"Interesting" is one word, yes. The one advantage we have over here is that at least it's not a full, national thing: individual states (about half) have passed laws demanding it. So it's a whole patchwork of different rules, systems etc. Which is good, because it makes it more likely to fail in the long term.
As for the tech being used in the UK, I'm not an expert, and I'm not sure the full information on it is out yet anyway. "AI" can also mean many, many things (The simple movement rules for enemies in 90s FPS games were also called "AI"). But if we're talking actual neural-net style AI, it seems unlikely that it's running client-side inside the browser. Especially for people with old systems or ancient smartphones, this would be extremely slow or impossible. Much more likely it's running server-side. And if it is, by definition the images have to leave your system to be processed. If they leave, you're fucked, doesn't matter what they say. But again, a lot of unknowns. Someone would have to analyze the traffic coming out of the browser/discord etc and see what's actually being transmitted.
BUT, regardless, glad you've got a functional VPN up and running. Hilariously, the fallout from this may be that a lot of people finally learn what a VPN is, and why it's important. I'm sure you knew already, but a lot of ordinary people probably have no idea. And once they've learned, they can't unlearn.