Ofcom has published its strategic approach to AI for 2026/27, setting out how it intends to support the safe and secure adoption of AI.

The publication follows the Government’s call earlier this year for regulators to demonstrate how they will support ‘AI-powered innovation’. A similar response has also been published in recent weeks by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which we discuss here.

In addition to setting out various steps that it has taken recently to better understand and respond to AI’s effects on sectors within its remit (particularly in the area of online safety), Ofcom outlines its planned work for the year ahead, including:

• Research on trust and AI chatbots, including the implications for online safety of ‘AI companions’;
• Continuing to address deepfake intimate image abuse and synthetic child sexual abuse material;
• Understanding how AI is being used across UK broadcast, production, and the wider media sector, and whether it can support Ofcom in analysing content at scale.

Ofcom also identifies agentic AI as an emerging area of focus, highlighting a range of potential risks across the sectors it regulates. For example, it considers the risk of no-code software development increasing the number and efficiently of cyber attacks, a lack of transparency if AI agents automatically price content when broadcasters and creators sell clips to third parties, agentic recommender agents leading to limited exposure of certain content, and the impact on freedom of expression if AI agents are used to moderate content on platforms.

To read the Strategic Approach in full, click here.