Innovate UK has unveiled the winners of its inaugural Agentic AI Pioneers Prize, marking a major step in the government’s ambition to position Britain as a global leader in next-generation artificial intelligence.

The competition, delivered in partnership with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, attracted more than 200 applications from across the UK’s high-growth sectors, highlighting the depth of innovation in areas such as advanced manufacturing, healthcare and the creative industries.

Designed to accelerate the commercialisation of “agentic AI”, systems capable of acting autonomously, collaborating with humans and managing complex workflows, the prize aims to support companies developing real-world applications of the technology.

The top award of £500,000 was granted to Danu Insights for its “Agentic Digital Twin Builder for the Life Sciences” platform.

The technology enables researchers to simulate biological systems and identify the most promising experimental pathways, helping to address growing complexity in drug discovery and biomanufacturing. By integrating modelling, validation and experiment planning into a single system, the platform is designed to reduce costs and accelerate the development of new therapies.

The judges highlighted its potential to deliver faster, more efficient and more sustainable innovation across the life sciences sector.

Two additional awards of £250,000 were presented to companies operating in advanced manufacturing and the creative industries.

In manufacturing, Singular Machine was recognised for CoEngen, a multi-agent engineering platform that coordinates design processes across disciplines using shared data models. The system allows engineers to optimise complex systems more quickly while maintaining traceability and safety standards.

In the creative sector, Tellme was awarded for a solution that delivers real-time, personalised museum experiences via smartphones. The platform enables visitors to interact with exhibits dynamically, receiving tailored information without the need for additional hardware, potentially transforming how audiences engage with cultural spaces.

Agentic AI represents a shift beyond traditional automation, focusing on systems that can take initiative, adapt to changing conditions and collaborate with human users. Applications range from industrial design and regulatory compliance to clinical decision-making and immersive digital experiences.

The competition demonstrated how these capabilities are already being applied to solve practical challenges, rather than remaining confined to theoretical research.

Sara El-Hanfy, head of AI and machine learning at Innovate UK, said the prize is intended to help promising companies move from early-stage innovation to scalable deployment.

“Our ambition is to support the companies set to shape the future of agentic AI and unlock its potential to drive growth across key sectors,” she said.

The initiative forms part of a broader strategy to position the UK at the forefront of AI development, particularly in areas where advanced technologies can deliver economic and societal impact.

By targeting sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare and creative industries, the programme aligns with the government’s industrial strategy priorities, focusing on areas where the UK has both strong research capabilities and commercial potential.

As AI continues to evolve, the emphasis is shifting from experimentation to implementation, with businesses seeking technologies that can deliver measurable productivity gains and competitive advantage.

The Agentic AI Pioneers Prize highlights how UK startups are beginning to translate cutting-edge research into practical solutions, with the potential to reshape industries and drive economic growth.

For Innovate UK, the challenge now is to ensure these early successes translate into scalable businesses capable of competing globally, reinforcing the UK’s position in the rapidly intensifying race for AI leadership.

Amy Ingham

Amy is a newly qualified journalist specialising in business journalism at Business Matters with responsibility for news content for what is now the UK’s largest print and online source of current business news.

“Project Hail Mary” is setting records for Amazon MGM and lighting the path for a box-office revitalization.

The science fiction flick, starring Ryan Gosling, has tallied more than $300 million globally since its theatrical opening two weeks ago. That marks the best performance for an Amazon MGM film ever.

“The runaway success of ‘Project Hail Mary’ represents a key turning point for Amazon MGM giving the distributor its first $100 million plus domestic box office earner,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.

“Project Hail Mary” has held notably strong at the box office since its debut, with only a 32% drop in ticket sales from its first weekend in the U.S. to its second and a nearly unheard of 5% decline internationally. A typical Hollywood blockbuster will see a 50% to 70% drop in ticket sales from opening weekend to the second weekend after the rush to the theater fades.

“When Amazon showcased ‘Project Hail Mary’ at CinemaCon exactly one year ago, it was clear the studio had big plans in mind,” said Shawn Robbins director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “After two incredible weekends so far, the movie is a major contributor in year-over-year box office gains.”

Domestically, the film has tallied about $165 million, helping to prop up first-quarter box-office numbers alongside Disney’s “Hoppers” and Paramount’s “Scream 7.” Through Sunday, the domestic box office has tallied $1.75 billion so far this year, up 23% from the same period last year.

Back in 2022, e-commerce giant Amazon and relative upstart movie studio MGM promised to spend around $1 billion each year on theatrical releases, a figure that would fund between 12 and 15 films annually. Last year, the company said it had 14 titles lined up for 2026.

This surge of theatrical content is just what the domestic box office needs. While blockbuster franchise films have been abundant in the wake of the pandemic, the overall number of wide releases has shrunk over the last decade. Even before Covid and dual Hollywood labor strikes slowed production down, Hollywood was making fewer and fewer movies each year, according to data from Comscore. 

At the same time that studios were altering their film slates, movie houses were merging. The most recent union between the Walt Disney Co. and 21st Century Fox, first announced in 2017 and finalized in early 2019, resulted in the loss of between 10 and 15 film releases annually, Comscore data shows.

The pending merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery has Hollywood fearful of even fewer theatrical releases.

While Paramount has said it is committed to releasing 15 films from each studio, it’s unclear if the combined company will be able to keep up with that kind of production.

In the meantime, Amazon appears poised to fill a gap in the schedule.

The company’s upcoming slate is a diverse offering of films: Coming this year are features like “The Sheep Detectives,” a comedy murder mystery due out in May, the action-packed “Masters of the Universe” set for June and “Verity,” a psychological thriller adapted from the Colleen Hoover book of the same name, arriving in October.

Like “Project Hail Mary,” which is based on the book by Andy Weir, “Verity” may benefit from a built-in fanbase of readers who want to see the story translated to the big screen.

“Bottom line, ‘Project Hail Mary’ is the studio’s new gold standard for what they can accomplish in the world of cinema,” Robbins said. “That’s good news for an entire industry still adapting to the tailwinds of shorter windows, consolidation, and ever-evolving consumer habits. You can bet every studio, even the old guard, in the business will be looking at the takeaways from Amazon’s success with this film. The power of the moviegoing experience is on full display right now.”

Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango.