Government trial shows AI use saves civil servants two weeks per year

A three month trial involving 20,000 civil servants has concluded that using AI would save them two working weeks per person, per year. 

The trial involved civil servants using generative AI tools including Microsoft Copilot (M365 Copilot) to increase productivity in routine tasks like writing emails and summarising documents. The tools received a positive 7.7/10 satisfaction score. 

Microsoft's large language models are integrated into widely used pre-existent applications like PowerPoint, Excel and Onedrive and provide chatbot functionality, data retrieval and generate responses to queries. 

M365 Copilot was most used on Teams with 34% using generative AI daily, while 25% used it daily in Word. While the most time was saved in content creation, including creating presentations, many users regularly applied AI to take on less time consuming tasks like meeting scheduling, making significant aggregate time savings.    

Serving a dual purpose 

The trial concluded that routine tasks including consultations were streamlined and response times for jobseekers were sped up. Extrapolating from the government's figures, 30,000 civil servants annually could avoid routine administration tasks altogether.

Additionally, AI tools provided civil servants across all grades  an additional 26 minutes per day on average to focus on non-routine tasks. This left them free to prioritise personalising public support, for example.

Significantly, 72% of trial members agreed that Copilot saved them time on mundane tasks and 71% agreed that using the system provided them with more time to allocate to strategic tasks. This indicates the dual purpose of AI use as it both accelerates administrative tasks and creates more time for important, non-routine tasks to be completed.   

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle commented that "these findings show that AI isn’t just a future promise – it’s a present reality." He added "AI tools are saving civil servants time every day. That means we can focus more on delivering faster, more personalised support where it really counts."

AI in action

A DWP work coach who was involved in the trial commented on how they utilised AI to achieve results for their client. They helped a self-employed customer "revitalise her small business" by using AI to identify cost-saving methods and employing it to manage bookings. 

This freed up more time to focus on business growth, such as growing an online presence via tailored social media posts, resulting in new customer bookings. 

Darren Hardman, CEO, Microsoft UK said:  "The government’s Microsoft 365 Copilot experiment shows what’s possible when people are empowered with the right tools" adding that AI supports civil servants to spend "less time on admin, more time delivering what matters."

Wider impact 

The results of this trial come as the Alan Turing research published a report finding that 40% of public sector activities could be supported by AI usage. Figures varied across professions, with highly administrative roles that require less human involvement benefitting the most.

 In education, it was estimated that 49% of the time spent on teaching activities, including 75% of lesson planning, could be supported with AI. A lower, but still significant, 33% of healthcare workers time would benefit from AI adoption,  

Indeed, it was areas which require gradational judgement where users reported limitations in the Copilot trial. Some users suggested that the AI struggled with more nuanced information, providing additional context and potentially lacked deep domain knowledge in some areas.

Despite identifying some challenges, the results of both the Turing research and the Copilot trial indicate a leap forward in identifying key areas of opportunity for generative AI employment in the public sector.