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Government Departments: Artificial Intelligence

Asked by Blake StephensonConservativeDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyTabled Answered 2 July 2025UIN 62299

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the press release Government-built “Humphrey” AI tool reviews responses to consultation for first time, in bid to save millions, published on 14 May 2025, in which areas did the AI and officials disagree.

Answered by Feryal Clark

Consult is a tool designed to analyse responses to public consultations, it uses AI to identify themes for each question and map responses to those themes.

The first live evaluation of Consult was completed using the Scottish Government’s recent consultation on the regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures.

Identifying themes in responses is subjective, and two humans often disagree. However, the thorough evaluation found that Consult produced near identical rankings of themes when compared to expert reviewers, a key input into the analysis.

I am proud to say we are working in the open, so for anyone interested in diving deeper, I really recommend going and reading the evaluation report in full on ai.gov.uk.

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