The UK Government has unveiled new evidence of how its home-grown artificial intelligence technology is improving efficiency and cutting costs, after it was used to help process tens of thousands of public consultation responses.
The specialist AI system, developed in-house as part of the government’s “Humphrey” suite of digital tools, played a key role in speeding up the analysis behind the decision to abolish Ofwat, the water regulator.
Traditionally, sorting large volumes of public feedback can take months of manual work by policy teams. In this case, more than 50,000 responses were submitted to the Independent Water Commission. The AI tool — codenamed Consult — categorised and grouped responses into key themes in around two hours, at a total cost of £240. Experts then spent just 22 hours validating the machine’s results.
The combination of automation and targeted human review allowed analysts to focus on policy insight rather than administrative sorting, making the overall process both faster and more accurate.
A comparison of the system’s performance against two expert human teams showed the AI agreed with at least one group 83% of the time. By contrast, the two human teams agreed with each other only 55% of the time — suggesting the system enhanced consistency as well as efficiency.
Alongside the AI-driven categorisation, civil servants conducted detailed manual reviews of stakeholder submissions to ensure that complex or nuanced feedback was fully considered in the final recommendations.
The Consult tool has already been deployed successfully elsewhere, including the Scottish Government’s consultation on non-surgical cosmetics and the Digital Inclusion Action Plan, which drew nearly 800 responses. In both cases, officials reported significant time savings and greater analytical accuracy.
Officials estimate that rolling out the technology across departments could save 75,000 days of manual analysis annually — equivalent to £20 million in staffing costs — while giving civil servants more time to focus on policy delivery and reform.
Digital Government Minister Ian Murray said the technology showed how AI could drive better, fairer, and more efficient government.
“This demonstrates the huge potential for technology and AI to deliver better public services and better value for taxpayers,” he said. “By taking on basic admin, Consult frees up staff to focus on what matters — fixing public services. It could save hundreds of thousands of pounds while helping us make smarter, faster decisions.”
The broader Humphrey programme — the internal digital framework under which Consult was developed — includes other AI-powered tools designed to modernise the civil service. One, known as Redbox, helped more than 5,300 officials summarise long documents and draft briefings more efficiently before being open-sourced for wider use.
Since its introduction, major technology providers such as Microsoft have begun offering secure AI tools for government use, including Microsoft Copilot, which integrates large language models into existing IT systems. Trials of Copilot within Whitehall found it could save officials up to two weeks per year in productivity gains.
Building on these successes, government engineers are now developing a new generation of “AI Exemplars” — projects identified by the Prime Minister to demonstrate how artificial intelligence can accelerate policy delivery. Examples include AI-driven tools to speed up planning decisions for housing, and systems to help probation officers engage more effectively with offenders.
Although the Redbox project has now concluded, its developers have redeployed their expertise to new initiatives within the Humphrey suite, including the creation of GOV.UK Chat, a generative AI-powered assistant that will soon be piloted in the GOV.UK App.
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