OpenAI signs agreement to help modernize UK government services

OpenAI has taken an important step to advance its global ambitions by signing a strategic agreement with the UK government to deploy its AI models and background expertise to overhaul government services.

With high and unsustainable UK public spending coupled to a hidebound central government, government departments need to address weak delivery and chronic public sector waste. The ambition is that AI will help them do so.

There’s a lot at stake for both sides in this deal. The UK government will need to see results at some point, while OpenAI will see the challenge as a chance to prove its technology in the face of some skepticism.

The agreement doesn’t go into much detail about how OpenAI’s technology will be deployed, but it’s clear that the government and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) see the US company as an important partner in their quest to evaluate the technology’s potential.

The focus will be on helping the government implement the priorities