Is there £175,000 of government money waiting for my AI project?
Free money, free tools, and the compliance change you actually need to know about
Jeff Brook
AI Researcher — Founder, AI Daily News
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Three things you can act on this week: there's government grant money sitting unclaimed, Shopify just made it free to get your products into AI shopping results, and Xero can now write your invoices from a text message. Plus a compliance change that's actually worth understanding.
Is there £175,000 of government money waiting for my AI project?
Relevance: 5/5 — direct cash for qualifying businesses
The bottom line: Two grants are open right now — one up to £175,000 for AI innovation, one up to £20,000 for manufacturing tech — and most eligible businesses will never apply because they don't know they exist.
Innovate UK is funding AI Champions: Frontier AI Phase 1. If you're a UK-registered SME with an early-stage AI idea in health, advanced materials, or security, you can apply for up to £175,000 (they cover 70%, you cover 30%). Applications close 29 April — five weeks from today.
Separately, the Made Smarter programme offers match-funded grants up to £20,000 for manufacturing SMEs adopting digital tools — plus free workshops and digital assessments. It's rolling, no deadline, and covers most of England including London.
The admin hack: Open ChatGPT or Gemini this afternoon and paste in your business description. Ask it: "Based on this business, draft a 200-word summary of how we could use AI to improve our operations, suitable for an Innovate UK grant expression of interest." That gives you a starting point to share with the grant application team. Total time: 15 minutes.
Can my Shopify products show up inside ChatGPT?
Relevance: 4/5 — free visibility channel, zero cost
The bottom line: One toggle in your Shopify admin puts your entire product catalogue into AI-powered shopping conversations — customers find you without ever searching Google.
Shopify launched what they're calling Agentic Storefronts in their Winter '26 update. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Microsoft Copilot "where can I buy [your product]," your items can now appear directly in the answer. No advertising spend. No SEO work. Just a switch.
The admin hack: Log into Shopify, go to Settings, find the AI Storefronts toggle, and turn it on. Then ask ChatGPT to search for your product category and see if your listings appear. The whole thing takes five minutes and costs nothing.
Can Xero really write my invoices from a WhatsApp message?
Relevance: 4/5 — hours saved weekly on admin
The bottom line: Xero's new AI assistant, JAX, lets you create and edit invoices by sending a chat message — via the app, WhatsApp, SMS, or email — and handles bank reconciliation automatically.
If you're on an eligible Xero plan, you can enable JAX in beta right now. Instead of logging in, finding the client, filling in the fields, and hitting send, you text something like "Invoice Smith & Co £450 for March consulting" and it's done. It also gives you plain-English answers about your cash position.
The admin hack: Open your Xero app, check if JAX beta is available under settings, and enable it. Send your first test invoice via WhatsApp. If it works, you've just eliminated the most tedious 30 minutes of your week.
Should I worry about the new automated decision rules?
Relevance: 3/5 — affects any business using AI to score, filter, or rank people
The bottom line: New rules phasing in through June 2026 mean that if you use any AI tool to make decisions about people — screening CVs, scoring leads, approving credit — you now have to tell them and let them challenge it with a human.
The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is changing how automated decisions work. The good news: you can now use legitimate business interest (not just consent) to justify automated decisions, which simplifies things. The catch: you must notify individuals when an automated decision is made about them, and you must offer a way to contest it with a real person. The ICO is also actively reviewing AI recruitment tools, so if you use automated CV screening, this applies to you directly.
The admin hack: Open your AI writing tool and ask it: "Draft a short notification email template that tells a job applicant their application was assessed with the help of AI tools, and explains how they can request a human review." Save the template. You'll need it before June.
Is Copilot finally worth the money for my team?
Relevance: 3/5 — pricing change makes it easier to test
The bottom line: Microsoft 365 Copilot is now available month-to-month (no annual lock-in), and there's a 35% bundle discount for teams of 10-300 until 30 June.
Microsoft dropped the annual commitment requirement for Copilot. You pay about 20% more per month than the annual price, but you can cancel any time. The new SharePoint grounding feature means Copilot can pull answers from your own business documents — not just generic knowledge. The bundle discount for 10-300 seats expires end of June.
The admin hack: Pick two people on your team who spend the most time on email and documents. Sign them up for a one-month Copilot trial. At the end of the month, ask them one question: "Did this save you more than an hour a week?" If yes, roll it out. If no, cancel — you're not locked in.
Bottom line: There's real money on the table this week — grants, free tools, and flexible pricing — but only for the businesses that actually go and grab it. The compliance stuff matters, but it's not urgent until June. The grants close in five weeks.
That's today's briefing. Subscribe free to get this in your inbox every morning.