UK Government Launches New App with AI Integration Plans

New UK government app to streamline access to public services

The UK government has launched a new mobile app that will eventually allow Britons to access thousands of public services on their smartphones as well as paving the way for new digital identity cards. Technology secretary Peter Kyle said the new gov.uk app would streamline access to public services from claiming benefits to renewing a passport, although it will be launched as a "beta" service that initially only connects to existing government websites. The app is part of a multibillion-pound cost-cutting drive across Whitehall that relies on digitising the civil service, including using AI for administrative tasks and replacing postal communications with online channels. Earlier this year, Sir Keir Starmer said digitisation could bring up to £45bn in savings and productivity benefits annually across the public sector. The "beta" version of the app that launches for iPhones and Android devices on Tuesday will offer little more than a series of bookmarks and shortcuts to the existing government website. Each user can select from one of 11 topics that they use most frequently, including benefits, care, parenting, tax and travel. The app will also keep track of previous searches and, if the user enters their postcode, their local council's website. Kyle promised "a very rapid rate of progress" in the coming months, including the launch of an artificial intelligence chatbot -- designed in partnership with US-based Anthropic -- and digital driving licences by the end of 2025. "What we're embarking on right now is the warm-up lap," he said. "Very soon, by the end of this year, we will be in the main race." The new app was designed in-house by the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) unit, which also launched the original gov.uk website in 2012. That 700,000-page site is now used 88mn times every month, with more than half of those visits from mobile devices -- a process the dedicated app is designed to simplify. It was developed by a core team of 32 people inside GDS. Kyle said he hoped the app would help with "ending the scandal of Royal Mail delivering so much information, which people should be getting electronically". The UK's launch of a government "super app" comes several years after similar services were introduced in India, Poland, Ukraine and Singapore. India launched its Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance (UMANG) in 2017, offering access to hundreds of local and central government services in more than a dozen Indian languages. Back in 2013, GDS leadership argued that investing heavily in mobile apps was "rarely justified", when retooling regular web pages for smartphone screens would do. That position has changed following the popularity of dedicated NHS and HM Revenue & Customs apps, as well as younger users' expectation of "mobile-first" services, officials said. Kyle proposed a one-stop-shop app for public services soon after Labour took office last year. "For me, this is a progressive cause, because those people who use [public] services the most [are] people who are usually on lower incomes or in areas of deprivation or have grown up in tough circumstances," he said. The project was "fully on track" to "start the rollout" of digital driving licences by the end of the year, he added. That will initially be available via a new digital wallet app that will later be folded into the main gov.uk app, he added.

The new GOV.UK app wants to make it easier to organize your life - here are 5 things you need to know

