AI chatbot to be trialled to help businesses find information on government website

The government website, Gov.uk, is to trial a new generative AI chatbot to help small businesses access advice on rules and support.

Up to 15,000 people will be able to use the tool as part of the trial, with the chatbot linked from 30 of the government website’s business pages.

The tool uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o technology and aims to help people more quickly navigate complex advice to understand what matters to them. In responses, website users with access to the trial will receive straightforward, personalised answers that collate information that may otherwise be spread across dozens of pages. The results from the trial rollout could see the generative AI chatbot deployed across the entire 700,000-page Gov.uk website, which is accessed by over 11 million users per week.

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 Peter Kyle 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“Outdated and bulky government processes waste people’s time too often, with the average adult in the UK spending the equivalent of a working week and a half dealing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.“

The first trial of the service was conducted late last year, and found 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.

Since the test, UK government experts have added “guardrails” that help the AI chatbot detect which questions it should, and should not, answer. These include measures to prevent responses 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.

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 the government website.