- Brits could have their own AI agent to help them deal with everything from life admin, to getting personalised guidance to pick careers, find work and more.
- The UK Government will call for frontier AI companies to help it test the tech, progressing a world-first plan to use AI agents for national government services as soon as 2027.
- Comes ahead of the Prime Minister unveiling an initial set of priority AI Exemplar projects tomorrow, that are set to show how AI can help to transform public services to make people’s lives easier and deliver the Plan for Change more effectively.
AI agents could soon take on boring life admin by dealing with public services on your behalf – from filling in forms to completing applications and booking appointments, as the UK Government plans trials to save people time and modernise the state.
Agentic AI is unique in that it can reliably complete basic admin tasks for people as well as provide tailored support for them, by putting in a prompt and watching it do the work for them. Acting on behalf of people, AI agents from private companies can be used to book flights, shop around for the best deal online, or book restaurants and activities from a holiday itinerary.
On Monday, the government will invite specialist companies who have started working with this type of cutting-edge AI to team up with in-house Whitehall experts to test this technology together. This includes exploring if agentic AI can help get young people into work by supporting them to take the next step in their education, find the best apprenticeship for their circumstances, provide custom career guidance and more.
In the first instance the tool could be trialled to help people with employment and skills but if successful, the government will experiment to see if agentic AI can help with other life milestones. For example, when moving home a government-built AI agent could help you update an address on your digital driving licence, register you with a new GP, register you in the correct constituency to vote and more.
Taking a new experimental approach recommended in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the development of the technology will follow a “test and learn” approach that could be rolled out across the country from late 2027 – and builds on the early success of GOV.UK Chat, an experimental generative AI chatbot which is being developed in government.
UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said
We can entirely rethink and reshape how public services help people through crucial life moments using the power of emerging AI technology. Using agentic AI to its full potential, we could provide a level of service to citizens across the country that was previously unimaginable – helping people to find better career opportunities, avoid wasting their time on government admin and more.
We are asking the world’s brightest AI developers to work in collaboration with our own brilliant AI teams as we test how valuable their latest tech can be in helping people in their day-to-day lives. At each step, we’ll only progress if the technology can be used in a safe and reliable way – but if it works, we could be the first country in the world to use AI agents at scale.
The technology, which would be entirely optional to use, could also save people hours of headaches by dealing with dozens of different agencies and government officials at once on their behalf.
To deliver this, the government is today asking for frontier AI labs to share their expertise and dedicate AI specialists to build a prototype of the technology over six-to-twelve months. Together, with government AI experts, a hybrid team will prove what’s possible in applying this new technology to public services, while the UK Government will maintain ownership of the product into the future.
The project will be the first “National AI Tender” issued following the AI Opportunities Action Plan, a new method that seeks to build cutting-edge AI solutions to improve public services across the country.
It will follow a “Scan, Pilot, Scale” approach recommended by the AI Opportunities Action Plan, with the tender marking the start of the “Pilot” phase where the government will work with leading AI labs to see whether the technology available is ready to reliably deliver on this ambition.
The technology will be built in small and iterative stages, meaning it is consistently being evaluated and rigorously tested to make sure it is ultimately reliable and accurate enough to be used by people across the country when it’s ready.
The completed “Scan” phase included some user research to test where agentic AI could be most helpful, and some early prototyping and exploration of what data is already available to make further development possible.
Throughout, the project will be evaluated before it progresses to the next stage. If it is successful at each stage, an agentic AI solution could be rolled out across the country from the end of 2027.
It comes ahead of the Prime Minister announcing a wider series of AI Exemplars tomorrow, where he will set out several ways in which AI is being used across the public sector to speed up services, save money and improve outcomes for citizens.
The list will include the “Extract” tool, which will standardise data faster by converting decades-old, handwritten planning documents and maps into data in minutes. It will power new types of planning software to slash the 250,000 estimated hours spent by planning officers each year manually checking these documents.
