Evidence-led — Open Web Data Shaping Economic Development.

An AI Data Revolution

In the midst of an unprecedented level of interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and its many permutations, glass.ai’s unique research capability has also been in increasing demand. With our AI optimised to understand language and the open web in context and at a scale not seen before, glass.ai is helping public sector clients to respond to a variety of complex research questions and policy-led agendas. This has, and continues to be, driven by a need for fresh insights, stronger place-led evidence, and to push beyond the limitations of other, existing, information sources.

As such, it has been an exciting time for glass.ai, seen within the projects we have delivered, for a wide variety of public sector clients. Given the team’s achievements in the past twelve months, and with our AI research capabilities growing, it’s an opportune moment to reflect on the work we have been doing alongside public sector organisations, from Central Government to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), local authorities and universities, as well as our valued consultancy partners. Looking at these assignments holistically, it’s clear there has been a common thread — a desire to embrace innovative research approaches, the analytical power of AI and harness the value of information available on the open web.

Economic Development — Growing Demand for Data

The economic development policy context has shifted greatly in the past three years, as a result of unforeseen and seismic societal, economic and environmental events. COVID-19, economic instability and the ongoing climate emergency, in isolation, but also as interlinked challenges, are, and continue to be, of great significance to policymakers. As such, each has heralded winds of change relative to pre-pandemic priorities, but also helped to reinforce agendas that have only grown in importance — climate change and the need to level up regional inequalities being prime examples. We now find ourselves in a situation where the public sector is seeking to drive long-term prosperity, but also tackle more immediate issues, including cost of living pressures and economic instability, as a result of global macroeconomics and war — a difficult balance indeed.

Given the cross-cutting nature of these themes, many layers of Government are playing an active role in delivering economic development priorities, across a range of policy areas, including skills, research, innovation, place-led development, tax, trade and inward investment. To support ongoing delivery, promote accountability and ensure maximum impact of economic development policy (and something that we have seen become even more pressing in a project context) is a requirement for robust evidence, to underpin assertive decision-making. Here, good data is key.

Note: Images reflect glass.ai commissions for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Office for Artificial Intelligence and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Role of AI — Generating New Data Insights

With this data imperative in place, AI is increasingly playing an important role in opening up new opportunities for insight. This comes at a time of rapid evolution within the field of AI, particularly in terms of the use of large language models, and a growing awareness of their research value. This demand for intelligence has also been driven by the constraints of existing data sources, that are limited in their coverage, scope and depth.

At glass.ai, we have been extremely active in this space, helping to plug information gaps and build new sources of intelligence. In doing so, we have been able to break new ground by:

· Offering a new, single source of sector and business-level data, to build on and augment other information sources (including official statistics).

· Uncovering the true characteristics and distinctiveness of places on a global scale, as seen within the profile of businesses, sectors and people.

· Acting as a key source of information to track change across economies to better articulate the outcomes and impacts of policy-making.

Our core strengths in understanding new economy sectors and the activities and interactions of businesses have meant we have been able to make important contributions to research projects. The examples below demonstrate how our data is adding value to public sector delivery:

Showcasing the true characteristics of regional economies…

Our data has helped to showcase the breadth and composition of business activity across regions, LEP areas and local authority districts, providing a fresh view of the company base, its profile and key clusters. Our datasets capture the full spectrum of economic activity, pinpoint economic players often omitted from other sources, identify international employers and characterise industries using definitions that speak more closely to policymakers and reflect the emergence of new and innovative sectors.

Practical examples of glass.ai data applications include:

· Creating whole economy baseline datasets as the foundation for place-based strategies and growth-orientated economic development policies.

· Deep exploration into emerging or complex sectors to understand presence, capability and potential using bespoke sector definitions and methodologies.

Understanding competitiveness through a global lens…

Our global coverage makes glass.ai data genuinely unique and offers the opportunity to contextualise by benchmarking performance against international comparators. We have helped clients to understand the competitiveness of key sectors, clusters and sub-set markets, by looking at common indicators, including characterising the activities of businesses in many foreign languages. This has allowed a new economic growth narrative to emerge, and the potential for global links to be explored.

Practical examples of glass.ai data applications include:

· Assessing the presence of sectors and industries in key international markets, to support the development of growth and investment prospectuses.

· Identifying interdependencies between UK businesses and foreign markets, to highlight the strength of relationships and scope for greater collaboration.

Diving deeper into the dynamics and relationships of businesses…

Our deep crawling capabilities mean that we are able to explore individual businesses and wider ecosystem activity at a level not possible before. We specialise in generating insights and monitoring change across a wide range of indicators, including growth signals, the structure of supply chains, the globalisation of trade relationships and labour force dynamics. In doing so, we have enabled clients to see how businesses interact and how embedded they are in regional and global economies.

Practical examples of glass.ai data applications include:

· Developing a baseline of indicators that can be tracked, including business-level growth signals, to help evaluate policy effectiveness and investment impact.

· Deconstructing business or sector-wide supply chain structures and identifying key contacts, as the basis for targeted engagement and primary research.

Assessing progressive business practices and behaviours…

We are increasingly able to explore other layers of business activity, which resonate with important economic development agendas. This includes building a base of evidence that shows how businesses are decarbonising and transitioning towards Net Zero, by observing evidence of commitment, investment and achievement. We are also able to detect signals that provide clues as to the support needs of businesses, as a result of our content, at a scale that goes beyond the evidence captured within surveys.

Practical examples of glass.ai data application:

· Exploring operating structures and Net Zero commitments, to identify progressive business models and how these can be promoted at a local level.

· Deep reading the open web to identify where companies are expressing need and opportunity, to help make the case for tailored business support programmes.

Looking Ahead

Reflecting on the last year, as an AI research pioneer, much has been achieved at glass.ai. We have continued to innovate, and it has been exciting to see the applications and outcomes of our data bear fruit. This includes our data playing a key role in day-to-day delivery across the public sector, and also as important research has been published (such as our ongoing Cyber and AI sector studies for UK Government), highlighting the strengths and potential of the UK economy. As we look ahead, we are eager to broaden our reach even further, by:

· Serving new clients in the public sector where our data can add value.

· Enhancing data coverage and optimising our crawling technologies.

· Delivering more projects beyond the UK, leveraging our global dataset.

· Placing more emphasis on monitoring business and sector performance.

At glass.ai, we’re proud to be at the heart of the AI revolution, propelling a new wave of economic development activity. The team looks forward to making a difference to the work of public sector clients, in the weeks and months ahead.