The West Midlands is embracing the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to unlock growth, improve public services and equip people with the skills they need to thrive in a digital economy. The West Midlands approach to doing this has been articulated in the West Midlands Artificial Intelligence Missions (WM AIM) which has been developed in partnership with our Local Authority partners, industry, academia and other regional and national partners and institutions.
WM AIM is mission focused and sets out the regional approach across three interconnected missions that will use the power of AI to create growth, drive innovation and equip people with the skills they need to thrive in the digital economy. The three missions are:
- Mission 1: Be a nationally recognised AI testbed: The objective here is for the region to become a nationally recognised AI testbed for public service innovation, by overcoming challenges through the use of AI, in addition to growing and promoting our growth clusters through AI application and development. This will be anchored by our universities, leadership across our five growth clusters and harnessing the potential of our infrastructure.
- Mission 2: Drive business productivity: The objective here is to drive business productivity across our growth clusters and everyday economy, by providing our firms with the guidance and programmes they need to grow. This will be anchored by leadership from business support and tech ecosystem leads and the application of AI through demonstrators.
- Mission 3: Implement our AI-Academy: We will implement our AI-Academy approach by ensuring all residents and workforces can access high-quality AI training. This includes creating new learning opportunities and signposting existing provision through a wayfinding model. Our goal is to prepare, support and empower people to embrace AI-driven change, anchored in strong collaboration across the skills system, third sector and industry.
WM AIM is key to delivering on the ambitions in the West Midlands Growth Plan which seeks to add an additional £17.4bn GVA to the economy, place another 93,000 people in work, increase wages by £8,600 per year, build an additional 12,200 new homes and be carbon neutral by 2041.