AI Adoption Among Businesses Surges, Risk Concern Lags
Artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is becoming ubiquitous among large organisations, with most investing in and experimenting with the technology to enhance their commercial efficiency and reach.
According to a YouGov poll commissioned by Dentons in December 2025, 90% of respondents from 500+ UK organisations employing more than 250 people said AI was used in their commercial operations.*
The responses from key decision-makers across the businesses polled also demonstrated high levels of awareness of how and where AI is being used in their organisation.
Among the top AI-adopting industries, according to Dentons’ poll, were finance and accounting; IT and telecoms; media, marketing/advertising/PR and sales; and real estate – all scoring above 90% for commercial utilisation of the technology.
Slightly slower adopters, which nevertheless still scored over 70% for commercial AI implementation, included healthcare and education.
Of all those surveyed, fewer than half (48%) of businesses said they were concerned about the litigation risks associated with AI deployment to any significant degree.
Risks of AI Usage
With 48% of respondents reporting they were either “very” or “fairly” concerned about AI-related litigation, the issue is evidently a mainstream one, but by no means an overwhelming preoccupation.
This is surprising given the breadth of litigation risks associated with training AI models.
These risks include potential intellectual property (IP) infringement claims, data protection and privacy claims, bias and discrimination challenges, product liability and negligence claims linked to harmful or inaccurate outputs, and consumer protection concerns.
Among the most anxious industries according to Dentons’ survey, where AI-related litigation was a concern for more than half of the market, were Construction – already a highly litigious sector – at 63% very or fairly concerned (although the survey respondent base size for this industry was relatively low); IT and telecoms at 58%; and retail at 51% (but notably also from a smaller respondent sample size).
Why Aren’t Businesses More Concerned?
The perhaps unexpected composure among those surveyed regarding legal action related to their use of AI may partly reflect an understanding that the law, in the UK and internationally, is still catching up with AI.
It may also reflect a growing reliance on contractual risk allocation and suppliers’ willingness to grant warranties and indemnities in AI procurement and deployment contracts, leaving many businesses feeling less exposed to immediate risk.
However, given the relatively early days of such contractual mechanisms, it remains to be seen whether these approaches genuinely reduce organisations’ actual exposure, including litigation risk, from AI deployment.
The Intellectual Property Question
Regarding IP litigation risk, the UK government has yet to provide clear policy direction following its consultation on copyright and AI.
Further, recent litigation has not delivered the clarity many rightsholders and AI developers were expecting.
In what was anticipated to be a watershed case for IP and AI, the primary infringement claims in Getty Images v. Stability AI did not proceed to trial following a jurisdictional challenge, leaving the core infringement issue unanswered.
Getty illustrates the practical difficulties for rightsholders in enforcing copyright. AI development and deployment are effectively borderless, and legal standards are not internationally harmonised, complicating questions of jurisdiction, applicable law, and remedies.
Despite the lack of certainty, the market for licensing content to AI developers is gaining traction, leading to the development of AI models trained on licensed data and reducing litigation risk related to their use.
Regulating AI
Away from IP, more broadly, the last few years have seen a growing number of claims for compensation and/or damages related to AI-generated mistakes across industries, from accountants to airlines, that have led to harm or losses.
Arguably, as legislation develops, there will be less room for litigation as states and regulators develop clearer policies, but time will tell how this plays out.
The EU is the clear global leader in AI regulation, as the EU AI Act is the first comprehensive attempt to regulate AI globally.
Promulgated in July 2024, the EU AI Act has a general date of application of 2 August 2026, with full implementation expected by 2027.
However, the EU Digital Omnibus initiative of the European Commission, launched in November 2025, seeks to streamline the EU AI Act (as well as related legislation, such as the GDPR and the Data Act) and may result in the postponement of certain provisions of the Act, creating further uncertainty for organisations about how these will apply and when.
In any event, it is to be expected that the EU AI Act will directly impact many UK businesses with operations in the EU. While there is no set UK policy on AI, in mid-2025, the government issued a strong indication of its ambition to bring forward legislation to regulate the technology.
While businesses may have different reasons for their attitudes to AI litigation risk, Dentons’ YouGov poll data suggests that AI is near the top of most organisations’ agendas.
Many are likely adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach to determine how national and international legislators and judges will respond to the issues AI presents, and to adjust their strategies accordingly.
By Jennifer Cass and Antonis Patrikios
Jennifer Cass is an intellectual property and media specialist partner in the TMT practice at Dentons.
Antonis Patrikios is a partner and co-chair of the Global Privacy and Cybersecurity group and Head of the Global TMT sector group at Dentons.
*All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc—the total sample comprised 546 senior decision-makers from larger businesses (250+ employees). Fieldwork was undertaken between 1 and 10 December 2025. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all senior decision-makers in large businesses (250+).
