Kainos: AI-enabled Assistants to enhance the citizen experience #techUKDigitalPS

Alexa: When is my MOT due?

Hey Siri: I want to renew my passport.

OK Google: Tell the government that I’m moving house.

For the last decade, the Gov.uk website has set the bar for modern browser interactions with governments, and it has been replicated across the world. How we use computers is changing though, we’ve already seen a massive shift towards the use of mobile phones across government services and we believe the next major shift will see a move towards AI-enabled Assistants.

AI-enabled Assistants have seen vast improvements over the last decade and the recent publicity around Generative AI (such as OpenAI’s Chat-GPT), is bringing the use of AI to the front of the public’s conscience. These Assistants are widely available, from handheld devices, such as Siri-enabled iPhones, to fixed hardware such as Alexa-enabled Sonos speakers, or in-vehicle devices such as Android CarPlay. As their usage increases, we should be designing our services to support them.

The three examples above differ vastly in the complexity of interactions and the security that would be required to perform them so it’s worth looking at each in a little more detail.

“When is my MOT due?” is the simplest of the requests, and requires a single, read-only call to either DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) or DVSA’s (Driver and vehicle Standards Agency) public facing Application Programming Interface (API) providing Alexa knows which vehicle you’re talking about. The information is in the public domain and no additional security is required. In fact, DVLA have already created an Alexa Skill that supports MOT and vehicle tax requests, that you can install now.

“I want to renew my passport.” is a little more complicated, it requires multiple read and write requests and authentications to HMPO’s (His Majesty’s Passport Office) systems, it requires Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and it’s a high-risk transaction for HMPO with significant risk of fraud and misuse.

“Tell the government that I’m moving house…” is a whole different ball game. It’s PII is like the passport request, but it infers requests to all government departments that may know your address, updating their system-of-record with your new information.  This is highly risky, for government, opening the possibility of identity fraud, including the potential to defraud the tax and benefit systems.

So, why should government support the use of Assistants if it is high risk and complicated?

Well, the simple answer is that it’s an enabling technology – Assistants can understand and translate multiple languages, they can tailor their responses to differing comprehension levels and they are more accessible for physically disabled or visually impaired citizens. 

Modern voice assistants can also identify differences in voices through tone, pitch, pacing, and accents to aid with authenticating and authorising the user. The improvements brought on by AI can improve previously clunky voice interfaces making them more natural and conversational.

They can also help with inclusivity. If the user is experiencing a disability, whether Permanent, Temporary, or Situational, using a hands-free assistant can help to give more control of the interactions to the citizens themselves.

To succeed, a gov.uk Assistant needs to be opaque, it needs to be a single-entry point into government regardless of the department, agency, or arms-length body that services the request. Much the same as the service.gov.uk that replaced the numerous direct.gov.uk services and has been so successful over the last decade. 

Without this, the UK government would run the risk of each department creating their own nuanced Assistant services that don’t have a common design ethos and are not instantly recognisable as a trusted government interface.

“Alexa, install the gov.uk Skill,” would be all that a citizen would need to start their Assistant journey with the UK government.  They would then be able to access and update their location, vehicles, passports, births, electoral role memberships, benefit claims, fishing licences, and countless other government interactions, all in one place.

Who should own this gov.uk assistant?

Enter “GOV.UK One Login”.  This Government Digital Services (GDS) initiative creates a single account for accessing all government services and is hoping to replace the almost 200 different accounts and 44 different sign-in methods.

Extending the “GOV.UK One Login” initiative to include a single gov.uk Assistant, functional across all the major platforms would future proof gov.uk and once again set the bar high for the next decade.

This article was written by Ricky Walker, Public Sector CTO at Kainos. To learn more about Ricky, please visit their LinkedIn.

To learn more about Kainos, please visit their LinkedIn and Twitter.

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