The Gov.uk app has launched in beta as a directory for government web pages The UK Government Digital Service has released a new mobile app designed to make accessing government services easier. The new Gov.uk app launched in public beta for iPhone and Android phones on July 1, and currently offers users a way to quickly access 11 categories of services, such as Money and tax, Parenting and guardianship, and Travel. Currently, these mainly consist of groups of links to the gov.uk website. Launching in public beta means the Gov.uk app isn't actually finished, and more features are slated to be added with incremental updates. Speaking with TechRadar, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle said: "This app was designed in-house by the new Digital Centre of Government. From the very first moment you log in, you're going to see a service that is striving to tailor public services to you as an individual person." Kyle also defended the decision to release the app as an unfinished beta: "We've had private testing with 1,300 people, now we need to go mainstream. Anyone that's seen how other apps in the mainstream tech world [launch] will know that you have to move to high volume testing in order to really test the robustness of an app." As The Guardian reports, Kyle pledged in January to release the app in June 2025, and said: "The design is not as we would like it to be." Though the app is quite limited in function at the moment, it's still a major launch and forms a notable part of the UK Government's digital strategy. Here are 5 key things you need to know about the new app. As mentioned, the Gov.uk app is available now via the Apple App Store and Google Play store. It's exclusive to smartphones, and there are no plans for a tablet version. The app is available on phones running iOS 16 or later, or Android 10 or later. Users sign on via the UK Government One Login system, and a user must be at least 16 years old to create an account. Logging into the app for the first time presents users with a customization screen not dissimilar to the ones you see when setting up a social media account - you're presented with a selection of categories to add to your home page to reflect your priorities. The Gov.uk app is launching in beta, meaning it's still technically in a testing stage. In the tech world, 'beta' refers to a pre-release software build that is developed enough to be used by a wider audience, but still requires frequent updates, fixes, and feature additions. At release, the app is pretty much just a directory of useful pages on the gov.uk website, but there are plans to bring more functions and features into the app itself over time. Technology secretary Peter Kyle said one of the first post-launch features would be the ability for benefits claimants to generate proof of their claims electronically. The app will also eventually integrate with the upcoming Gov.uk Wallet app, providing a digital space for government issued cards and documents - Kyle confirmed to TechRadar that this will launch by Remembrance Day (November 11), and that the first card supported will be the HM Armed Forces Veteran Card. Following this, the wallet function will get support for a fully digital UK driver's license by the end of 2025. The biggest post-launch feature coming to the Gov.uk app is Gov.uk Chat, an AI chatbot based on Anthropic's Claude. This is an AI chatbot designed to help users find relevant information, draft forms and letters, and better understand government services. "People will be able to have intuitive, human-like conversations about any area of interaction with government," said Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, "it will inform, it will tutor people to go through the steps they need to." Kyle added: "It's been trained on 700,000 pages of publicly available information. It's not been trained on private information [...] there's no security threat that comes from this. There's no hint of them having access to private data that might make its way into the public domain." Kyle confirmed the Gov.uk Chat feature would launch by September 2025. Making essential government services accessible via a mobile app naturally comes with some security concerns - particularly when it comes to the visibility of that data to app store providers and phone makers like Apple and Google, and the app's AI partner, Anthropic. Speaking with TechRadar, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: "People's private data will not be shared outside of government. The only data we collect in the app is there to serve you. It's about usage data, so we can get to know you as an individual citizen, and all of it is done with your consent." Kyle added: "We won't do anything unless we have your consent to do so." A useful aspect of the Gov.uk app is the way the app tailors to your habits, and personal circumstances. Though optional, users can input their postcode into the app to receive advice and updates on their local authorities, as well as the nationally-available services the app refers users to by default. TechRadar understands that the app does not track location beyond manually entered location data, such as postcodes or travel locations. Each category section also has a tab of recently visited pages to make accessing regularly required information and services easier. Having tried the Gov.uk app for myself, I can see the value in having a somewhat personalized and easily accessible portal to essential government services available at any time on your phone. However, I do find myself questioning whether this release has come too early. The point of a public beta is to test, but it seems that many of the more useful features are absent from this release, which could make it hard for users to properly appraise the app's usefulness. Would you download and use this app? Let us know in the comments below.

Gov.uk smartphone app to launch with limited functionality

First version steers users to existing webpages, with AI chatbot, notifications and digital driving licences to follow A government app intended to "cut life admin" will be free to download by millions of UK citizens from Tuesday, but its functions will be limited and the cabinet minister in charge has admitted: "The design is not as we would like it to be." The gov.uk app will be accessible on smartphones for people aged 16 and over and is intended to be the main mobile hub for many citizen interactions with the government, although not the NHS or HM Revenue and Customs. Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science and technology, said the version launched this week would only steer users to existing government webpages, with more functionality to be added by the end of the year. A generative artificial intelligence chatbot trained on 700,000 pages of the gov.uk website is not yet ready. Technology to allow people to deal with and track government benefits such as childcare allowances through the app will come later too. The app is also expected to deliver personal notifications such as when car MOTs are due and when citizens need to register to vote. Warnings about hot weather could be tailored geographically if the user enters their postcode. The chatbot will be powered by a large language model provided by Anthropic, a leading Silicon Valley AI company backed by Amazon, but officials said the data from citizens' questions would not be accessible to Anthropic. The main app functions available at launch from 6am on Tuesday will allow users to customise the app to focus on the main government services they interact with, and then to use the app to search webpages. "What I don't want to do is say that we are fully where we want to be in terms of the service right now," said Kyle, who pledged in January to launch the app in June. "For example, the design is not as we would like it to be ... But you will be able to do things faster, and you will be able to find services where in the past you would have given up because it's a pain in the neck getting there." The app is being built by the government digital service, its in-house tech arm. The launch of the app to tens of millions of people comes at the stage described internally as "minimum viable product". It will eventually be linked to a digital wallet, which will include a digital driving licence by the end of the year. Kyle said this would have the "digital ID card functions, the age-verification functions that go along with the offline version of the driving licence". Asked if a digital ID could be developed that would include information on immigration status or records of interactions with the criminal justice system, Kyle did not rule it out, but he said: "This is all we are planning at the moment."