The government has unveiled a suite of new artificial intelligence projects designed to modernise public services, cut red tape and free up frontline staff for more direct work with citizens. NHS, justice, planning and education are among services testing the AI Exemplars projects.
The Prime Minister’s “AI Exemplars” are a group of projects intended to demonstrate practical ways AI can improve public services. Each will receive government support to accelerate development and adoption, with those showing most promise to be rolled out more widely.
An AI-assisted tool developed at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust drafts patient discharge summaries by extracting information from medical records such as diagnoses and test results. The aim is to reduce the hours patients currently spend waiting for doctors to complete paperwork before they can go home. It is hoped the technology will speed up hospital discharges, cut waiting lists and improve accuracy in the transfer of information between hospital wards and community services.
Speaking at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “This is exactly the kind of change we need: AI being used to give doctors, probation officers and other key workers more time to focus on delivering better outcomes and speeding up vital services.”
Other AI exemplars include Justice Transcribe, a tool tested with probation officers to transcribe and summarise meetings with offenders. Early trials suggest it can halve the time officers spend writing up notes, freeing them to focus on rehabilitation work. The Ministry of Justice plans to scale the tool to all 12,000 probation officers.
In local government, the Extract tool aims to digitise decades of handwritten planning documents and maps in minutes, reducing the estimated 250,000 hours planning officers currently spend on manual checking each year. Officials say it could power new planning software to streamline decision making and reduce backlogs.
The Exemplars programme also includes Humphrey, a package of AI tools for the civil service. One module, Consult, analyses thousands of responses to government consultations and presents findings in interactive dashboards for policy makers. Tested against a new “social readiness” standard with public focus groups, 82 percent of participants said they felt positive or neutral about its use.
In education, an AI Content Store will underpin tools to support teachers with lesson planning and marking, with the aim of allowing more classroom time for face to face teaching.