GOV.UK to unleash AI chatbot on confused citizens
(2025/12/19)
- Reference: 1766138412
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/19/govuk_chatbot/
- Source link:
The UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) will add an AI chatbot to its GOV.UK app in early 2026, before rolling it out across the GOV.UK website used by most government departments and services.
"We want people to be able to ask questions as they would in everyday life; for example: 'I've just had a baby, do you know what help I can get?'" wrote Leanne Cummings, GDS's director for products and services, in a [1]blog post . Responses would combine material from multiple departments including HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Education into "a single, simple conversational answer."
While GOV.UK Chat will initially answer questions, GDS is exploring whether it could carry out simple transactions as well. This would follow Ukraine's Diia.ai chatbot, which began generating income certificates on request in September.
[2]
"Our focus is to transform Diia from a digital services platform into a fully functional AI agent that operates 24/7, without the need to manually fill out forms or fields," Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister, [3]wrote in an article.
[4]Former UK chancellor George Osborne finds something to do at OpenAI
[5]Trump gives state AI regulation the presidential middle finger
[6]Brits to help foot power bill for datacenters under government AI plans
[7]UK.gov vows to hack through regulation to get benefit from AI
GDS will first deploy GOV.UK Chat to the GOV.UK app, which has been in a [8]public beta test since July and had nearly 260,000 downloads by November 24. More than 80 percent of users have customized the app's homepage, including by adding their local authority.
The chatbot, based on OpenAI technology, has been in development for more than two years. It uses a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) model drawing on GOV.UK website content with personal data stripped out. GDS has conducted extensive testing, including red-teaming exercises where government colleagues attempted to break or corrupt it.
[9]
A [10]private pilot with 1,000 users in late 2023 found that while most people liked using the chatbot, its [11]answers weren't accurate enough and it made outright mistakes . GDS believes it has since addressed these issues by adding filters and rules to prevent from it answering certain questions. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/16/gov-uk-has-entered-the-chat-our-vision-for-gov-uk-chat/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUUwRpUDMMRSFcaI87jYaAAAAVM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://digitalstate.gov.ua/news/govtech/diiaai-pershyy-u-sviti-derzavnyy-ai-ahent-iakyy-ne-prosto-konsultuye-a-nadaye-posluhy-iak-pratsiuye-shtuchnyy-intelekt-na-portali
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/openai_george_osborne/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/trump_eo_state_ai/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/18/uk_ai_growth_zones/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/uk_ai_regulations/
[8] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/01/insights-from-the-first-five-months-of-the-gov-uk-app-public-beta/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUUwRpUDMMRSFcaI87jYaAAAAVM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/05/were-running-a-private-beta-of-gov-uk-chat/
[11] https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2024/01/18/the-findings-of-our-first-generative-ai-experiment-gov-uk-chat/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"We want people to be able to ask questions as they would in everyday life; for example: 'I've just had a baby, do you know what help I can get?'" wrote Leanne Cummings, GDS's director for products and services, in a [1]blog post . Responses would combine material from multiple departments including HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Education into "a single, simple conversational answer."
While GOV.UK Chat will initially answer questions, GDS is exploring whether it could carry out simple transactions as well. This would follow Ukraine's Diia.ai chatbot, which began generating income certificates on request in September.
[2]
"Our focus is to transform Diia from a digital services platform into a fully functional AI agent that operates 24/7, without the need to manually fill out forms or fields," Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister, [3]wrote in an article.
[4]Former UK chancellor George Osborne finds something to do at OpenAI
[5]Trump gives state AI regulation the presidential middle finger
[6]Brits to help foot power bill for datacenters under government AI plans
[7]UK.gov vows to hack through regulation to get benefit from AI
GDS will first deploy GOV.UK Chat to the GOV.UK app, which has been in a [8]public beta test since July and had nearly 260,000 downloads by November 24. More than 80 percent of users have customized the app's homepage, including by adding their local authority.
The chatbot, based on OpenAI technology, has been in development for more than two years. It uses a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) model drawing on GOV.UK website content with personal data stripped out. GDS has conducted extensive testing, including red-teaming exercises where government colleagues attempted to break or corrupt it.
[9]
A [10]private pilot with 1,000 users in late 2023 found that while most people liked using the chatbot, its [11]answers weren't accurate enough and it made outright mistakes . GDS believes it has since addressed these issues by adding filters and rules to prevent from it answering certain questions. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/16/gov-uk-has-entered-the-chat-our-vision-for-gov-uk-chat/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUUwRpUDMMRSFcaI87jYaAAAAVM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://digitalstate.gov.ua/news/govtech/diiaai-pershyy-u-sviti-derzavnyy-ai-ahent-iakyy-ne-prosto-konsultuye-a-nadaye-posluhy-iak-pratsiuye-shtuchnyy-intelekt-na-portali
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/openai_george_osborne/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/trump_eo_state_ai/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/18/uk_ai_growth_zones/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/uk_ai_regulations/
[8] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2025/12/01/insights-from-the-first-five-months-of-the-gov-uk-app-public-beta/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUUwRpUDMMRSFcaI87jYaAAAAVM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2024/11/05/were-running-a-private-beta-of-gov-uk-chat/
[11] https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2024/01/18/the-findings-of-our-first-generative-ai-experiment-gov-uk-chat/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Fruit and Nutcase
I'm a newly elected MP. How can I maximise the allowances, expense claims and 2nd home flipping in a tax efficient manner
Doomed to failure
The Mole
"it has since addressed these issues by adding filters and rules to prevent from it answering certain questions."
Well if blacklisting questions that it gets wrong is the approach it is taking then it is doomed to failure.
Chatbot
elsergiovolador
"Hi chatbot, I am Larry. How is the digital ID going? Can you suggests freebies for ministers that will speed up delivery of my baby?"
"We want people to be able to ask questions as they would in everyday life; for example: 'I've just had a baby, do you know what help I can get?' Responses would combine material from multiple departments including HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Education into "a single, simple conversational answer."
Simpler, less new shiny, of course, but probably better, to have a single, well written, information page bringing all that information together, linked from wherever someone might look including the sites of those departments and NHS.
I suppose it's the "less new shiny" that's the killer. If it's AI it must be better, mustn't it?
Mustn't it?