A new £1 million programme backed with funding from Meta and lead by the UK Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology aims to bring the nation’s top AI experts into government to build cutting-edge AI tools.

Dubbed the Open-Source AI Fellowship, the programme has been funded by a grant from Meta to the Alan Turing Institute, with fellows set to join DSIT’s Incubator for AI, the team behind the bundle of AI tools meant to help civil servants dubbed ‘Humphrey’.

Fellows could join the government in building AI tools for high-security use cases across the public sector such as language translation in a national security context, and making use of construction planning data to speed up the approvals process and get more homes built.

They could also help expand ‘Humphrey’ and help take away the admin burdens involved in menial civil service tasks like summarising and taking notes.

Fellows will be focussed on using open-source AI models, which could reduce costs to the taxpayer when using AI widely, and help unlock up to £45 billion in productivity gains across the public sector.

“This Fellowship is the best of AI in action – open, practical, and built for public good. It’s about delivery, not just ideas – creating real tools that help government work better for people,” technology secretary Peter Kyle said.

“We’ve already seen the potential. Caddy – developed with Citizens Advice and now helping Cabinet Office teams – shows how open AI tools can boost productivity, improve decision-making, and support frontline staff.

“The Fellowship will help scale that kind of impact across government, and develop sovereign capabilities where the UK must lead, like national security and critical infrastructure.”

The followship comes alongside the news that ‘Caddy’, an AI assistant that helps call centre workers, has been open sources, meaning call centres across the world could benefit from the tech.

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Having been tested in Citizen’s Advice to date, who built the technology in partnership with government, it is also now for the first time being used by central government – with a Cabinet Office team using it to quickly access expert guidance on grant decisions, improving speed, consistency, and value for money.

Caddy works for providing call handlers with key information from guidance documents. Currently being used across six Citizen’s Advice call centres, it helps experts answer calls on everything from managing debt to getting legal help or knowing your rights.

Early tests across 1,000 calls showed that it could halve response times. Results also showed that 80% of Caddy-generated responses were ready to use with no revisions, and advisors using Caddy were twice as confident in providing accurate answers.

Further, the government is also launching the next phase of the AI Knowledge Hub – a growing platform that shares real examples, tools, and tips to help teams use AI in the right way.

The Hub is designed to help departments learn from each other, avoid duplication, and move from small pilots to real results. As part of its next phase, new features will be added including a Prompt Library to help teams use AI to boost everyday productivity and deliver faster, better services.