UK nationals living or travelling overseas and seeking information or support from the government can now be assisted by automated systems, as part of wider departmental use of new technologies
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is using artificial intelligence to help embassies answer questions from UK citizens in “seconds, rather than days”.
The department further predicts that its use of AI and new technologies “will transform diplomatic practice” in the years ahead.
The first steps in this transformation includes the deployment of an AI-powered triage system which is designed to automate some of the process of dealing with requests for information or support from UK citizens overseas, or with plans to travel. This new technology is part of a wider commitment “to strengthening consular services”, according to Catherine West, a minister in the FCDO.
“[The department] continuously reviews its processes to provide an effective service to those who require consular assistance, including through feedback, insight and lessons learned,” she added. “Calls to our 24/7/365 consular team are answered within the target of two minutes, and a new FCDO digital triage AI tool which [provides] British nationals responses to their questions online within seconds rather than days.”
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Discussing the Foreign Office’s current and planned use of AI tech more broadly, another minister, Hamish Falconer, predicted that “artificial intelligence will transform diplomatic practice and the FCDO’s delivery, enhancing our diplomatic impact and increasing individual productivity and corporate efficiency”.
AI platforms are “already integrated into many commodity products and devices” used by the minister’s departmental colleagues in the civil service, Falconer added.
“Officials already use a range of FCDO provided AI-augmented tools in their work to support information analysis and national security activities,” he said. “The FCDO participated in the cross-HMG pilot of Microsoft Copilot and is trialling an AI agent to intelligently signpost written consular enquiries on GOV.UK. The secure and responsible adoption of AI is a key component of the FCDO’s multi-year Digital, Data and Cyber Security Strategy.”
The two ministers were respectively answering written parliamentary questions from Reform MP James McMurdock, and Sir John Hayes of the Conservatives.