Microsoft pledges to end 'civil service drudgery' with admin bots

Matthew Field

October 21, 2024 at 4:07 PM

Civil servants are to be given new AI tools to help them do their jobs under a partnership that Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has said will end the "drudgery" of Whitehall work.

Microsoft on Monday unveiled new "autonomous agents" - akin to a digital secretary or virtual coworker - that can automatically respond to emails, handle administrative tasks and organise schedules.

It came as the company announced a five-year deal with the British government to provide the tools to Whitehall.

The "autonomous agents" rely on Microsoft's Copilot AI technology. AI bots can be built that perform simple business functions such as monitoring and responding to emails, reviewing documents and acting as a "personal concierge" for customer service.

Mr Nadella "putting this in the hands of civil servants" would help with "reducing the drudgery and improving productivity" and improve the "services that the Government offers, whether it is in health, whether it is in education, whether it is in energy or any sector of the Government".

The Tony Blair Institute, a think tank run by the former Labour prime minister, earlier this year estimated that AI could improve public sector productivity by £40bn a year.

The Government has been looking at ways to use the technology in order to save money and stop public sector spending spiralling further out of control. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is facing a £40bn black hole in public finances that she has blamed on the Tories.

Last week, Sir Keir claimed AI could be a "game changer" for the Government, while Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has said AI could be used to revolutionise cancer care and drug development.

The Government has launched a review of the technology and announced an AI Opportunities Unit to spearhead adoption.

Mr Nadella said the new tools would help with "reducing the drudgery and improving productivity".

Microsoft's increasingly advanced AI software will be able to retrieve information from across organisations and automatically draft presentations for meetings.

Already, Microsoft's AI tools can be used to transcribe and summarise meeting notes and email these to executives. But its revamped bots will be able to function autonomously and undertake more complex tasks such as managing a diary or handling sales or customer interactions, only falling back on a human as a last resort.

The new tools follow a groundswell of interest in AI tools from businesses following the launch of ChatGPT, which was developed by Silicon Valley start-up OpenAI two years ago. Shares in technology giants involved in AI have soared on the belief these tools are set to transform the world of work.

Microsoft, a $3 trillion (£2.3 trillion) technology giant, has invested billions of pounds in AI technology, including a multibillion-dollar stake in OpenAI.

Mr Nadella said the impact of the tools on Microsoft had been "tremendous", with the company closing 20pc more deals in teams that have used its Copilot tools. AI assistants have been rolled out across sales and marketing, customer service, legal, HR and IT.

The Whitehall deal comes days after Clare Barclay, Microsoft's UK chief executive, was appointed to lead the Government's new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council.

Mr Nadella said the tie-up would ensure the "diffusion of tech happens not just in the private sector, but also across the public sector".

Ms Barclay said the deal would help "transform public services and fuel the UK's economic growth".

Technology giants have promised AI will help boost jobs by cutting down on tedious tasks while freeing people up to more of the productive work that drives growth.

However, the latest innovations will reignite fears that bots could replace traditional office jobs, such as secretarial work or customer service roles.

In the 1950s, 1.5m women worked in secretarial roles in the UK, but the advent of personal computers put an end to typing pools and shorthand.

Today, around 1.5m people work in "administrative support services" - jobs likely to be transformed by the advent of AI bots.

One customer case study, cited by Microsoft in its announcement, claimed using Copilot was equivalent to hiring 187 full time staff.

Chatbots have increasingly been used by businesses to speed up email-writing, for presentations, customer interactions or technical functions such as coding.

However, the technology has also attracted scepticism, with AI bots known to make mistakes or occasionally invent information.

Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce, which competes with Microsoft, last week said its rival's Copilot technology was "more like Clippy 2.0", a reference to a rudimentary bot developed by Microsoft in the 1990s for Word.

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