The UK partnership sets a new benchmark for trusted AI deployment with advanced sovereign technology.
LONDON, 6th March 2026 - Exponential-e, the UK-based IT services company, has partnered with Conscium, a leading UK AI safety start-up, to accelerate trustworthy AI adoption across the public and private sectors.
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.
Dr Daniel Hulme - co-founder and CEO of Conscium, and adviser to Exponential-e.
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."
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.
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Exponential-e appoints Dr Daniel Hulme as Strategic Advisor to accelerate end-to-end AI capabilities
Exponential-e has announced the appointment of globally recognised AI specialist Dr Daniel Hulme as Strategic Advisor. This marks a significant step in the company's evolution, building on its established strength in the secure platforms, connectivity, and high-performance compute that underpin modern intelligent systems, and enabling it to serve as a trusted partner in the design and delivery of fully assured, end-to-end AI capabilities.
In his new role, Dr Hulme will work closely with teams across the Exponential-e Group to support this journey, shaping assured, outcome-driven AI systems that can operate safely and effectively at scale. This includes agent assurance, advanced algorithm generation, and the design, deployment, and governance of transformational solutions within complex and highly regulated environments.
Dr Hulme is a globally recognised AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor. He is widely recognised as one of the Top 10 Chief AI Officers worldwide for his work at WPP, following its acquisition of Satalia in 2021. He is also recognised for creating and scaling sovereign AI businesses that have delivered measurable value in enterprise environments, including Faculty (which Accenture has agreed to acquire) and Conscium – a research organisation focused on the rise of machine consciousness and the long-term implications of increasingly autonomous AI systems. This track record underlines his ability to take advanced AI capabilities beyond the research and engineering phases to deliver large-scale commercial and operational impact.
Alongside his commercial work, Dr Hulme serves on the Impact Board of the University of St Andrews Computer Science, where his work focuses on the business, ethical, and societal impact of advanced technologies, advocating for their responsible adoption. He is also a highly regarded keynote speaker, advising governments and enterprises globally on the future of AI.
Commenting on the appointment, Jonathan Bridges, Chief Information Officer at Exponential-e, said:
AI has moved beyond experimentation. From intelligent agents to next generation customer experiences, organisations now require AI systems that are not only powerful, but assured, explainable, and suitable for real world deployment.
I have worked with Daniel for more than 20 years, and his depth of expertise across research, engineering, and large-scale delivery is exceptional. His involvement will help us convert raw AI capability into trusted solutions that deliver measurable outcomes, even in the most challenging environments.
Jonathan Bridges
Exponential-e works with a large and diverse customer base across the UK economy, spanning sectors such as healthcare, critical national infrastructure, defence, and professional services. What stands out is the level of trust placed in the organisation to deliver secure, sovereign, and resilient digital platforms at scale.
Dr Hulme
As AI becomes more embedded in core operations, particularly in regulated and mission-critical environments, organisations need partners that can combine deep infrastructure capability with assured, responsible AI development. Exponential-e is uniquely positioned in this regard, with the foundations, governance, and customer reach already in place.
I am looking forward to working with the team to help evolve that strong platform and compute capability into end-to-end AI systems that are trustworthy, explainable, and capable of delivering meaningful transformation across multiple sectors of the UK economy.
With this appointment, Exponential-e reinforces its position as a trusted partner that not only delivers AI's underlying foundation, but enables organisations across the UK to design, assure, and operationalise the full range of its capabilities.
Dr Hulme will be a keynote speaker at a planned London event in April, sharing his insights into unlocking this technology's true business value.
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