The updates were presented at the Visa Payments Forum 2026 and focus on transactions initiated or supported by AI agents, as well as blockchain-based settlement and value transfer. Visa said the tools are intended to add trust, security and control as commerce becomes more automated.
The company introduced Agent Score, which allows merchants to assess whether their websites are ready for AI agents to navigate and complete tasks. It also announced an Agentic Directory of verified agents and merchants, intended to help participants identify legitimate actors in agentic commerce.
Visa also announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI that would allow AI agents to initiate Visa payments within defined user permissions. OpenAI will provide the conversational interface, while Visa will provide the underlying payment infrastructure.
The company introduced a Large Transaction Model trained on billions of transactions to improve fraud detection, authorisation performance and reduce false declines. It also announced token enhancements designed to add more transaction context, identity, permissions and behavioural signals to digital payment credentials.
On the settlement side, Visa said it is developing technology that would allow banks to issue tokenised deposits and is expanding stablecoin settlement pilots across multiple regions, blockchains and currencies. The company said it has moved billions of dollars in stablecoins across VisaNet, with an annualised run rate of about $7 billion as of March 2026. More than 160 stablecoin-linked card programmes are live or in development globally, according to Visa.
Why does it matter?
Visa’s announcements show how major payment networks are preparing for AI agents to initiate transactions and for stablecoins and tokenised deposits to play a larger role in settlement. The policy relevance lies in trust infrastructure: verifying agents and merchants, defining user permissions, managing fraud risk, strengthening digital identity signals and keeping programmable payment systems within regulated financial channels.
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The new ‘Partnership Agreement for a Collaborative Programme on Labour and Decent Work’ will run from June 2026 to June 2028. It builds on more than 15 years of cooperation between the ILO and Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower.
Developed in consultation with Singapore’s tripartite partners, including the National Trades Union Congress and the Singapore National Employers Federation, the framework aims to strengthen the capacity of governments, employers and workers across ASEAN.
The renewed partnership adds new priority areas, including AI, platform work, non-standard employment, demographic transitions and older workers’ participation in the labour market. Existing areas of cooperation, such as occupational safety and health, skills development and social dialogue, will continue.
The agreement will support policy dialogue, knowledge-sharing activities and the exchange of good practices among ASEAN member states. Recent initiatives under the cooperation framework include the Leaders in Tripartism Programme in Singapore in April 2026 and the Global Dialogue on Digital Platform Work in September 2025, which brought together participants from more than 20 countries.
The renewed partnership reflects a broader focus on how ASEAN labour markets can adapt to technological change, ageing societies and new forms of work while maintaining decent work standards.
Why does it matter?
AI and platform work are reshaping labour markets faster than many policy frameworks can adapt. The ILO-Singapore partnership is not a binding regulatory measure, but it creates a regional cooperation channel for ASEAN governments, employers and workers to exchange approaches on skills, social dialogue, worker protection and decent work standards as employment models change.
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The Project Management Institute (PMI) has published a global standard for managing AI initiatives in portfolio, programme and project environments. The standard, titled ‘The Standard for Artificial Intelligence in Portfolio, Program, and Project Management‘, is intended to guide project, programme and portfolio teams delivering AI initiatives.
PMI said AI deployment within organisations is typically delivered through projects, including the development of AI systems, AI-enabled workflows and AI-powered products. The organisation said project professionals have lacked a dedicated framework for planning, governing and delivering AI transformation initiatives.
The standard establishes eight guiding principles, five performance domains and a lifecycle framework for designing, deploying and overseeing AI initiatives. PMI said the guidance is technology-agnostic and built around human-in-the-loop oversight at every stage.
The standard comes as governments and organisations continue to develop AI governance approaches, including risk-based regulation, transparency requirements, and accountability measures. PMI said the standard is intended to help project professionals integrate responsible AI governance into project delivery, from design and development through deployment and oversight.
The standard also addresses AI business cases, tool selection, AI-specific risk management, ethics oversight, and compliance with emerging requirements such as the EUAI Act and ISO 42001. PMI said the framework provides project leaders with a common language for aligning legal, audit, finance, technology and business teams around AI implementation objectives and governance requirements.
The standard is available as a free digital download for PMI members worldwide. Non-members can access the digital edition through purchase or PMI membership.
Why does it matter?
As organisations move from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale, attention is increasingly shifting from technical development to implementation, governance and operational oversight. Many AI initiatives fail not because of technology limitations, but because of challenges related to project management, risk management, stakeholder alignment and organisational readiness.
