Nicola Hodson, from Widnes, leads the tech giant in the UK and Ireland

The ‘woollyback’ UK boss of tech giant IBM says we shouldn’t be scared of AI – and says Liverpool could become a world technology leader.

Widnes native Dr Nicola Hodson, a former Liverpool Harriers runner who got her PhD at the University of Liverpool, is now one of Britain’s tech leaders.

As UK & Ireland CEO at IBM, she was back in Liverpool this week for the city region’s first ever AI Summit which saw world leaders in the field debate AI and its future at an event in Boxpark in the Baltic Triangle.

Nicola, the event’s keynote speaker, told the crowd that she was originally from Widnes – and smiled: “To all the Scousers in the room, I am officially a woollyback.”

Later she spoke to the ECHO about her life and career, and explained why she thought people should embrace AI rather than fearing it.

While AI has had a lot of media hype, Nicola says the technology is starting to have a real world impact. She said: “Actually we think it’s gone from hype into reality and we’ve got lots of customers who have got production use cases out there now delivering real business benefits.

“One simple example – we worked with University Hospitals, Coventry and Warwickshire. the Health Trust. Like every other trust, they have long outpatients waitlist. And one of the challenges with that is no-shows.

“So we did a piece of process mining and AI on the outpatients waitlist – scanning all the letters, understanding them in super quick time. It took 18 hours… and it would have taken humans four years to do. So a massive time saving.

“But the big saving is that they’ve been able to now have 700 more doctor hours a week, which is massive. And if you think about scaling that across the NHS, then, you know, suddenly you’ve got a 5% to 6% productivity gain on a fairly simple AI use case.”

With that hype comes a fear that AI will take jobs. Nicola says she understands the fear, but says people should look again at what has happened in the past.

She said: “In every wave of technology, there’s been a fear that it’s going to take jobs and it so far hasn’t.

“People said ‘the Internet is going to take all the jobs’ – but what happens is some jobs do disappear, but not many. Most jobs change because they adapt to use the new technology.

“And then there are a whole plethora of new jobs – an AI prompt engineer, for example, you wouldn’t have known what that was a couple of years ago. So there’s potential for growth in jobs and high quality jobs.

“And I think if people are fearful, it’s worth just remembering that when the Internet came, there was the hype cycle. There was some nervousness, but actually it’s changed all our lives for the better.”

Why you should try AI for yourself

But if people are fearful about technology, Nicola said, they should try it for themselves to see what it can do.

“The very best thing you can do is just get on and play with it. Try it out. Get over the fear factor. Just try some simple case use cases.

“I’ll give an example. One of my sons is at university. He came home with research papers that were really, really difficult. And he said, ‘I’ve been through these and on this one, I just don’t even understand what it’s actually saying’. So do you think AI will help me? I said, I’ve no idea. Let’s try it.”

After trying a couple of standard large language model (LLM) AI systems, they tracked down a science-focused LLM instead.

Nicola said: “We put the paper through it and lo and behold, what he got was the short paragraph summarizing the paper in layman’s terms with a bit of science. And then when he read the paragraph, he got it, and then he could go and do his homework.

“It’s not doing the work for him, but it’s just getting him over that first step. I didn’t know what was possible in that scenario either. So go on and play. It’s all there.”

Get ready for the jobs of the future

Her other suggestion is that people should learn AI skills themselves so they are ready for the AI-powered jobs of the future.

She said: “Tech companies like us offer free training so you can skill yourself up. When I’m interviewing people and they’ve gone out and got skills for themselves, they have a massive head start, right? They’re enterprising. They want to learn. They come in and fire on all cylinders.

“So we have something called IBM SkillsBuild. We’re trying to train 13 million people globally in digital technology. We are looking to train 2 million in AI by the end of 2026. It’s all free. And other tech companies have similar programs. So that’s the way I think about fear and overcoming it. “

Nicola went to school in Widnes and then Liverpool — and even ran for Liverpool Harriers. She did her first degree and then her PhD at the University of Liverpool before moving into the nuclear industry with BNFL.

Her career took her to companies including consulting giant Ernst & Young (now EY) and Siemens. She joined Microsoft in 2008, spending 14 years there, before joining IBM in 2023.

IBM employs several thousand in the UK. It has a key research base at Daresbury in Halton and also has bases at locations including Manchester, London, Hursley near Winchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Its key business areas include AI and hybrid cloud computing – while it is also carrying out cutting-edge research into quantum computing.

Nicola said Liverpool was well-placed to become an AI superpower.

She said: “The growth is incredible. The Liverpool City region is supplied with some great tertiary education in all different forms. There’s already expertise here. You’ve got the life sciences hub, you’ve got excellence in creative design, you’ve got excellence in engineering, you’ve got obviously excellence in medical sciences and biomed. So lots of great kernels.

“And of course, the city’s always been known for its enterprise since way back when. There’s pioneering new tech, and you’ve got great industry around here.”

And Nicola said the AI Summit was a great effort to get things started.

She said: “The perfect combo is to get academia, small businesses and ad large businesses working together. And the fact that we’ve got the city region providing that coordination point bodes really, really well.”