The Independent reports that researchers are urging Ofcom to examine how AI-generated “news” and ad-monetised misinformation can spike after major incidents, with recommendations aimed at crisis-response and clearer chatbot limitations. The practical governance signal is a shift from content moderation debates to ad-network incentives and regulator-led enforcement questions.
Regulation
- GOV.UK has published a draft Statement of Strategic Priorities for telecoms, spectrum, and post that explicitly flags AI as part of the growth and innovation agenda, positioning Ofcom’s work as enabling reliable AI-powered applications alongside security and resilience goals. For AI governance, it is a useful “direction of travel” document because it frames AI as a mainstream regulatory consideration in communications policy rather than a standalone tech policy topic.
Cases
- UK Supreme Court judgment in Emotional Perception AI Limited v Comptroller General of Patents held that the claimed ANN-based system was not excluded as a “computer program … as such”, meaning the Court backed the claimant’s route to patentability and rejected the UKIPO’s refusal on that ground. The immediate effect is that AI and software patentability arguments will now be run against the Supreme Court’s reasoning rather than the Court of Appeal’s exclusion approach in this case.
Academia
- IPKat reports from the EPO’s Search and Examination Matters 2026 event, highlighting how “human in the loop” expectations are being discussed in practice and how examination culture is responding to LLM-era patent drafting and prosecution. For AI governance audiences, it is a useful window into how administrative practice can shape de facto standards even before formal doctrine shifts.
- npj Digital Medicine has published “Advancing healthcare AI governance through a comprehensive maturity model based on systematic review”, proposing a maturity-model approach to operationalising governance across healthcare AI settings. The relevance is practical: it translates “governance” into assessable organisational capabilities rather than abstract principles.
Events
Westminster Forum Projects is running an online conference on 26 February 2026 on next steps for AI use in the justice system and courts modernisation in England and Wales, covering implementation, assurance, and safe and fair deployment issues. It is directly aligned with AI governance practice in public-sector decision systems and court administration.
Takeaway
The governance story here is AI moving deeper into formal control points: patent doctrine, regulator priority-setting, and justice-system deployment planning. At the same time, misinformation risks are being reframed as an enforcement and incentives problem rather than a purely platform-speech problem. Healthcare governance work is converging on maturity models that can be audited and improved over time.
Sources: The Independent, GOV.UK, UK Supreme Court, IPKat, npj Digital Medicine, Westminster Forum Projects