As AI adoption accelerates across every sector, the pressure is on for organisations to harness its potential — from boosting productivity to cutting costs and driving innovation.
But these benefits risk being lost without a clear, secure AI strategy in place. Without proper safeguards, businesses could expose sensitive data and erode customer trust just as quickly as they scale.
The real challenge is finding the balance: how can organisations unlock the power of AI while staying in control of their data?
The answer lies in robust strategy and governance. With the right foundations, AI tools can become a genuine competitive advantage — helping teams work smarter, save time, and innovate with confidence.
“Business leaders across the world are grappling with how to use AI tools effectively and safely to speed up processes and improve their organisations,” says OneAdvanced’s chief product officer Amanda Grant.
“Relying on tools that learn from the information uploaded is too risky. Organisations need confidence that their data remains safe.”
AI is being used increasingly across all sectors of the economy, including in healthcare, housing and finance.
In healthcare, it is reshaping how care is delivered and decisions are made by enhancing diagnostic accuracy, enabling more efficient administrative workflows and improving patient engagement.
In hospitals, for example, AI systems are being employed to forecast hospital resource demand, allocate beds and equipment more efficiently and to optimise supply chains.
Away from hospitals, Mastercall Healthcare, a social enterprise which provides outpatient treatments, has looked to OneAdvanced AI to reach its business goals and become more productive.
Their Large Language Model (LLM) is designed for business use and is tailored around a specific organisation and sector. Automation is embedded into the workflows within the software platform to provide a fully encrypted, private and closed service.
This is important because it addresses the growing concern around shadow IT.
A survey of 6,000 knowledge workers by Software AG reveals that half of those asked were using non-company-issued AI tools, and 46% admit they would refuse to give them up even if it were banned by their bosses.
Mastercall Healthcare’s director of digital innovation, Jonathan Ritchie, says implementing private, secure AI is now a critical necessity.
“This approach enables us to leverage AI’s capabilities while maintaining strict control over our sensitive data,” he says. “We enhance our security posture but gain the ability to customise our AI environment. This drives innovation without compromising on compliance.”
Indeed, the most effective and resilient innovative AI strategies are built on a foundation of secure data, and organisations need to know how and where their data is being processed, especially in mission-critical sectors where safeguards are vital to ensure personal data is not shared outside of their own organisation.
In fact, companies can face large fines if they claim customer data is being processed in one territory, but in reality it is being handled somewhere else.
The new OneAdvanced AI software platform offers complete UK data sovereignty.
“If you do not have controls on how your data is used, it can be used in ways that weren’t intended. You could be breaking the law as well as putting your business at risk,” says Grant. “You need to know where your data is going when you switch on an AI tool. With our platform your data is fully processed, backed up and recovered in the UK.”
Organisations often worry about balancing innovation at pace with security. There is clear evidence that when there is a robust AI strategy in place and tools are integrated effectively, there can be massive productivity gains.
Many organisations are already benefitting from AI’s ability to solve complex problems using their business’s own data. This can be central to innovation around product development or finding new ways to raise customer revenues.
Grant accepts that for most organisations, implementing AI will be a stepped journey as they balance real and perceived security risks.
She urges companies to experiment with AI to devise or trigger innovative ideas or concepts that will benefit them and the business by solving current challenges.
Her advice is not to focus just on the short term and the next step, but to think about what full autonomy could mean for your business and the workstreams that it can transform.
“It’s a necessity to build the foundations today to ensure that you keep pace with the shifting landscape,” she says.
“The first step of the journey is to learn what AI can do for your organisation. Often, there needs to be a shift in mindset and an education of employees, especially as the pace of change in AI speeds up.”
Grant suggests creating a no-risk playground where people have the freedom to try innovative ideas with AI to familiarise themselves with the technology and learn how it can make the business more successful and their jobs easier. This might be a simple task, such as using AI to summarise a meeting.
AI assistants can free people from admin-heavy tasks, such as comparing a procurement policy with supplier contracts to check compliance.
It can also improve efficiency using Retrieval-Augmented Generation. This is where the technology accesses organisation-specific documents and data to tailor responses from the LLM.
It can connect to external sector-specific data sources, such as legal databases, to understand and answer questions. An AI tool could then be used to help draft a tailored response to a complaint by crafting a reply around the company’s policies or procedures.
OneAdvanced’s CEO Simon Walsh sums up the dual challenge facing organisations today: managing a rapidly evolving technology landscape while driving strategic growth and maintaining operational efficiency.
