Firm Models, Big Budgets and Nobody checking || In The Loop

Almost half of UK firms say they plan to spend up to £100,000 on AI this year. John Toon runs the numbers on what that actually buys and does not believe a word of it. Indi, John Toon and Eriona Bajrakurtaj work through a month where the same question keeps surfacing from different directions. If software can file it, who checked it? In the US, CLA has partnered with Digits to build and train its own model on its client base and workflows, which raises the question UK firms are starting to ask out loud about their own ledger. Sage put the review layer question in a room with a round table on embedded accounting, picking up the campaign Lucy Cohen has been running in public. And FreeAgent has enabled MTD quarterly filing from the mobile app, which is the right call for a mobile-first cohort and removes a piece of friction that was arguably doing a job. Also in this one: Lord Vallance takes the chair of a new AI taskforce while funding comes out of other science, more than 120 millionaires ask to be taxed more, and the small business employment figures show a labour market that no longer looks national. Plus product updates from MIMO and Katana. This episode sponsored by Fishbowl - https://www.fishbowlinventory.com/en-gb   Chapters 00:00 Welcome, and what is in this episode 03:17 CLA is training its own model rather than buying one 10:36 Lucy Cohen and the review layer nobody has built 17:55 What UK firms are actually spending their AI budget on 24:26 A new AI taskforce, and the models we do not own 29:24 More than 120 millionaires ask to be taxed more 37:43 Small business employment and twelve labour markets 42:52 Mimo launches VAT review 45:10 Katana MCP goes live, Amazon FBM arrives natively 46:14 FreeAgent brings MTD filing to mobile 49:08 Wrap