PMI’s standard reflects the growing effort to operationalise AI governance by translating broad principles into practical project delivery processes. It also highlights how emerging regulatory frameworks, such as the EU AI Act, are influencing the way organisations plan, manage and oversee AI-enabled transformation initiatives.
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New York lawmakers have passed legislation aimed at restricting ‘stealth crawlers’, automated bots that access and scrape content from news websites without identifying themselves. If signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, New York would become the first US state to impose such transparency requirements.
The bill would require companies operating such bots to identify themselves when accessing the websites of news organisations. It would also prohibit activity that damages, impairs or places undue burdens on news websites, or otherwise causes economic harm to publishers.
Supporters, including the New York State Broadcasters Association and the New York News Publishers Association, argue that undisclosed scraping allows technology companies to use journalistic content for AI and other automated services while reducing traffic and revenue opportunities for publishers.
The legislation would authorise the New York Attorney General’s office to take enforcement action against non-compliant companies, with civil penalties of up to $15,000 per day for violations. The measure was passed by lawmakers in New York and now awaits the governor’s decision.
Why does it matter?
The legislation reflects growing tensions between news publishers and technology companies over the use of online content for AI training, search services and other automated applications. Publishers increasingly argue that large-scale content scraping can generate commercial value for technology firms while undermining the business models that support journalism.
If enacted, the measure could establish one of the first state-level transparency frameworks governing automated content collection in the United States. It may also influence broader debates about AI training data, web scraping practices, publisher rights and the relationship between technology platforms and news organisations.
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The measures require Meta to reinstate access to the WhatsApp Business Solution for third-party AI assistant providers under the same terms that applied before 15 October 2025. Meta must comply within five working days and maintain access until the Commission adopts a final decision.
The Commission opened the investigation in December 2025 after Meta changed the terms of its WhatsApp Business Solution to restrict AI providers from using the service when AI was the primary service offered. In February 2026, the Commission sent Meta a Statement of Objections setting out its preliminary view that the conduct could breach the EU antitrust rules.
According to the Commission, Meta appears at first sight to hold a dominant position in the EEA-wide market for consumer communication applications through WhatsApp. It also said Meta may have abused that position by preventing competing general-purpose AI assistants from accessing and interacting with users on WhatsApp.
Meta revised its policy in March 2026 to allow third-party AI assistants back onto WhatsApp, but introduced a fee that the Commission said was, at first sight, equivalent in practice to the previous ban. The Commission warned that the conduct could harm competition at a critical stage in the development of the market for general-purpose AI assistants.
The substantive investigation remains ongoing, and the interim measures do not prejudge the Commission’s final decision. The Commission said it may impose fines or daily penalty payments if Meta fails to comply.
Why does it matter?
The case shows how the EU competition enforcement is moving into the emerging market for general-purpose AI assistants. WhatsApp is not only a messaging service, but also a major access point for businesses and users. If dominant platforms can limit rival AI assistants’ access to such channels, competition in AI services could be shaped before the market fully matures. The interim measures also signal that the Commission is willing to act quickly where it believes platform conduct may create serious and irreparable harm to competition.
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According to the Polish Press Agency, negotiations between the European Commission and EU member states on the development of AI gigafactories could conclude in June. The planned facilities are expected to be financed through the EU’s €20 billion InvestAI fund.
The initiative aims to establish five AI gigafactories across the EU to support the development of large-scale AI models and applications. Discussions intensified after revisions to the funding model required member states to commit financial support before the launch of a tender process limited to private companies and consortia.
Polish Deputy Minister of Digitisation Dariusz Standerski said Poland led a coalition of seven member states that opposed the revised framework and pushed for changes. He said negotiations are now close to a compromise that could strengthen the EU’s digital sovereignty and AI infrastructure ambitions.
Separately, Standerski said the Ministry of Digitisation is finalising proposals for a digital services tax of up to 3% on revenues generated by large technology companies operating in Poland. The draft legislation is expected to be published by early July in Poland.
Why does it matter?
The AI gigafactory initiative is a central component of the EU’s broader effort to strengthen its AI infrastructure and reduce dependence on non-European providers of computing capacity. Access to large-scale computing resources is increasingly viewed as a prerequisite for developing advanced AI models and competing in the global AI ecosystem.
The negotiations also highlight the governance challenges associated with large industrial policy initiatives. Questions around funding, public-private participation and member state involvement will shape how effectively the EU can translate its AI ambitions into operational infrastructure.
