Can Scotland keep up in the AI race? By Nick Freer

In the recently published Techscaler annual report, charting the second year of the Scottish Government’s support programme for Scottish startups, it doesn’t take long to get to a section titled “AI, AI, AI”.  Chiming with what I wrote here at the end of last year, the only tech trend that really matters in 2025 is artificial intelligence and the “machine-assisted writing is clearly on the wall”.

CodeBase, which runs Techscaler, notes that “the real opportunity for Scotland lies in fostering startups powered by AI”, and is now working with an increasing number of AI-first companies, with other ventures pivoting to AI-focused strategies.

I think there’s also a third way, which might be described as layering AI into your product, so that could be a software tool like the one being developed by my youngest brother, Dr Matthew Freer, whose health technology startup Infix has developed software to improve operating theatre efficiencies,helping to ease hospital waiting lists across Scotland’s NHS health boards.

As Matthew, the brother at the front of the queue when the brains got handed out, put it in a recent press announcement: “With the vast quantities of data and use cases we’ve gathered over the last few years, we have been able to target the precise areas where AI can add even more value”

Infix was one of the fast-growth SMEs to take part in tech group ClearSky Logic’s AI survey, the findings of which were released earlier this week.  The survey, which our agency co-developed with ClearSky, revealed that 57 per cent of companies have already invested in AI, while approximately 90 per cent are planning to do so.

Ed Vickers, co-founder of Edinburgh-headquartered marketing firm LOOP Agencies and one of the business leaders to take part in the survey, said: “The fear that AI will replace jobs is changing to ‘AI won’t take my job, but someone who knows how to will’.

Aakanksha Sadekar, CEO and Founder of Aberdeen-headquartered digital health technology startup Tracker.Health, another survey participant, said: “AI is being rapidly adopted into digital health solutions worldwide, we have been spending time out in Asia and are now working with commercial partners in Singapore, China, and Japan, so we’re seeing firsthand how Scotland must keep pace with the fast-moving evolution of AI.”

Of course, we need to be cognizant of the challenges we face as a nation around AI, as expertly articulated by Ross McNairn, the CEO of legal tech startup Wordsmith, when he wrote for this column a fortnight ago.

“AI is a talent game”, wrote McNairn, “and its most critical asset is people. The best AI engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs are highly mobile, well paid, and in global demand. Countries that understand this are creating the most favourable conditions possible to attract talent. Scotland must do the same, or it will be left behind.”

AI is a race, the starting gun has been fired and the runners are off. The collective hope is that our runner is in good enough shape to keep up with the competition.