On 20th October 2025, the Artificial Intelligence Collaboration Centre (AICC) launched Northern Ireland’s first Responsible AI Hub: a practical online toolkit designed to help businesses use artificial intelligence safely, transparently and credibly.

AICC is a £16.3m, five-year initiative led by Ulster University in partnership with Queen’s University Belfast, supported by Invest NI and the Department for the Economy. Its purpose is to strengthen responsible business adoption of AI across Northern Ireland.

The business reality is straightforward. Many SMEs are already using generative AI to support everyday activity, drafting content, summarising information, analysing data, improving customer communication and streamlining internal processes. In many cases, however, this use is informal. Policies are unclear. Responsibilities are not documented. Staff are unsure where the boundaries sit.

For our members, this is less about abstract debates and more about practical risk management. How is sensitive information handled? Who checks outputs before they are shared? What happens if an error occurs? Without structure, even small efficiencies can introduce unnecessary exposure.

The Hub’s value lies in helping firms put proportionate guardrails in place. Through its Responsible AI Tools, it centres on CAGE (Core Assessment of Governance & Ethics), enabling businesses to build a simple, reusable governance framework. This includes project-level assessments, data documentation, risk consideration and internal policy guidance.

In practice, this supports confident adoption while reducing exposure relating to data protection, confidentiality, intellectual property and reputational risk, the issues most likely to damage client relationships or disrupt operations.

As AI becomes embedded in day-to-day business activity, structured oversight will increasingly differentiate resilient organisations from reactive ones.

Takeaway:

The Responsible AI Hub offers SMEs a practical way to move from informal experimentation to controlled, confident use of AI.

Check out the Responsible AI Hub here.