I'm Katie Prescott. This bonus episode of the Times Tech podcast is brought to you in partnership with IBM.

IBM brings together technology, infrastructure, software and expertise, and has consulting services for business across the world.

It's got a long history of being at the forefront of tech and adapting

AI tools and developing quantum computing. With the AI revolution at the moment, many

business models around computer services are again in flux. So IBM's been putting together

something of a roadshow to explain how it's adapting and looking at how AI may be

changing what we see as productivity, asking what businesses need to do in the new age of AI,

and what's holding people back from joining in with this change. And to find out more about how

IBM is meeting all these challenges, I sat down first

with Leon Butler, who's their chief executive for IBM, UK and Ireland, and then Dr Juan

Benabe Moreno, who's the director of IBM research in Europe. So to Leon Butler first,

and his excitement about this new age of technology for

businesses like his. AI really landed, I think, in the public consciousness, generative

AI really landed in the public consciousness, as fair to say, in November 2022, which is almost exactly three,

well, which is exactly three years ago this month. And now it feels like it's everywhere.

Yeah. And I just wonder what your reflections are on this rather wild three-year period

that we've seen and how things have changed for you and customers in that time. Yeah. It's accelerated incredibly

quickly. The one thing I saw immediately were how many people dived into AI. A lot of pilots

were kind of kicked off. But people, I think, can see very quickly productivity gains,

which was great across the world. I think in the UK and Ireland, and certainly UK in particular, I mean, the government

see it, right?

I mean, they've got their AI opportunities plan and they feel that it would generate

...