Thousands of small businesses across the country will be able to
get help and advice through the UK government's generative
AI chatbot, as it
moves to the next stage of testing this week – 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,
such as “set up a business” and
“search for a trade mark”.
People with access to the trial can ask questions about tax and
the support available to them.
A team of in-house data scientists, developers and designers are
building the experimental tool using OpenAI's GPT-4o
technology which aims to help people more quickly navigate
complex advice to 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 potential larger-scale testing. This could
ultimately lead to the chatbot being rolled out across the full
government website, made up of 700,000 pages. The GOV.UK website attracts over
11 million users per week and is the best-known digital service
in the UK according to YouGov.
The new trial 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 said:
Outdated and bulky government processes waste people's time too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.
This is an essential part of our ambition to use AI to improve public services in
a safe and reliable way, making sure the UK government leads by
example in driving innovation forward.
Results from the trial, which will be published when they have
been reviewed, will help to shape further development of GOV.UK Chat and pave the way
for larger-scale testing.
Results from the trial, which will be published when they have
been reviewed, will help to shape 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 chatbot
were helpful - where under 15% disagreed. However, the first
trial also showed that more testing and development was required
to meet the high accuracy standards for advice and information on
GOV.UK.
Because of the way generative AI technology works, the
government cannot predict and fully control every response.
However, the technology allows the tool to provide tailored
responses to individual questions and specific challenges users
might have.
Stringent safety measures and guardrails have been put in place,
given the nature of this technology. Since the last test, UK
government experts have added “guardrails” that help GOV.UK Chat detect which
questions it should, and should not, answer. These include
measures to prevent the chatbot responding to queries that may
prompt an illegal answer, share sensitive financial information
or force 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.
User experience improvements have also been made, including the
introduction of an onboarding process and accessibility
improvements - as well as changes to increase the accuracy and
completeness of the answers generated.
Given the emerging nature of this technology, it is likely that
the 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.
Notes to editors
A 2021 study found that
UK adults spend an estimated 3 billion hours on
government-related admin a year; equating to 56 hours per UK
adult, per year.
