Episode 10: TechUK Recognition, You Get What You Pay For & The Very First Cyber Attack 🍺
Ten weeks. The longest either of them has been consistent at anything. Neil’s briefly out of the doghouse. Kieron’s on squash instead of beer. And Leading AI has just had two case studies published in one of the most important AI reports of the year.
Pull up a stool.
TechUK’s “From Pilots to Practice” report — and we’re in it. Twice. 🏆 TechUK — the UK’s leading technology trade association representing over 1,100 member companies — published their landmark report From Pilots to Practice: Using AI in the Public Sector with 19 real-world case studies showing how AI is genuinely transforming public services. It features not one but two KnowledgeFlow implementations: the FE college quality assistant and, in housing, Taff Housing. Being independently selected by TechUK as an example of AI that actually works in practice — not just in pilots — is a significant validation.
Agentic AI for housing — getting serious with Taff Housing Kieron was with the Taff Housing CEO, director of technology and senior team this week — a monthly meeting they hold to track progress and plan what’s next. On the roadmap: a fully agentic tenant inquiry system that triages and instantly answers routine emails, freeing frontline teams for complex cases. And an AI-powered repairs checker that reads job descriptions, checks them against schedule of rates codes, and flags when a contractor’s invoice looks a little… creative. Yes, Kieron finally remembered to show the photograph this time.
First draft of a £500 million bid written in 4.5 hours Neil used KnowledgeFlow’s BidWriter to produce the first draft of a 7,500-word tender response for a £500m contract in four and a half hours. What would have taken a week landed at 80% complete before Tuesday lunch.
McKinsey now tests candidates on AI prompting Not whether they know about AI — whether they can prompt well, challenge outputs, and think critically alongside it. Social workers are already turning down job offers at councils without AI tools. Now the world’s top consulting firm is screening people out if they can’t work with AI. The direction of travel has never been clearer.
The IQ of your AI depends on what you’re paying for Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 has an estimated IQ equivalent of around 140 — top percentile of humans. The free tools? Closer to 100. It’s like hiring a £20k accountant versus a £100k one. If you tried AI and thought it wasn’t impressive, you were probably using the wrong model. You get what you pay for.
The $150,000 overnight token bill A company set an AI agent running overnight. By morning, Google presented them with a $150,000 token bill. KnowledgeFlow is now building automatic kill switches for all client deployments. And a brilliant tip from Nate B. Jones (third plug this series, still not on commission): convert your PDFs to markdown before loading them into AI and you’ll save up to 87.5% of your token costs. Most people don’t bother. Most people will when it starts hitting them in the wallet.
The first ever cyber attack — 1834 Neil drops a history bomb: the first recorded technology attack happened in France in 1834, when two men hacked telegraph wires to manipulate financial markets. Kieron’s response: what’s actually changed?
Ten weeks in. Still going. Still on squash instead of beer. Apparently Kieron has “aura” though, so things are looking up.
Two mates. A bar. Thirty years of business between them. And all they want to talk about is AI.
Pull up a stool — we’ll get the beers in (even if we’re not drinking them ourselves). 🍺
