Yesterday, Britain got a new Prime Minister. Andy Burnham’s first act was to give AI a seat at the Cabinet table.
Kanishka Narayan, previously Minister for AI and Online Safety, is now Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, sitting jointly in the Cabinet Office and the newly formed Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.[1] DSIT, the department that used to house AI policy, has been dissolved.[2][3] The old boxes were insufficient for what AI actually requires.
Cabinet seats aren’t awarded for administrative tidiness. They’re reserved for the handful of issues judged to shape the country’s future, the kind no single department can be trusted to own alone. On day one of a new premiership, AI made that list.
I see the opposite of this constantly in client organisations. AI still reports to IT, or to whoever ran the first pilot, while the decisions it actually raises, how work gets redesigned, where advantage comes from, what leaders need to be capable of, sit with nobody in particular.
Government just decided AI was too consequential for one department to hold. Most boards still haven’t made that call.
Whatever you make of the wider political change, this is the tell: something stops being a technology issue the moment it earns a seat in the room where direction actually gets decided.
Yesterday it happened in Westminster. Has it happened in your boardroom yet?
If you are considering how AI should be owned at board level, I would be glad to talk it through. You can read more about our services or get in touch.
This article was first shared as a post on LinkedIn.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Minister of State (Minister for Artificial Intelligence).
- GOV.UK, Machinery of Government changes: Fact Sheet, 22 July 2026.
- BBC News, AI minister role boosted but tech department axed in Burnham shake-up, 21 July 2026.