Thousands of small businesses across the country will be able to get help and advice through the UK government’s generative AI chatbot.
This week, the AI chatbot moves to the next stage of testing, making it easier and quicker to find information on GOV.UK.
Up to 15,000 people will be able to ask the tool for advice on business rules and support, with the chatbot linked from 30 of GOV.UK’s business pages include ‘set up a business’ and ‘search for a trademark.’
People with access to the trial can ask questions about tax and the support available to them.
The AI chatbot will help navigate complex advice
A team of in-house data scientists, developers, and designers is building the AI chatbot using OpenAI’s GPT-4o technology.
The goal is to help people more quickly navigate complex advice and understand what matters to them.
In response, they will receive straightforward, personalised answers that collate information that may otherwise be spread across dozens of pages.
The results from the trial will determine the next steps, which could include potentially larger-scale testing.
The new ‘digital centre’ of government
This could ultimately lead to the AI chatbot being rolled out across the full government website, comprising 700,000 pages. According to YouGov, the GOV.UK website attracts over 11 million users per week and is the best-known digital service in the UK.
The new AI chatbot comes as the Science Secretary’s department is shaping the new ‘digital centre’ of government to boost technology adoption across the public sector, taking a more experimental approach with emerging technology where appropriate as it does so.
Science Secretary Peter Kyle explained: “Outdated and bulky government processes waste people’s time too often, with the average adult in the UK spending the equivalent of a working week and a half dealing with public sector bureaucracy every year.
“We are going to change this by experimenting with emerging technology to find new ways to save people time and make their lives easier, as we are doing with GOV.UK Chat.
“With all new technology, it takes time to get it right, so we’re taking it through extensive trials with thousands of real users before it is used more widely.”
Pilot trials will pave the way for large-scale testing
Results from the AI chatbot trial, which will be published when they have been reviewed, will help to shape the further development of GOV.UK Chat and pave the way for larger-scale testing.
After the first trial, which was conducted late last year, nearly 70% of users agreed that the responses provided by the AI chatbot were helpful, whereas under 15% disagreed.
However, the first trial also showed that more testing and development were required to meet the high accuracy standards for advice and information on GOV.UK.
Given the nature of this technology, stringent safety measures and guardrails have been put in place. Since the last test, UK government experts have added ‘guardrails’ that help GOV.UK Chat detects which questions it should and should not answer.
These include measures to prevent the chatbot from responding to queries that may prompt an illegal answer, sharing sensitive financial information or forcing the chatbot to take a political position.
Experts on AI safety and safeguarding techniques at the AI Safety Institute (AISI) have also been consulted on this work.
Given the emerging nature of this technology, it is likely that the AI chatbot will still provide some inaccurate and erroneous results.
This month’s trial will provide the information and insights necessary to make further improvements and develop the tool for larger-scale testing that would, in due course, inform any decision to roll out the chatbot more widely across GOV.UK.
