AI Openness Update Report
“From Agentic to Public Good in 2025”
Released on 3 July 2025
Updating OpenUK’s December 2024 AI report, this update captures the shift in language from open source AI to AI Openness and Public Good or Public Interest AI. It brings never-before-seen data on global, European and UK AI openness and agentic AI, with thanks to Hugging Face, GitHub, Scarf and Runa Capital, a literature review of 30 reports in 2025 led by Research Director Dr Jennifer Barth, a global policy update, and cutting-edge agentic AI thought leadership from the founder of Scotland’s AutoGPT and others.
Report Includes:
Introduction and Conclusion
- Introduction: AI Openness and Public Good in 2025, Amanda Brock, CEO, OpenUK
- Conclusion, Dr Jennifer Barth, Research Director, OpenUK
Fireside Chat
- Global AI Policy in 2025, Ben Brooks, Fellow, Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University
Thought Leadership
- Current AI, A Global Partnership for Open and Public Interest AI, Martin Tisné, Founder, Current AI
- Agentic AI, Toran Bruce Richards, Founder, AutoGPT
- DSIT, Identity, and AI Agent Security, outputs of the DSIT hackathon with the hyperscalers, Andrew Martin, CEO, ControlPlane
- Identity, Sal Kimmich
- Securing Agentic AI, Matt Barker
- Quantum Readiness, Securing AI and Public Trust, Isabelle Mauny and Richard Steel
Policy Update
- 2025 policy landscape: the Open Weights Definition from the Open Weights Alliance, the Global AI Summits from Bletchley to Paris and on to India, and a UK policy roundup covering the untabled AI Bill and the Copyright consultation
Data
- The 2025 data to 31 May: UK landscape (LinkedIn skills data, public sector data, Scarf download data, GitHub repository data), global rankings and growth, Europe, agentic AI and cybersecurity data
- Literature review of 30 reports from the 2025 reporting landscape
Executive Summary
This 2025 AI Update Report reflects a fast-evolving global landscape in which AI openness is no longer a fringe topic but a strategic, economic and ethical imperative, increasingly framed as a digital public good.
The policy landscape
- Harvard Fellow Ben Brooks explains the removal of the US Presidential Executive Order, the impact of over 1,000 US state and federal bills, and his view that the EU may well not enforce the AI Act despite current work on a Code of Conduct
- In the UK, the AI Bill announced a year earlier had yet to be tabled, while the Copyright consultation caused friction between the creative sectors and tech
- The Paris AI Action Summit launched two important Public Good initiatives, ROOST and Current AI, with Current AI founder Martin Tisné sharing an overview
What the data shows
- Using Hugging Face repository data for the first time alongside GitHub, the UK is globally third in AI that is open, a 19% increase from 2024, but outpaced by India (38%), France (26%) and the US (23%)
- The US retains its number one global position with 1,080 repositories exceeding 1,000 stars; France is the fastest growing in Europe while the UK remains Europe’s number one by repository count
- LinkedIn skills data shows more is needed in the UK; the Prime Minister responded with a skills programme and £1bn of funding for compute
The year of the agent
- 2024 was the year of the LLM; 2025 is the year of agentic AI, Scotland’s AutoGPT still reigns supreme in agents that are open
- AutoGPT founder Toran Bruce Richards argues that restricting agents’ access, as many demand on security grounds, removes the fundamental value agents bring; companion pieces explore identity, agentic trust and quantum readiness
The literature review: openness as the UK’s edge
- Across 30 reports: the UK leads in AI market size but faces structural barriers; generative AI is democratising access; open source AI is now a strategic priority; infrastructure and governance remain bottlenecks; and a national focus on AI openness could be the UK’s leading edge
- The report reframes the narrative from competition to stewardship, urging bold actions, inclusive investment and renewed public trust
Press Release and Related Press
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