“By coupling innovation with robust security standards, it is possible to drive economic growth while protecting sensitive data,” he says.
“Our OneAdvanced AI platform represents a crucial step forward in ensuring that organisations can seize these opportunities without risk.”
His message is clear — in an AI-driven future, progress and protection must go hand in hand.
Q&A: OneAdvanced’s chief product officer Amanda Grant on building secure strategies
How easy is it to understand AI’s strengths and opportunities and to be secure?
Secure-by-design AI must be a key player in cultivating innovation. You need to identify areas where AI can automate tasks, provide insights and enhance user experiences to accelerate your business’s ‘jobs to be done’.
For successful AI adoption, employees need to clearly see how it adds value to their work. While younger team members may adapt to AI seamlessly, older staff might need extra support and guidance to understand how it can simplify their responsibilities and boost productivity. With the right approach, AI can become a valuable ally for every member of your team.
When it comes to using AI and defining business objectives, how should the two work?
It is important to communicate effectively how AI will help a business achieve its goals. The first task is to define what those goals are by analysing what problems the organisation needs to solve, and then to work out which of these opportunities could be capitalised on if AI were used. Of course, you must ensure you have robust metrics in place to measure success.
Set up a governance framework, including a steering committee, guidelines and user training to ensure effective AI adoption and use. This will help employees to understand, for example, the risk of using shadow IT as well as appreciate how AI can help in their role and the wider business.
Securing data and using data effectively to fuel innovation is crucial here, so how do we get this right?
Firstly, place safeguards to ensure that sensitive data is not exposed, then it is about considering the quality, accuracy and availability of the data you gather to enable AI to improve workflows. It is also crucial that you think carefully about where the data is processed, and you are transparent about how and where it is handled. The new OneAdvanced AI software platform offers complete UK data sovereignty..
There are so many AI suppliers in the market – how do you evaluate who is the best partner?
The best advice is a complete assessment of any potential suppliers’ security, integration, scalability and customer support to ensure they meet your specific business requirements. Other things to consider include how data is managed and whether the supplier has experience within your sector.
Should we invest in a Large Language Model (LLM) when devising AI strategy?
It can be a good idea because these are widely available, powerful and low-cost. However, as you begin the process, take time to think seriously about how you will secure your company’s data. You must choose a platform that enables you to safely and effectively integrate these tools into your business AI journey.
What’s the strategic approach to deciding the extent of AI’s role in your operations?
It’s scary to think that we may be the last generation to rely solely on a human workforce for routine tasks, but as a person, you get to select the future that works best for your organisation. To begin, you might focus on partially automated workflows where AI agents offer a cost-effective, low-maintenance alternative and free up your team to do higher-value work.
When you are ready, the next step is to use an agentic system where AI agents evolve from tools into collaborators and are capable of making decisions, handling tasks independently and operating with minimal human oversight.
You could then move to high autonomy, where systems manage complex workflows across departments or platforms. They will adapt to new information and adjust actions dynamically, with human input only sought when necessary.
For instance, in healthcare, document summary AI is being used by health professionals to summarise and highlight key information. The sector is also using Generative AI to draft medical documents, and AI to triage patients to save time and improve accuracy.
Eventually, you might want to have full autonomy where AI fully owns the process and operates without human intervention. This will be a future destination for many business operations, especially those requiring speed, scalability, and consistency.
One of the biggest risks within any secure AI strategy comes from Shadow AI – what is the advice here when educating employees?
To minimise the risks associated with shadow AI, businesses must implement clear, practical policies that go beyond blanket bans.
While most employees recognise the cybersecurity and data governance risks of unauthorised AI tools, many still use them for the productivity benefits they offer.
Instead of relying on prohibitions alone, organisations should provide approved, effective alternatives and define what responsible AI use looks like across teams.
Ultimately, the goal isn’t to stifle innovation, but to enable it safely, ensuring that efficiency and security go hand in hand.
For more information, please visit: www.oneadvanced.com
As AI adoption accelerates across every sector, the pressure is on for organisations to harness its potential — from boosting productivity to cutting costs and driving innovation.
But these benefits risk being lost without a clear, secure AI strategy in place. Without proper safeguards, businesses could expose sensitive data and erode customer trust just as quickly as they scale.
The real challenge is finding the balance: how can organisations unlock the power of AI while staying in control of their data?
