businesses that move now, whilst the island is still positioning itself as a sandbox for innovation, will be the ones that define the next decade.

If you’re wondering where to start, we’re always happy to have that conversation. No pitch, just a practical look at where AI and digital could make the biggest difference for your business.