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The Commission framed the initiative as a fundamental shift in the EU’s approach to technology, underpinned by the recognition that digital dependence is no longer a market inefficiency to be tolerated, but a strategic vulnerability to be corrected through legislation.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that Europe cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep its hospitals running, its energy grids stable, and its services secure, calling on the EU to convert its research excellence, industrial base and single market into technological sovereignty.
The package is designed to broaden choice in core technologies for EU businesses, citizens and public administrations, and to position Europe to capture a larger share of a global semiconductor market projected to reach EUR 1.37 trillion by 2030, with AI-related components accounting for roughly 70% of that growth.
The timing reflects a specific convergence of pressures. The rapid spread of AI applications is driving a sharp increase in demand for data centre and cloud capacity that EU infrastructure cannot currently meet at scale. At the same time, longstanding dependence on non-EU suppliers for advanced semiconductor manufacturing, chip design and cloud services has become increasingly difficult to ignore as geopolitical tensions have demonstrated the economic risk of concentrated supply chains.
The 2022 US CHIPS and Science Act, generous subsidy regimes in Asia and tightening export controls on advanced semiconductor equipment have accelerated the global race for technological self-sufficiency, prompting Europe to adopt a more active industrial policy response.
Chips Act 2.0
The Chips Act 2.0 revises and expands the 2023 European Chips Act, which has mobilised more than EUR 52 billion in public and private investment, created an estimated 46,000 direct and indirect jobs and strengthened Europe’s research and innovation capacity in semiconductors. Despite this progress, the EU remains dependent on third countries for advanced chip manufacturing and semiconductor design.
The revised regulation is designed to accelerate Europe’s position across the entire semiconductor value chain, from raw materials and design to manufacturing and packaging, and to ensure that Europe captures a greater share of the growth in AI-related chip demand.
The proposal is structured around four objectives. On investment and competitiveness, the Act would cap permitting approvals at 12 months, introduce ‘Grand Challenges’ to support the development of strategically important chip types such as AI processors, and formalise Strategic Partnerships on Semiconductors with international allies.
To stimulate demand, it establishes Demand Accelerators to align new products with industry needs, expands innovation procurement, notably for European start-ups and scale-ups, and creates structural synergies with CADA to benefit from the data centre and AI Gigafactory buildout planned under that regulation.
On the supply side, the Act enables state aid for ‘First-of-a-Kind’ facilities not yet present in the Union, covering the full semiconductor value chain, designates strategic projects to unlock EU and member state co-investment, and creates a ‘Semiconductor Regions of Excellence’ label to attract investment at the regional level. To strengthen resilience, it establishes a business-to-business semiconductor supply chain platform and provides sector-specific guidance on risk assessment and mitigation.
The explicit linkage between Chips Act 2.0 and CADA reflects a deliberate industrial logic: European-made chips powering European cloud infrastructure, with demand from that infrastructure in turn supporting European chipmakers.
Cloud and AI Development Act
The Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) forms a central part of the Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan and simultaneously addresses two structural problems: insufficient EU cloud and data centre capacity to meet AI-driven demand, and strategic dependence on a small number of non-EU cloud providers.
The Act is designed to facilitate and accelerate the deployment of sustainable cloud and data centre infrastructure, while ensuring the EU accelerates the rollout of cloud and AI in critical sectors and retains meaningful control over the infrastructure on which that rollout depends.
The Act focuses on three main areas. On research, development and innovation, it supports next-generation cloud and AI technologies, including frontier AI, industrial AI, and physical AI, introduces grand challenges to drive R&D efforts, and promotes adoption in strategic sectors through national cloud and AI strategies and new Experience and Acceleration Centres for AI in member states.
On capacity, it targets at least a tripling of EU data centre capacity within five to seven years, simplifies and accelerates permitting, and improves access to energy, land, water and financing. On sovereignty and autonomy, it establishes a single EU-wide sovereignty classification framework, promotes open source solutions as a tool for resilience, and introduces a common EU-level procurement framework for public administrations.
The sovereignty classification system merits particular attention. It introduces four assurance levels for cloud and AI services, to be applied by public sector bodies based on their own risk assessments. Level 1 requires data to be processed and stored within the EU. Level 2 requires providers to demonstrate independence from third countries and transparency over their software supply chain.
Level 3 requires providers to be owned and controlled from within the EU and to meet additional criteria including personnel citizenship, although the Commission retains the ability to recognise third-country providers at this level. Level 4 requires full transparency and control over the software supply chain with no third-country interference.
