Exponential-e partners with Conscium to advance AI agent safety and adoption

The purpose of the collaboration is to advance AI agent assurance and governance capabilities, by bringing together Exponential-e's expertise in delivering secure, sovereign enterprise infrastructure, with Conscium's state-of-the-art AI verification capabilities. Together, the two companies will provide customers, including those in highly-regulated industries, with a robust framework to test, govern, and safely deploy AI agents in real-world environments.

The partnership comes as organisations across the world begin to deploy intelligent AI agents at scale, with billions of agents expected to be launched over the next few years. Research from Gartner found that 40% of all enterprise software applications are predicted to include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from just from under 5% in 2025.

Conscium's platform enables organisations to evaluate AI agents rigorously, before and during deployment, ensuring that they operate consistently as intended, and do not exhibit unsafe or unintended behaviours. The platform uses a multi-agent storyteller concept similar to gaming, with non-player characters (NPCs) testing the subject agent's ability to perform the role for which it has been designed.

The partnership builds on Exponential-e's recent appointment of Dr Daniel Hulme as Strategic Advisor. Dr Hulme is Founder and CEO of Conscium and brings extensive experience in building, assuring, and scaling advanced AI systems within complex environments.

Jonathan Bridges, Chief Innovation Officer at Exponential-e, said:

As organisations move from experimenting with AI to operationalising intelligent agents at scale, assurance becomes critical. It is no longer enough for AI systems to be powerful. They must be trustworthy, verifiable, and suitable for deployment in environments where security and sovereignty are essential.

Exponential-e works across a wide range of sectors and is trusted to deliver secure and resilient enterprise services at scale. Through this partnership with Conscium, we intend to accelerate our capability to support customers deploying AI agents safely and responsibly across both public and private sector environments.

Jonathan Bridges - Chief Innovation Officer at Exponential-e

Dr Daniel Hulme, co-founder and CEO of Conscium, and adviser to Exponential-e, said:

The UK has a real opportunity to lead in the development of trusted and sovereign AI. Exponential-e works with a large and diverse customer base and is trusted to operate at the heart of complex enterprise and public sector environments.

By enhancing Exponential-e's depth of industry experience with Conscium's expertise in agent verification and advanced AI research, we can help organisations move beyond experimentation and into the safe and effective deployment of intelligent agents that deliver meaningful outcomes."

Dr Daniel Hulme - co-founder and CEO of Conscium, and adviser to Exponential-e.

Ed Charvet, Co-founder at Conscium, said:

AI agents are rapidly evolving beyond proof-of-concept into autonomous systems capable of planning, decision-making, and real-world action. As deployment scales across enterprise environments, rigorous verification has become a foundational requirement. Organisations need certainty that agents will operate precisely as designed and remain within defined parameters.

Conscium's platform has been designed to support this next phase of adoption, enabling the verification of AI agents operating within secure and sovereign enterprise services across both public and private sector environments.

By combining specialist teams with deep experience in delivering secure, sovereign, and mission critical services, we are creating a transformative capability that helps organisations deploy AI agents safely, responsibly, and at scale.

Ed Charvet - co-founder at Conscium.