Ben Chisell, chief executive officer of London-based payments technology company Paysend, limits access to artificial intelligence tools for his employees. He told CNBC that he is a "very cynical man" regarding the current hype surrounding the technology, though he acknowledges its value. Chisell estimates that Paysend can now deliver around 25% more engineering work with the same-sized team, but he argues that achieving these results is not as simple as distributing the latest technology to everyone.
Chisell, who previously worked at Amazon, eBay and Starling Bank, restricts AI tools to his highest-performing employees, often only after they have demonstrated their capabilities. He warned that in the wrong hands, AI can magnify bad habits such as laziness and poor judgment. His broader management rule is to resist the "fear of missing out" and focus instead on customer problems. Chisell noted that his approach may sound unglamorous compared to the current trend of "tokenmaxxing," but he believes it is critically important.
This strategy contrasts with the actions of several other major British companies. Lloyds Banking Group has rolled out 40,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, with the bank stating that 97% of employees who have one are actively using it. Newcastle-headquartered software company Sage reported that its AI coding tools saved hundreds of thousands of work hours. Meanwhile, London-based professional services firm Grant Thornton UK has encouraged all staff to use Anthropic’s Claude as part of a £500 million ($660 million) investment in AI.
However, U.K. government research published in January suggests these widespread adoptions do not automatically translate into financial gains. The study found that while three-quarters of businesses using AI reported improved workforce productivity, 77% said their revenue had not changed.
Lokdeep Singh, CEO of British enterprise software company Unily, shares Chisell’s view that AI should be reserved for high-performing employees. Singh described AI as a "superpower" and expressed wariness toward companies using it primarily to cut costs. He told CNBC that he believes organizations should use AI to expand ambition rather than reduce team size, though he acknowledged that many industries are currently focused on cost-cutting due to the macro environment.
At Paysend, new hires are given one month to experiment with AI tools and explain their achievements before gaining broader access. Chisell recently tested this policy with a new search engine optimization lead who requested access to Claude. A month later, the employee informed Chisell that he no longer needed the general-purpose tool, finding it useful only for producing briefs more quickly. The employee subsequently suggested building a dedicated content-brief agent, which he is now developing.
CoreView, a London-based software company, took a different initial approach. CEO Simon Azzopardi told CNBC that the company was initially "very gung-ho" on AI and initiated a widespread rollout for its software engineers. Developers now coordinate teams of AI agents for tasks including coding, quality assurance and documentation. Azzopardi said work that previously took weeks can now take days. However, he warned that AI-generated work is not necessarily productive if employees use it to build things outside their expertise, stating, "You feel more efficient, but you actually aren’t."
Despite these efficiencies, CoreView has been hiring rather than cutting staff. Azzopardi noted that when onboarding a major customer in the U.K.’s National Health Service, the company only needed to add one engineer while continuing to deliver other projects. Chisell believes companies will thrive if they help employees move into new roles rather than replacing them once their work is automated. He emphasized that customer-service workers possess valuable skills for resolving complex issues across a business. For Chisell, technology should never replace human responsibility.
"Having a human in the loop shouldn’t mean human CC’d," Chisell said. "It should mean human ownership."