{"id":668172,"date":"2026-09-02T05:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T05:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668172\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T05:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T05:20:13","slug":"architect-of-british-governments-ai-strategy-joins-anthropic-anthropic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668172\/","title":{"rendered":"Architect of British government\u2019s AI strategy joins Anthropic | Anthropic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The architect of the UK government\u2019s AI strategy has joined the US startup Anthropic<\/a> in a senior role a year after stepping down from his Downing Street post.<\/p>\n

Matt Clifford, a successful tech investor, was appointed as AI opportunities adviser by Keir Starmer last year but resigned from the unpaid role six months later for personal reasons.<\/p>\n

Clifford is moving to Anthropic as managing director, international affairs, and will lead the company\u2019s engagement with governments outside the US including in the UK, Europe, Asia-Pacific and India.<\/p>\n

Anthropic said Clifford would remain as chair of government-backed Aria<\/a>, the UK\u2019s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, which funds \u201cmoonshot\u201d science and tech projects. He will also maintain his chair role at Entrepreneurs First, the tech venture capital firm he co-founded.<\/p>\n

A not-for-profit campaign group said the move raised questions about the \u201crevolving door\u201d between government and industry for former government advisers as well as ministers.<\/p>\n

The path from elected office to Silicon Valley is already well-established after the former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg took a senior role<\/a> at Meta in 2018, followed last year by the former prime minister Rishi Sunak taking advisory roles<\/a> at Microsoft and Anthropic \u2013 and the ex-chancellor George Osborne joining OpenAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clifford, 41, said the most important decisions about AI would be made by companies and governments \u201ctogether\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cCountries everywhere want real agency over how this technology is built and used, and my job is to make Anthropic a genuine partner in that \u2013 in Europe, Asia and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthropic, the developer of the Claude chatbot, is preparing for a stock exchange flotation that could value the business at $2tn (\u00a31.5tn).<\/p>\n

Tom Brake, the chief executive of Unlock Democracy<\/a>, a not-for-profit campaign group, said the move showed \u201cthe revolving door is a problem for advisers as much as it is for ministers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking extensive knowledge obtained within government, about a policy as sensitive as AI to a private sector company shortly after leaving government gives that company a huge advantage,\u201d said Brake, a Liberal Democrat MP from 1997 to 2019.<\/p>\n

Beeban Kidron, the crossbench peer and prominent critic of the government\u2019s AI policy, said: \u201cWe need more independent politics, which puts the interests of workers, citizens and society at the forefront of our relationship with the tech sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

MP Chi Onwurah, Labour chair of the science, innovation and technology committee, said Clifford had made a \u201csignificant contribution\u201d to domestic AI policy and movement between the public and private sector should be allowed.<\/p>\n

But she said it was a matter of \u201csome concern\u201d that he was taking his knowledge to a global AI player so soon after leaving government.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI hope he will use his skills and experience to promote responsible AI to Anthropic rather than promoting irresponsible AI to the UK government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

An Anthropic spokesperson said the UK was \u201cone of dozens\u201d of governments Clifford\u2019s team would engage with. \u201cWe hire people with expertise and who understand how government works because our work requires it \u2013 in every market, not just the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to his government work, Clifford was already an established figure on the UK tech scene as a co-founder of Entrepreneurs First, which has helped build tech companies with a combined worth of more than $20bn.<\/p>\n

Clifford had worked with Sunak\u2019s government as the former prime minister\u2019s representative to the 2023 AI Safety Summit in the UK, and helped create the organisation that later became the world-leading AI Security Institute.<\/p>\n

He was appointed as Starmer\u2019s AI adviser after drafting the government\u2019s AI action plan<\/a>, which supports the creation of AI growth zones to host datacentres and the building of the UK\u2019s own AI models.<\/p>\n

He was appointed chair of Aria in 2022. It is understood that he will step back from any matter involving Anthropic at Aria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The architect of the UK government\u2019s AI strategy has joined the US startup Anthropic in a senior role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,19,17,82],"class_list":["post-668172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}