Your commercial news round-up: UK economy slowdown, solar eclipse, Twitch AI models, Spotify AI Persona

Reading time: four minutes

UK economic growth has lost some momentum, with GDP expanding by 0.4% in the second quarter of 2026 and Great Britain’s electricity grid operator prepared to spend millions on backup power as a near-total solar eclipse threatened to disrupt renewable energy generation. Meanwhile, Twitch has faced criticism after allowing Amazon to use creator and audience content to train AI models by default and Spotify is introducing new labels for AI-generated artists as it responds to concerns about transparency on the platform. Read on for LawCareers.Net’s pick of this week’s top commercial stories.

• UK economic growth has slowed in the second quarter of 2026, with GDP increasing by 0.4% in the three months to June, down from 0.6% in the first quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures suggested that the economy has remained relatively resilient despite disruption linked to the conflict in the Middle East. Services output grew by 0.5% during the quarter and construction by 0.3%, while industrial production, including manufacturing and energy, was unchanged. Within the services sector, information and communication businesses recorded the strongest growth, rising by 2.7%, driven by computer programming activity. GDP increased by 0.3% in June alone, outperforming economists’ expectations of no growth. Deutsche Bank chief UK economist Sanjay Raja said warm weather and World Cup-related spending may have supported consumer demand.
   
• Great Britain’s electricity grid operator prepared to spend millions on backup power on Wednesday 12 August as a near-total solar eclipse was expected to reduce solar generation while high temperatures increased electricity demand. The National Energy System Operator (Neso) warned that the eclipse could remove between 300MW and 1,100MW of solar power generation during the evening peak, with demand also boosted by the summer’s fifth heatwave. Neso initially forecast a shortfall of more than 1,700MW, later revising this to about 1,200MW. To help maintain supplies, generators were offered premium payments. The Connah’s Quay gas plant in Flintshire agreed to generate electricity at £875/MWh, compared with a market price of just under £212/MWh. Neso said its warning notices were precautionary measures designed to encourage additional generation capacity and stressed there was “no risk to customer electricity supplies”. The operator later cancelled the alert.
   
• Twitch has faced criticism after revealing that content from creators and audiences could be used by Amazon to train its AI models. The setting, which is enabled by default, allows Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, to use channel data for AI training. The company announced on Wednesday that users can now opt out of the setting. However, the move prompted a backlash, with some users questioning why permission was assumed rather than requested. Twitch Chief Product Officer Mike Minton said the platform was “respecting” users by introducing the opt-out option, but acknowledged that an opt-in system would likely have resulted in few users agreeing to participate. According to Minton, any content from channels that remain opted in could be used for AI training, although the data will not be sold to other companies.
   
• Spotify will introduce an AI Persona badge from mid-September to identify artists whose identities “may be AI-generated and does not represent a real person”. The streaming service said the change is designed to give users “more transparency” about the music they are listening to. The badge will appear on artist profile banners and ‘About’ sections, as well as alongside search results and tracks in playlists. Spotify has also confirmed that AI-generated artists displaying the badge will not appear in users’ personalised recommendations unless the user already follows them. According to Spotify, the move follows feedback from listeners who were unhappy to discover that profiles appearing to belong to real people were actually AI-generated. Musician Alex Winn and guitarist for North East band Swindled, welcomed the change, describing it as a “really good thing”. Winn said: “It almost separates the people who have created music properly from the people just using AI.”

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