An automated platform for creating a summary from the transcripts of interviews is to be introduced alongside an existing tool for helping officials to search for and understand policy considerations

All asylum caseworkers and decision-makers will this month be equipped with a second artificial intelligence-powered tool intended to support their work – which ministers have reasserted will not be able to rule on claims independent of human input.

The Asylum Case Summarisation (ACS) technology has been designed to use AI to analyse transcripts of interviews with asylum applicants. The platform can then “extract and summarise information… to provide decision-makers with a concise summary document”, according to asylum and border security minister Alex Norris.

ACS will be deployed throughout asylum operations from this month, he added – but will remain subject to human oversight and controls.

“In line with the ‘human-in-the-loop’ principle, ACS has been designed so that decision-makers cannot use the tool by itself to decide a claim. Instead, it acts as an aid in the usual decision-making process,” Norris said, in response to a written parliamentary question from fellow Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy.

The transcription platform will join the existing Asylum Policy Search (APS) system which has been already “fully rolled out” to caseworkers, according to the minister.

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“APS… is an artificial intelligence search assistant,” he added. “It is a chat-based interface which finds and summarises Country Policy Information Notes (CPIN) directly relevant to the inputted query, to provide the policy basis for decisions.”

Norris reiterated that adherence to principles dictate that “decision-makers cannot use the tool by itself to decide a claim [and] AI technology does not make decisions on Asylum applications; instead, it will help asylum decision-makers analyse data and provide insightful information that further informs outcomes”.

The minister added: “Whilst there is no standard operating procedure in place on the use of APS, all members of the department were required to complete a mandatory ‘AI for all’ learning package in 2025. Furthermore, caseworkers were given comprehensive training on the use of APS before it was operationalised.”

The Home Office has not yet decided whether it will make publicly available the results of any data protection impact assessments undertaken in respect of the two AI-powered systems.

“After APS was operationalised, a specific inbox was set up for decision makers to feed back any issues found with the tool, Norris said. “Subject matter expert testing continues after operationalisation – in conjunction with Country Policy & Information Team – for APS.”