Lancashire County Council has signed a contract worth £4.3m with software group Netcall to integrate autonomous AI agents into its public services.
The multi-year partnership will see Netcall, which specialises in process automation and customer engagement, incorporate a “digital front door platform” for residents and businesses to access local services.
The move includes the deployment of AI autonomous agents to the council’s contact centre to answer user queries.
Netcall claims that with its platform, residents can access services faster while pressure on council staff is relieved.
The company notes that its platform can improve its services by capturing interactions and growing over time, with Netcall claiming its platform can even capture “non-digital interactions”.
Lancashire County Council has the option to extend the multi-year partnership up to 10 and a half years.
The announcement comes as public bodies in the UK are increasingly being encouraged to adopt AI into their services.
The Local Government Association, the national membership body for local authorities, lists over two dozen councils across England and Wales in its AI case study bank.
Central government has also pushed for the use of AI in its processes, notably in the form of the government-built AI tool Humphrey, which has – among other things – been used to review public responses to consultations.
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