The government has launched a new trial of an OpenAI-powered chatbot to help people find relevant information on the Gov.UK website.

Gov.UK Chat is to be tested by up to 15,000 business users, and will offer advice on business rules and support, with the chatbot linked to 30 of Gov.UK’s business pages, including guidance on tax, trade marks and setting up a business.

The tool has been built using ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s GPT-4o model, which is designed to be able to converse more naturally, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said it should produce results for users that would otherwise be split across dozens of pages.

DSIT said the trial will help determine the future plans around the technology, and confirmed it could ultimately be rolled out across the full government website of more than 700,000 pages, and currently attracts some 11 million users a week.

Outdated and bulky government processes waste people’s time too often

DSIT is also leading a scheme to create a new “digital centre” of government, boosting technology adoption across the public sector.

Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “Outdated and bulky government processes waste people’s time too often, with the average adult in the UK spending the equivalent of a working week and a half dealing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

Generative AI technology has sparked the AI boom in the tech sector over the last two years, since the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.

Since then, many of the world’s biggest technology firms, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung have all begun rolling out their own AI assistance tools as they fight to appear as the market leader in the emerging sector.

A small, private trial of the Gov.UK chatbot was conducted last year, with nearly 70% of the responses provided by the chatbot classed as helpful, but DSIT said the test also showed that more development was required to meet the high accuracy standards required for guidance on the government website.

The Government also confirmed that stringent safety measures and guardrails have been put in place around the chatbot, with experts on AI safety and safeguarding techniques from the UK’s AI Safety Institute consulted on the chatbot’s development.

DSIT acknowledged that some inaccurate and erroneous results were likely during the trial, given the emerging nature of generative AI, but said the test would provide information and insights needed to further improve the tool.