Yesterday, H/Advisors was proud to host the Tech Summit 2026, jointly organised by Bright Blue and the Fabian Society here at our HQ in Havas Village, King’s Cross. The day brought together politicians, regulators, investors, civil servants and industry figures to work through the questions actually keeping technology leaders up at night.

Here is what stayed with us.

1. The UK is great at starting companies. It is much less good at keeping them.

Dr. Ben Spencer, Shadow Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology, opened with a central frustration: domestic companies don’t get a look in on public procurement, contracts defaulting to the same handful of large firms. The UK is the best place in the world to start a company – but when those companies want to grow, they leave for the US.

The scaling up panel, featuring Kenneth Cukier and Dylan Sparks among others, reinforced the point from a different angle: investment culture is too risk-averse, pension funds have minimal exposure to private capital, and there is no realistic domestic route to the scale of capital available in the US without structural reform.

2. Regulation and innovation are not opposites – but we keep treating them that way

Markus Anderljung and David Lawrence were among those reframing regulation not as a brake on growth but as market infrastructure – the mechanism by which technology reaches the public safely and at scale. Getting that right requires regulators with proper funding, technical expertise and operational freedom.

3. Digital transformation in public services will only work if it’s done with people, not to them

Lord Ed Vaizey, Jeni Tennison, Lauren Crowley and Joy Allen shone a light on some of issues facing the AI-in-government transition. Cross-departmental coordination is weak, civil service risk culture makes bold adoption difficult, and too many projects digitise existing processes rather than reimagining them. The most important determinant of success isn’t the technology – it’s whether the people affected feel part of it.

4. Sovereignty is more complicated than it sounds

Dame Anneliese Dodds MP, Dylan Sparks, Kenneth Cukier, Matt Rogerson and Diane Banks grappled with what meaningful digital agency looks like when the incumbent platforms, capital flows and foundational models are largely American. Full independence is neither realistic nor desirable – but transparency, data governance and procurement strategy are practical levers that remain underused.

5. The geopolitical and the commercial are now the same conversation

Lucy Rigby KC MP closed the day by situating technology within the Government’s response to a volatile global environment. That framing reflects what we hear consistently from clients: the intersection of technology, trade policy and great power competition has moved to the centre of boardroom risk – and the communications and public affairs response must match it.

We work in King’s Cross because that is where this conversation is happening – Google, Meta and Synthesia on our doorstep, Anthropic and OpenAI arriving, hundreds of start-ups and scale-ups in between. Immersion in that ecosystem isn’t a backdrop to our work; it’s part of how we do it.

Thank you to every speaker, panellist and participant who contributed.