Cloud service providers seeking recognition under this framework must undergo an independent audit conducted by member state authorities. The framework is significant because it creates, for the first time, a legally grounded and progressive definition of what it means for a cloud service to be sovereign, moving the concept from political rhetoric to a procurement-relevant standard.
EU Open Source Strategy
The EU Open Source Strategy is the non-legislative pillar of the package most directly aimed at reducing dependence on proprietary, non-EU software. It places open source at the centre of the EU’s technological sovereignty approach, arguing that open ecosystems reduce supplier lock-in, increase transparency and give European developers and public administrations greater control over their digital infrastructure.
The strategy addresses a persistent structural weakness: the economic value generated by open source projects has historically been captured outside Europe, limiting the ability of European developers and companies to benefit fully from their own contributions.
The strategy is organised around four objectives. The first, Open Source for Tech Sovereignty, focuses on scaling the Open Internet Stack, a Commission-curated catalogue of EU-aligned open source solutions, and promoting alternatives to dominant proprietary products in areas such as cloud platforms, workplace tools, secure e-mail and decentralised social media.
The work will be carried out in cooperation with member states through the European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for Digital Commons. The second objective, Vibrant Open Source Ecosystem, targets start-up support through accelerators and procurement access, alongside a stewardship toolkit for critical open source assets and investment in digital skills across schools, universities, and civil services.
The third objective, Open Source in Public Administration, sets out procurement guidelines that favour open standards, reinforces the Commission’s Open Source Programme Office (OSPO) and the EU Public Sector OSPO Network, and seeks to embed openness and sovereignty-by-design in digital investment decisions across EU institutions and member states.
The fourth objective, Reinforced Standards and International Outreach, promotes EU open source developers and solutions internationally through the EU Tech Business Offer, supports uptake in partner countries and integrates open source communities into standardisation processes, including through a forthcoming revision of the EU Standardisation Regulation.
The strategy also intersects directly with the other package components. On semiconductors, it targets open hardware development through the Chips Joint Undertaking’s RISC-V programme. On AI, it supports the GenAI4EU initiative and promotes open source tooling for public sector AI adoption through the Apply AI Strategy.
On digital identity, it prioritises open source implementation of the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) and the European Business Wallet. The strategy also interacts with the recently enacted Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which imposes new security obligations on open source projects that have generated concern in the developer community. The Open Source Maintenance Instrument and critical dependency mapping exercises set out in the strategy are designed in part to address those obligations, though reconciling the CRA’s security requirements with the growth objectives of the strategy will be a key implementation challenge.
Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy
The Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy is the least legally binding element of the package but arguably the one that determines whether its ambitions are physically realisable. The targets set by CADA, particularly the goal of at least tripling EU data centre capacity within five to seven years, cannot be achieved without a corresponding expansion in reliable, affordable power supply.
Data centres are energy-intensive by nature, and the AI workloads they are increasingly required to process are even more demanding. The roadmap addresses this constraint by setting out how AI and digital technologies can improve the efficiency and flexibility of Europe’s energy systems while also enabling the energy infrastructure that these systems need.
The roadmap connects the package’s digital ambitions to the EU’s energy transition objectives, creating a mutually reinforcing relationship: cleaner, smarter energy systems create more viable conditions for data centre expansion, while AI-enabled demand management and grid optimisation tools reduce the cost and environmental impact of that expansion. The roadmap is also relevant as a governance document, since the deployment of AI in critical energy infrastructure raises its own questions about cybersecurity, data sovereignty and the concentration of control over systems on which entire economies depend.
Governance and policy implications
The Tech Sovereignty Package raises several governance issues that extend beyond its immediate legislative content. The most significant concerns the model it establishes for EU industrial policy. The package marks a clear departure from the long-standing assumption in EU competition policy that market mechanisms and trade openness are the primary tools for achieving efficient and innovative technology markets.
The explicit use of state aid for strategic semiconductor projects, the joint procurement frameworks in CADA and the deliberate promotion of EU-origin suppliers both in public procurement and sovereign cloud classification illustrate a greater role for public intervention in the technology sector. Whether the EU’s trading partners, particularly the United States and major Asian semiconductor producers, will treat these provisions as proportionate industrial policy or as market-distorting intervention is likely to become a significant diplomatic issue.
