This report outlines the findings of an exercise undertaken to assess the extent to which public sector activities are suited for Generative AI (GenAI) use, with the aim to support robust AI adoption strategies. It drew on United Kingdom's government data to map public sector work activities to current state-of-the-art GenAI capabilities, with the aim of identifying potential opportunity areas for adoption. 

The findings demonstrate the potential supporting role that GenAI could play in freeing up valuable public sector time. However, its potential to support public sector work activities varies across different sectors. For certain activities, the implementation of GenAI must be carefully considered, particularly where decisions may directly impact an individual’s liberties and wellbeing, and for those activities which require high-stakes communication or deal with sensitive information.

Key findings

• Approximately 41% of public sector time is spent on activities that could be supported through the use of GenAI.
• This figure varied across different areas of the public sector, ranging from a high of 49% in education to a low of 33% in healthcare.
• GenAI could be particularly useful for roles that have high levels of administrative tasks.
• 38% of frontline workers’ activities could be supported by GenAI, compared with 46% of non-frontline workers.