A good example of what AI in government should look like
The UK Government’s Extract programme is not particularly glamorous. It does not involve humanoid robots, superintelligence or another headline-grabbing frontier model.
It tackles something much more useful: the extraordinary amount of planning information still locked away in paper files, scanned PDFs, old maps and microfiche.
Extract uses AI to convert that material into structured, usable geospatial data. Early testing showed that key information could be extracted in around two minutes, and the Government estimates that the system could save planning officers around 250,000 hours a year across England. It is now available to all local planning authorities.