The package also has important implications for the governance of AI in Europe. It operates in parallel to the EU AI Act and the work of the EU AI Office, but addresses a different layer of the AI ecosystem. While the AI Act focuses on the risk profile and compliance obligations of AI systems once deployed, the Tech Sovereignty Package governs the infrastructure and supply chains that enable AI development in the first place.
The relationship between the two frameworks matters as decisions taken at the infrastructure layer, such as the cloud sovereignty level applied to a given public sector AI deployment, can have downstream consequences for compliance with AI Act requirements. The relationship between these frameworks will be an important area to monitor as implementation progresses.
A further coordination challenge arises internally. The package spans multiple policy domains and directorates-general within the Commission, including DG CONNECT for semiconductors, cloud and open source, and DG ENERGY for the energy roadmap.
It also interacts with DG COMP on State aid approvals and with DG TRADE on the trade implications of sovereignty-oriented procurement rules. Ensuring coherence across these areas during the legislative process, and subsequently during implementation, will require stronger-than-usual inter-institutional coordination.
Legislative process and upcoming milestones
The two legislative proposals, the Chips Act 2.0 and CADA, need to enter the ordinary legislative procedure, meaning they will be negotiated separately by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union before trilogue negotiations between the two institutions and the Commission can begin.
Given the political and economic stakes involved, and the number of member states with competing interests in semiconductor investment locations and cloud market access, the negotiations are likely to be protracted. The original European Chips Act took approximately two years from proposal to final adoption, and CADA, which touches on the politically sensitive question of digital sovereignty vis-à-vis key trading partners, may encounter comparable friction.
Several near-term milestones are already in view. The Commission is expected to launch a call for AI Gigafactories in July 2026, following the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) Governing Board’s agreement in principle on 1 June 2026. AI Gigafactories are large-scale, purpose-built AI training facilities and represent one of the most concrete and immediately actionable elements of the broader AI infrastructure agenda.
Their deployment is intended to provide European researchers, start-ups and industry with access to the kind of computing capacity currently concentrated in the United States, and the July call will be an early test of the Commission’s ability to move from legislative ambition to operational delivery.
The Commission will also launch a consultation with member states, the European Investment Bank Group and other key stakeholders to design a European equity capacity at scale for financing tech sovereignty ambitions. This implies that the Commission does not believe grant funding and state aid alone will be sufficient to mobilise the investment required, and that a blended finance model, combining public equity with private capital, will be needed.
The EIB Group’s involvement points towards the kind of risk-sharing instruments it has used in other strategic sectors, although the specific structures and governance arrangements have yet to be designed through the consultation process.
Broader context
The package does not emerge in isolation. It sits within a cluster of interconnected EU strategic frameworks that have, over the past two to three years, progressively shifted the EU’s economic policy stance from market liberalisation towards what the Commission calls ‘open strategic autonomy’: the maintenance of trade openness where possible, combined with targeted interventionism to reduce strategic dependencies where necessary.
The Competitiveness Compass, adopted earlier in 2025 and drawing heavily on the 2024 Draghi report on European competitiveness, identifies reducing strategic dependencies as one of three pillars for restoring European economic dynamism. The Tech Sovereignty Package is the most operationally specific expression of that pillar to date.
The Economic Security Strategy, adopted in 2023, provided the risk-assessment framework within which the package sits, identifying advanced semiconductors, AI, quantum computing and biotechnology as the technological areas posing the most significant dual-use and strategic dependency risks for the EU. The Tech Sovereignty Package translates that risk assessment into concrete legislative and policy instruments, with semiconductors and AI infrastructure receiving the most direct regulatory attention.
The Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan, which positions Europe to become a global AI leader by focusing on computing infrastructure, data, skills, and adoption, provides the most direct policy antecedent for CADA in particular. The Tech Sovereignty Package fast-tracks the infrastructure ambitions of the Action Plan and adds the supply chain governance dimension that the Action Plan did not fully address.
Taken together, these documents represent a sustained and internally consistent shift in EU digital and industrial policy, one in which technological leadership is treated not merely as an economic aspiration but as a precondition for political and regulatory autonomy in an increasingly contested global technological order.
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In its latest fraud and scams advisory, the company said phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated, with criminals using adversary-in-the-middle techniques and QR code phishing, also known as quishing, to steal credentials and bypass security measures.
The advisory also highlighted risks linked to cryptocurrency investment scams, malicious finance applications and police impersonation schemes. According to Google, scammers are using AI, social engineering and trusted digital services to deceive users, obtain money and collect sensitive information.
