15 AI Trends from Top CTOs and VCs in London
We hosted a private CTO & VC roundtable in London this week at Home House London, together with Next47 the global venture capital firm built for enterprise founders.
👩💼 10 Enterprise CTOs
💰 2 Venture Capital Investors
🧠 15 AI Trends directly from CTOs and Venture Capital 👇
Key takeaways of the session:
🔹 AI is 99% hype… but no one wants to miss the 1% that changes everything, CTOs are terrified of buying the wrong AI tool. But equally terrified of being left behind.
🔹 Big Tech is bluffing, FANGs are overselling AI capability to protect valuation — but insiders aren’t buying it.
🔹 The real AI boom? It’s still early. Think 1997, If we’re in a dot-com-style cycle, the bust is a few year off. And the big winners haven’t even launched yet.
🔹 CTOs are building in-house, not buying, The best tech leaders are building up their internal teams and skipping vendor noise. Build > Buy.
🔹 Agentic AI is not the same as AI Agents — and that difference matters, This will separate the serious products from the gimmicks.
🔹 Vibe Coding is real, Engineers are coding by intuition, supported by LLMs.
🔹 AI is a tool, but it’s not the goal, Smart CTOs are the ones that focus on outcomes, not shiny features.
🔹 UK start-ups could dominate Europe if they pay closer to US salaries, They’d attract leading AI talent and massively increase their odds of success.
🔹 Building lean is now the norm, The trend is fewer hires, smaller headcount, and sharper execution.
🔹 The job market is a mess, Hiring is increasingly automated, cold, and frustrating — great people are not getting hired due to lack of human interaction through the process.
The view from Venture Capital:
🔻 Series A funding in London sits between £2M–£8M, In the US? It’s $10M–$20M. No wonder UK Seed and Series A founders are moving Stateside.
🔻 100+ AI decks a week. Almost no revenue, Investors are drowning in slides and starving for traction.
🔻 Technical founders who won’t hire sales, marketing, HR or ops = 🚩
VCs are walking away from “brilliant but stubborn” founders…
💯 Legal, Cyber, Pharma, Real Estate = AI hot zones, If you're building in these sectors, now is your moment.
My take:
UK companies are sleeping on the opportunity. Talent is cheaper and available v the US. With US funds looking for high growth opportunities outside North America . The window’s wide open.
🙌 Big thanks to Kate Reznykova 🇺🇦 and Edward Kyei for the VC insight, and all the CTOs who joined to make a very great evening.
Got questions about how these upcoming AI trends will impact your hiring strategy, the job market today or further information about this event - chat with us for a confidential discussion.