Red Hat Survey Explores the AI Sovereignty Gap and Disruption Risk Posed to UK Businesses

• 67% of UK IT decision makers say they have an AI “exit strategy” ready to deploy if their primary AI provider were to restrict access, but 43% say switching would have moderate to significant impact on business continuity.
  
  
• 45% report only partial visibility over where their data is stored, processed, and potentially accessible.
  
  
• 87% use agentic AI systems, but only 25% say they have strong governance in place.
  
  
• 89% want public policy and regulation to mandate open source principles to support AI sovereignty; well above the EMEA average of 77%, and ahead of France (70%) and Germany (72%).
  
  

Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced new survey results highlighting how UK organisations are approaching Sovereign AI.

The findings, which also cover France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, reveal a gap between preparedness and resilience. While 67% of UK IT decision makers report having a defined exit strategy if their primary AI provider were to restrict service access, 43% of those organisations still would expect a moderate or significant impact on business continuity from this event.

The survey responses indicate that AI sovereignty, meaning control over data, infrastructure and provider relationships, has moved from aspiration to operational priority in a majority of cases.

Agentic AI is popular, but governance lags behind

Adoption of agentic AI, meaning systems that can take actions and trigger workflows autonomously, is high across UK enterprises. 87% of surveyed UK IT decision makers say they already use agentic AI systems, meaning that the UK sits slightly behind some of its European peers, with agentic AI systems used by 91% in France and 90% in Germany.

Only 25% of those surveyed reported strong governance frameworks for agentic AI, while 43% said they have some governance but with gaps, and a further 17% admitted governance is basic or minimal. Across all countries surveyed, 64% of organisations report having some or strong governance in place, suggesting governance maturity is still developing across the region as adoption accelerates.

AI sovereignty and open source move centre stage

As AI becomes embedded in core business processes, 93% of surveyed UK organisations say they have complete or partial visibility over where their data is stored, processed and potentially accessible, with 48% reporting complete visibility. With 45% admitting visibility is only partial, full AI sovereignty is clearly still a work in progress. Overall visibility is higher in Germany at 97%, with lower rates across the rest of Europe, including 90% in the Netherlands and Italy.

To close that gap, 80% of IT decision makers surveyed see open source as providing greater control over how AI is built and where it runs, demonstrating its role as a foundation for avoiding AI lock-in and strengthening sovereignty. Over the next three years, respondents say the most valuable open source benefits for building trust in AI will be transparency and easier auditability (87%), more customisation for business and regulatory needs (82%), and greater control over how AI is built and where it runs (80%).

The UK is also receptive to policy‑driven standards for trustworthy, sovereign AI. 89% of respondents agree that public policy and regulation should actively mandate open source principles, such as transparency, auditability and open source licensing, to help organisations achieve AI sovereignty. This positions the UK as one of the strongest advocates for this approach across EMEA—well above the regional average of 77%, and ahead of France (70%) and Germany (72%). The near-consensus across UK respondents points to an alignment between industry priorities and regulatory direction on what trusted AI should look like.

Supporting Quotes

Joanna Hodgson, Country Manager, UK, Red Hat

“AI platforms are increasingly part of UK organisations’ critical infrastructure. Many have written exit strategies in preparation for any challenges, but our survey shows that actually executing a switch without disruption remains difficult. To close that gap, enterprises need greater control over how and where AI runs, and a consistent way to govern fast‑moving technologies like agentic AI. Enterprise open source gives UK businesses the transparency, flexibility and shared innovation they need to treat AI as a resilient, sovereign capability.”

Hans Roth, Senior Vice President & General Manager EMEA, Red Hat

“Across EMEA, boardroom conversation has moved beyond experimentation to how AI can be deployed in a way that meets sovereignty, security and regulatory expectations. The survey results show strong support for open source principles and for clear policy frameworks that embed transparency and auditability into AI. That tells us organisations are not looking for another closed, one‑size‑fits‑all stack; they want the freedom to combine different models, accelerators and clouds while staying in control.”

Methodology

The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 500 IT Decision Makers across the following markets: 100 x UK 100 X Netherlands 100 x France 100 x Germany 100 x Italy (Aged 25+). The data was collected between 20.03.2026 - 31.03.2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. We adhere to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

• AI refers to artificial intelligence systems used in your organisation, including generative AI (such as large and small language models), predictive AI and machine learning.

• AI sovereignty means having control over where and how AI runs, what data it uses, and the ability to switch providers or models without being locked in.

• Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can take actions and trigger workflows autonomously, not just answer questions.

ABOUT RED HAT
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