Google said its Trust & Safety teams are using AI tools, predictive analytics and policy enforcement to detect and disrupt fraudulent activity across its services. The company also pointed to measures such as stronger protections for session cookies, enforcement against deceptive crypto ads, monitoring of post-installation app behaviour and developer identity verification for apps installed on certified Android devices.
The company urged users to be cautious of unsolicited communications, unrealistic investment promises, unexpected QR codes and requests for personal or financial information.
Why does it matter?
The advisory shows how online fraud is becoming a cross-platform governance problem rather than a narrow cybersecurity issue. Scams now rely on trusted cloud services, mobile apps, messaging platforms, crypto infrastructure and impersonation of public authorities. That creates pressure on major technology companies to strengthen detection, app accountability and policy enforcement, while raising broader questions about consumer protection, platform responsibility and digital trust.
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The US Treasury Department has acknowledged that cryptocurrency mixers may have lawful privacy uses, while warning that such tools remain vulnerable to abuse by illicit actors.
In a March 2026 report to Congress on innovative technologies to counter illicit finance involving digital assets, Treasury said lawful users may rely on mixers to protect sensitive financial information when transacting on public blockchains. The report said users may seek to conceal details about personal wealth, business payments, charitable donations or consumer spending habits.
Treasury distinguished between custodial digital asset services, including custodial mixers, and decentralised or non-custodial mechanisms that can operate without a central intermediary. Custodial services that accept and transmit value may be required to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as money services businesses, maintain records and file suspicious activity reports.
The report nevertheless stressed that criminals commonly use mixers, bridges and swaps to make illicit digital asset flows harder to trace. Treasury said mixing is frequently used by North Korea-linked cyber actors, money launderers, ransomware actors and darknet market participants.
Treasury also warned that stablecoins can form part of complex laundering processes involving mixers and other obfuscation techniques. According to the report, illicit actors may move stolen or fraud-linked assets through mixers and then swap them into stablecoins to break the traceable link to the original criminal activity.
The assessment was prepared under the GENIUS Act, which required the Treasury to examine innovative tools for countering illicit finance involving digital assets, including the role of mixers, tumblers and similar services.
Why does it matter?
The report shows the regulatory tension at the centre of digital asset policy: privacy tools can protect legitimate users on transparent public blockchains, but the same tools can also weaken AML/CFT controls, sanctions enforcement and law enforcement tracing. Treasury’s framing matters because future rules on mixers, DeFi, blockchain analytics and stablecoin compliance will need to balance financial privacy with security and illicit finance risks.
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The UK government will develop and test AI legal assistants as part of a broader set of technology initiatives aimed at reducing court delays and improving the efficiency of the justice system. The Ministry of Justice said the tools will support routine casework, including research and case analysis, before any possible use in the Crown Court.
The AI legal assistants will be developed in collaboration with legal professionals and AI developers, with initial testing taking place in controlled environments. The government said the trials will help establish standards for the safe and ethical use of AI in legal settings and ensure any future systems meet the expectations of judges and legal practitioners before wider deployment.
Judges are also preparing to test an AI tool designed to identify trial-ready cases and group similar hearings together. The government said the tool is intended to better use judicial, prosecutorial, and court resources, helping cases move more quickly for victims.
The announcement also covers Justice Transcribe, an AI tool now available to every probation officer in England and Wales. The tool records and transcribes conversations with offenders, reducing the administrative burden associated with transferring handwritten notes into digital systems.
According to the government, Justice Transcribe could free up the equivalent of 18,750 days annually, enabling probation officers to spend more time supervising offenders and supporting efforts to reduce reoffending. A similar transcription tool is being trialled in Immigration and Asylum Tribunals to support judges with case notes and reduce administrative pressure.
The projects form part of the Prime Minister’s AI Exemplars programme, which aims to accelerate the adoption of AI across public services. The government also pointed to AI Growth Labs, secure testing environments intended to help the UK lawtech sector develop and refine AI products before bringing them to market.
Why does it matter?
Justice systems around the world are exploring how AI can help address growing caseloads, administrative burdens and resource constraints. Applications such as legal research assistance, transcription services and case management tools have the potential to improve efficiency while allowing legal professionals to focus on higher-value tasks.
At the same time, the use of AI in judicial and legal contexts raises important questions about accountability, transparency, fairness and human oversight. The UK’s emphasis on controlled testing and ethical safeguards reflects growing recognition that AI deployment in the justice sector requires robust governance alongside technological innovation.
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