Google Cloud and UK government deploy AI tools to cut planning application times in half

'The agentic enterprise is happening right here, right now': Google Cloud hails the AI age for businesses everywhere

* Google Cloud praises UK market as striding forward with AI * Age of the "agentic enterprise" is here now, company says * Google Cloud announces maor partnerships with HSBC, UK government Google Cloud has laid out its vision for the future of UK businesses enabled by AI, noting that the age of the "Agentic Enterprise" is set to nring in transformation across the board. "London is rapidly rising and establishing itself as a significant, high-growth hub for global technological innovation," declared Maureen Costello, Vice President UK, Ireland, Sub-Saharan Africa, Google Cloud at the company's Google Cloud Summit London 206, "this is a market that doesn't just adopt the future, we're going to build it." "At Google, we're incredibly proud to be at the beating heart of this British tech revolution - we are not guests in the AI ecosystem, we are deeply rooted in it." A "fundamental shift" for businesses Costello hailed Google Cloud's recent successes in the UK, noting how, "this momentum is propelling us into a fundamental shift." This shift, she noted, comes as companies move from the AI experimentation and proof of concepts towards actually realizing true potential. "The agentic enterprise is happening right here, right now," she declared, highlighting how every business must now focus on three key pillars when it comes to using AI effectively - culture, responsibility, and sustainability. This momentum includes a number of high-level partnerships and expansion across top UK firms, including HSBC, which is adopting Google Cloud AI tools and platforms for over 200 use cases across its global services. This will cover areas such as smarter, AI-driven insights for HSBC wealth management customers, providing more proactive, tailored financial support and real-time advice to customers at every stage of the client journey in a secure way, and using generative AI and agentic AI to build a financial crime architecture that detects risk at an earlier stage, helping to prevent harm and creating a more seamless experience for customers. "AI is becoming one of the defining technologies of our time, allowing us to create a personalised experience for each customer, delivered in real time and at scale, while keeping human judgement, decision-making, and accountability at the core," noted Georges Elhedery, Group CEO, HSBC "A partnership like this one with Google Cloud helps us empower our colleagues with the tools they need to be future-ready, and supports our work in building a simple, agile, faster, and more personal HSBC." Google DeepMind will also be widening its work with the UK government, including a new AI-powered tool which should help reduce the time it takes for councils to process householder planning applications down from eight, to four weeks in an average case. Another tool, Extract, which was announced by the Prime Minister in 2025, is now available to all councils in England, using AI to help planning officers convert decades-old planning documents and maps, sometimes with handwritten notes, into readily useable data in minutes. "Our planning system remains heavily reliant on cumbersome paper-based processes that consume the time of expert planning officers and cause delays on even the most routine types of application," noted Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook. "We are dragging the system into the twenty-first century by harnessing the power of AI to streamline the planning application process, freeing up planners to make quicker and better decisions and reducing unnecessary delays." Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Scaling the UK government's AI vision

Vice President, UK, Ireland and Sub-Saharan Africa, Google Cloud Today at the Google Cloud Summit London, we are celebrating a significant milestone in the UK Government's journey toward a digitally enabled planning system. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) have shared major updates on two landmark projects that are set to redefine how local authorities operate: the national rollout of the Extract tool and the continued progress of the Augmented Planning Decisions prototype. While both initiatives utilize Google Cloud's technology, the Augmented Planning Decisions prototype represents a unique collaboration between the Government, Google Cloud, Google DeepMind, and our partners at Faculty. In contrast, the Extract tool was developed internally by MHCLG and the Incubator for AI (i.AI) -- the Government's in-house applied AI team. Here's how the Google Cloud platform provides the secure, enterprise-grade foundation required to develop these innovations during the most innovative trial phases. The UK Government is the primary architect and owner of this digital transformation, but bringing such a vision to life requires a robust and scalable infrastructure. The decision to build the alpha version of the Augmented Planning Decisions tool via Google Cloud is central to the project's long-term success. This prototype is currently being developed and alpha tested with the London Borough of Barnet, Dorset Council and London Borough of Camden local planning authorities, to help planning officers navigate complex local policies. The government plans for the Augmented Planning Decisions (APD) tool to be made available to councils nationally from 2027. Results at this stage are early and experimental. If MHCLG chooses, Google Cloud is well placed to provide the elastic infrastructure needed to scale this service to all 300+ local authorities across the country, ensuring that as the tool moves from its initial alpha phase, it remains fast, reliable and ready for daily public use. Alongside this, MHCLG and i.AI have rolled out their Extract tool to all councils across England following a series of highly successful trials. This tool automates the processing of complex planning documents, and its availability nationwide is made possible by the reliability of Google Cloud. Handling sensitive government data at this scale demands the highest levels of security and risk management. By utilizing Gemini on Google Cloud, the government can use the advanced reasoning of our most capable AI models within a protected environment. This approach allows the government to mitigate risks like prompt injection and ensure that data remains sovereign and secure. Extract is expected to save the average council around 255 hours of manual work digesting documents into digital form. This achievement is a testament to a powerful collaborative ecosystem involving the policy expertise of MHCLG, the technical ability of i.AI, the cutting-edge research and engineering of Google DeepMind and the delivery expertise of Faculty. By utilizing Gemini and Google Cloud's infrastructure for the foundational development work, the government has ensured these tools will not just be experimental pilots, but production-ready solutions. As the Augmented Planning Decisions tool moves toward its 2027 goals, Google Cloud is proud to be the platform of choice for its development, proving that when the public sector's vision is supported by enterprise-scale technology, the result is more efficient and transparent systems for everyone.