Leveraging AI for smarter public sector communications

You may have seen that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has released plans to use AI across the UK to boost growth and deliver services more efficiently, particularly in the public sector. As a technology company, it’s no surprise to us that the UK Government, along with governments globally, are encouraging the broad use of AI. Typically, the public sector can lag behind private companies in adopting new technologies. However, this is an instance where there appears to be a level playing field, mainly due to the vast applications of AI and some understandable nervousness around its safety and implications for workforces.

It’s important to clarify what AI is in today’s world. It’s certainly not the self-aware technology depicted in movies like I, Robot. AI is best positioned as a tool that handles heavy lifting, particularly mundane tasks, freeing up time to work on tasks that provide the most value to organisations and communities. Essentially, AI is not here to take over the world and our jobs; it’s a tool to make our lives easier and our teams more efficient.

A recent personal example comes to mind: planning a holiday. Instead of scouring through hundreds of Google search results, comparing costs, flight lengths, and activities for the kids, I could ask an AI like ChatGPT, “Where is the best place for a family of four with toddlers to go on holiday within a 2-hour and 3-minute flight from Birmingham, ideally near a beach and under £X per person?” The AI will read through the vast expanse of the internet and provide suggestions with links to further information, saving me countless hours.

Now, imagine using such technology in the workplace. Posing questions like “What’s causing the increase in calls and chats into our contact centre today?” or “Write a social post correcting common misinformation about measles and vaccines for a 12-year-old reading level” can save significant time on day-to-day tasks. This technology already exists within Orlo—AI isn’t the future; it’s here now.

From AI chatbots to media monitoring

Chatbots have been around for what seems like forever. However, if you’ve ever had to ‘program’ one, you’ll know it takes hours, days, and sometimes months to teach it everything it needs to know to handle common questions that your teams get asked, not to mention the various ways someone could ask the same thing, e.g., “How do I pay my council tax?” or “I need to pay my bill?” The technology Orlo has developed will automatically consume all the information from your existing assets, such as your websites, and generate the questions and answers for you within minutes. The bots can be deployed across your social DMs and Live Chat on your websites and apps, helping you to better manage demand and ensure your teams are focused on queries that need the human touch or your specialisms.

Last year, we launched a media monitoring product called Orlo Insights. It gathers data from millions of sources across the web, including blogs, news, forums, and social media, to help our customers better understand their reputation, societal issues such as the summer riots, the impact of health initiatives, budget allocation, and much more. AI makes digesting this information much easier and quicker by providing summaries of vast amounts of articles in seconds, breaking down demographic information, identifying sentiments and emotions, and even more powerfully, assessing the trustworthiness of organisations as a whole or regarding specific topics. Before AI, these tasks would have taken months of analysis and would be outdated by the time they were completed.

Furthermore, we have developed tools to protect the mental health of our teams. For instance, image analysis technology can filter out potentially graphic content, preventing distress among colleagues. This capability exists today.

Of course, there are risks associated with AI, as with any technology. The primary concern is ensuring data safety. Technology vendors, like ourselves, need to provide assurance that your data isn’t shared with third parties that could store it on their servers or use it to train other AI technologies. Your data is your data; you have complete control over it, and it must remain that way.

As we continue to innovate and integrate AI into our daily operations, it’s crucial to approach this technology with both excitement and caution. AI has the potential to revolutionise the public sector, making processes more efficient and effective, but we must always prioritise data privacy and ethical considerations.

Orlo will continue to invest in AI for the betterment of our customers, ensuring we can alleviate some of the strain budget cuts have on them, enabling them to do the same or more with the current headcount. AI will, without a doubt, take some of the pressure off teams and ensure they remain motivated. From a product perspective, we have documented a specific roadmap for AI development, which will continue to integrate with our existing technology, keeping us at the forefront of our sector and helping you achieve your goals.