New polling from YouGov shows that 47 per cent of British adults would back a tax on work carried out by AI – with just 20 per cent against it.
That kind of margin is hard to ignore, especially for a Government that is keeping one eye on public finances and another on the next election.
So, could the UK one day introduce a tax on AI and what form might it take?
This is not a fringe idea that has drifted in from the edges of political debate. Across the Atlantic, OpenAI has already gone on record calling for a tax on automated labour in the United States, alongside proposals for a public wealth fund and economic safety nets tied to job displacement caused by AI.
South Korea got there first. Since 2017 the country has effectively applied a form of robot tax by reducing the tax deductions available to businesses that invest in automation.
The European Parliament looked at a more direct version the same year, rejected it, and channelled its energy into regulation instead, which eventually produced the EU AI Act in 2024.
The UK has not yet had that conversation in any serious policy forum but the conditions are forming for this to potentially happen within the next few years.
Look at the polling breakdown and the numbers tell an interesting story. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green voters support an AI tax at 55 to 58 per cent.
Even 38 per cent of Conservative voters back the idea, against 27 per cent who oppose it. That is a cross-party consistency that can’t be ignored and it is exactly the kind of distribution that can shift policy faster than most businesses expect.
Entrepreneurs like Charles Radclyffe have added their voices, calling publicly for a minimum wage equivalent for robots, which means that the political building blocks are in place for tax reform in this area.
The case against is not simply about protecting corporate interests. A paper from the Brookings Institution published in January 2026 described taxing the underlying infrastructure of AI in stark terms, comparing it to taxing steel during the industrial revolution.
Clearly then, a poorly targeted AI tax could slow the very investment the UK economy needs to stay competitive against the US, Germany, South Korea and China.
The more credible alternative being discussed among economists is a tax not on AI as a technology but on the services AI delivers.
Think of it as closer to indirect taxation, similar in logic to VAT, where the output is taxed rather than the input.
This type of approach would aim to capture value without punishing the investment and underlying technology behind it, which would help to keep UK tech companies competitive.
Right now, this is policy speculation rather than policy, however, the YouGov findings suggest there is real public appetite for it.
This type of feeling amongst voters tends to have a way of shortening the distance between conversation and legislation.
Expect the topic to appear in Budget submissions and party manifestos within the next twelve to twenty-four months.
If something does move forward it is likely to start narrowly defined and broaden from there, as tax policy usually does.
For businesses currently investing in AI there is no reason to apply the brakes just yet and there is likely to be a greater incentive to use technology to support your work, even if a tax is introduced.
If you would like to talk through how to structure your AI investment in the current environment, our team is here to help.
