DRCF AI and Digital Hub — the UK's Cross-Regulator Advice Pilot: 20 Innovators Advised, 8 Case Studies Published

In April 2024 the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (the CMA, FCA, ICO and Ofcom) launched the AI and Digital Hub as a 12-month pilot offering informal advice to innovators whose questions cut across at least two regulators' remits.
Over the year the Hub advised 20 innovators and published eight anonymised case studies drawn from real queries, covering topics such as risk management for third-party software defects, financial-promotion advertising rules and data considerations for AI compliance tools. Some applications were not progressed because they did not meet entry criteria or lacked information.
The DRCF's own insights report and a law-firm commentary (Freshfields) both record that most queries concerned AI, that innovators reported clearer regulatory expectations, and that differing regulator risk appetites sometimes led to extended discussions and mismatched expectations about turnaround time. Benefits are self-reported; no outcome measurement beyond case studies is published.
The pilot ended in April 2025 and was succeeded by a thematic innovation hub, initially on agentic AI. It is a small-scale, voluntary advisory model rather than a sandbox with legal waivers, but offers a transferable template for joint regulator support of public-sector-adjacent AI.

Read the full analysis: https://www.drcf.org.uk/ai-and-digital-hub