Ofcom, the Office of Communications, is the United Kingdom's communications regulator and the regulator for online safety under the Online Safety Act 2023. It is one of the 13 regulators to which the UK Government wrote in 2024 asking for an update on their strategic approach to AI (Human Rights and the Regulation of AI (Joint Committee on Human Rights, HC 160, September 2026)). Under the UK's sector-led approach to AI regulation, Ofcom's AI role is confined to AI used within the services it regulates.
Online Safety Act enforcement
The Online Safety Act 2023 applies to user-to-user and search services and requires them to identify, mitigate and manage risks from illegal content and content harmful to children. The Act does not refer to AI as such but covers providers that use AI in a regulated service, and Ofcom addressed generative AI and chatbots in an open letter to UK online service providers of 8 November 2024. Ofcom must produce codes of practice and guidance and has powers to require information, investigate, impose penalties and apply to court for business-disruption orders. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 gives the Secretary of State power to extend the Act's provisions to AI services (Human Rights and the Regulation of AI (Joint Committee on Human Rights, HC 160, September 2026)).
Enforcement began in March 2025. Ofcom designated 4chan a covered platform in April 2025, fined it, and opened an investigation against a further website (It's Too Soon To Tell If the TAKE IT DOWN ACT Is Working (Cuevas, Tech Policy Press, May 13 2026)). See Synthetic Media / Deepfakes.
Position on AI regulation
Andrew Breeze, Ofcom's Director for Online Safety Technology Policy, told the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 4 February 2026 that "[o]ur powers to regulate AI are really at the deployment and use-case level, to the extent that they fall within the sectors that we have been given powers by Parliament to regulate." He said misinformation or discriminatory content online would fall outside Ofcom's remit except "to the extent that it rises to the level of criminal activity," and Ofcom described AI chatbots and AI image generators as "edge cases" not squarely within its remit. Ofcom said it talks often with the ICO and the EHRC to identify areas of concern, and the Minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan, said the AI Security Institute coordinates with Ofcom "to try to ensure that Ofcom's regulatory functions are being appropriately deployed upstream" (Human Rights and the Regulation of AI (Joint Committee on Human Rights, HC 160, September 2026)).
On capacity, Ofcom told the committee that the pace of AI change was its biggest challenge in this area but that it was confident it had the resources to meet it, having focused on hiring technologists. On the committee's proposal for a single AI oversight body, Ofcom said a coordinating body, if established, should delegate to existing regulators in areas within their expertise. The committee nonetheless recommended an independent statutory AI oversight body with its own enforcement powers (Human Rights and the Regulation of AI (Joint Committee on Human Rights, HC 160, September 2026)).
Relationships
- regulates: online user-to-user and search services under the Online Safety Act 2023, including their AI features
- related: UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) — regulators with overlapping AI-relevant remits
- related: UK AI Safety Institute (AI Security Institute) — coordinates with Ofcom on upstream risks
- related: Human Rights and the Regulation of AI (Joint Committee on Human Rights, HC 160, September 2026) — evidence to the JCHR inquiry
- related: CDEI and DSIT (UK) — the sector-led UK regulatory approach
- related: TAKE IT DOWN Act — the US notice-and-takedown comparator to Online Safety Act enforcement