Change and Transformation in the Public Sector
A programme to transform and accelerate AI adoption across UK government, ensuring the technology enhances public services and positioning the UK as a leader in secure, ethical and effective AI deployment.
The UK Government has an ambitious vision for artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to position itself as a global leader in AI deployment through the AI Opportunities Action Plan and the Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government. The government sees AI as a transformative technology that can enhance public services, improve productivity across departments, and drive economic growth. However, the scale of AI adoption across departments presents challenges, including governance, security, and varying levels of AI readiness.
Recognising the need for a coordinated, expert-led approach, a central government department engaged Capgemini as a strategic AI adoption partner. Capgemini’s role was to assess the state of AI adoption across government, provide guidance on strategy, and develop the tools and frameworks necessary to ensure responsible, effective AI deployment.
Capgemini Invent assembled a team of over 30 specialists, spanning AI architecture, ethics, data science, risk management, behavioural change, and programme delivery. The first phase of the project involved conducting AI adoption and readiness assessments with key government departments, including HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office, and the Ministry of Justice. These departments, among the most operationally intensive in government, were already investing in AI, but their efforts lacked central coordination.
Capgemini Invent facilitated workshops with more than 80 senior stakeholders, including CTOs, AI leads, and chief data scientists, to catalogue 140 AI projects across government. This catalogue captured costs, benefits, and potential for reuse, ensuring that successful AI initiatives could be scaled across departments. The insights from these engagements directly shaped a report to ministers that guided the development of essential AI adoption assets, including:
- AI Playbook for Government: 10 core principles for AI deployment in public services.
- AI Risk Management Framework: to identify, evaluate, and mitigate AI risk in eight categories.
- AI Maturity Assessment Model: structured, repeatable AI deployment readiness self-assessment.
Capgemini Invent also played a central role in the UK’s largest government AI trial, overseeing a pilot of Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant. This trial involved 19,000 civil servants across multiple departments, assessing how AI could be integrated into daily workflows. The results were compelling: high adoption rates, with users saving time on routine tasks, and realising productivity gains. Due to its success, several departments requested an extension of the trial to refine and maximize benefits.
Security was a key focus. Capgemini Invent conducted research with over 150 AI security stakeholders, aligning government-wide AI security services to departmental needs. This includes best practice guidance, knowledge-sharing initiatives, and upskilling programmes, ensuring AI solutions are deployed securely and ethically.
This programme has significantly advanced AI adoption across government, giving the client department a centralised view of AI maturity and enabling it to tailor support where it is needed most. By creating reusable frameworks, fostering collaboration, and embedding security best practices, this initiative has laid the foundations for the UK public sector to position itself as a leader in ethical, secure, and effective AI deployment.
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