Businesses trying to navigate the uncertain artificial intelligence (AI) regulation landscape should not attempt to predict what will happen and instead make gradual adjustments, according to an AI governance expert.

Speaking on an episode of GlobalData’s Instant Insights podcast, Simon McDougall, chief strategist for privacy and AI at business intelligence company ZoomInfo and a senior adviser to law firm Bristows, pointed to the quickly changing regulatory space for AI and diverging approaches among major players as creating unpredictability. “There won’t be certainty for a while, so it’s not a matter of making a really good guess on what’s going to happen and then being very fixed about it – it has to be iterative,” he said of how businesses should approach the matter. McDougall noted the differing regulatory directions of the EU and the US in particular as complicating the landscape, with the European bloc rolling out the “comprehensive legislation” of the its AI Act while the new Trump administration across the Atlantic favouring deregulation. “It’s quite likely it’s going to be a bit of a void for a while,” he said of the US. “In the end, maybe some bad things will happen and then there’ll be a response to that. But, right now, what you’re seeing is a dismantling of some federal agencies and a kind of a slowing down of others – and no great appetite for new federal law.”

As a result, McDougall expects “a patchwork of state regulation” to be develop – a likelihood also outlined in GlobalData’s recently published The Global AI Regulatory Landscape report. That in itself is an issue GlobalData believes will result in businesses having to invest more time and money in compliance. McDougall also noted that the diverging approaches to AI regulation of the EU, the US and, indeed, China could create a role for the UK. “The UK is absolutely trying to find a space – I think has the opportunity to find a space – where it can be an interlocutor between the various other players,” he said. “And we’re focusing right now for simplicity on the UK, the US, and the EU, but obviously China is a massive player, so to be that kind of broker is important.”