Many organisations feel frozen on the precipice of making decisions about whether to put AI tools in the hands of their staff and which tools to pay for. The technology is evolving rapidly and snake oil abounds, but using AI for specific tasks is becoming the norm, so these decisions are landing at the feet of local authorities.
With nearly £2bn in annual technology spend, local government represents formidable market power to providers in the early AI product market. While each authority faces unique delivery challenges, this is the right moment to band together. The opportunity is here to partner with AI providers willing to develop for local contexts and, crucially, subject themselves to evaluation.
