Agenda

Tuesday 19th May 2026

09:00 Chair's opening remarks

Session 1:  Designing better digital front doors for citizens

09:05 Keynote Speaker

09:20 Question and answer session

09:30 Deploying AI at the front door – smarter, fairer consumer access

  • Intelligent digital front doors – virtual assistants and smart forms answering routine queries, triaging enquiries and guiding through complex applications and bookings
  • Proactive appointment management – AI proposing optimal times, filling cancellations, managing waiting lists and nudging people to attend
  • Inclusive by design – multilingual support and automatic translation for web content and chat to better serve non-English speakers
  • Accessible for everyone –turning text into easy-read, audio, BSL-style support or large print, analysing feedback to spot problems early on

09:45 Enhanced service design and user experience – designing better journeys

  • Map real journeys – analyse user behaviour across web, phone and in-person contact points to find bottlenecks and drop-off points
  • Understand different needs – assess consumers with similar and differing patterns to design more targeted, relevant services
  • Data-driven user understanding – create realistic user profiles and scenarios from real usage data to guide co-design and engagement
  • Smarter usability testing – effectively review pages and forms, suggesting clearer wording, layouts and accessibility improvements

10:00 Better communications and engagement – clear, personal and timely

  • Faster content creation – drafting support for press releases, web updates, newsletters and social posts
  • Personalised messages – plain-language updates that explain 'what this means for you' and 'what happens next' for each person
  • Smarter consultations – summarising submissions and generating likely Q&As for public meetings and engagement events
  • Consistent tone and clarity – checking content for readability, jargon and alignment with organisational style and key messages

10:15 Question and answer session

10:30 Comfort break

Session 2: Smarter decisions, smarter operations – using AI behind the scenes

10:45 Focussing casework, assessment and decision support
Mark Watson, Chief Civil Architect, Leidos UK
Linkedin

  • Guided decision support – tools that raise relevant rules, policies and precedents for each case while keeping people in charge
  • Fair and fast prioritisation – transparent risk scoring to flag cases needing faster intervention in critical areas
  • Consistent eligibility checks – applying complex criteria the same way every time and highlighting anomalies
  • Sorting and quality assurance – pre-screening to separate simple approvals from complex cases and checking draft decisions against policy and past practice

11:00 Harnessing data analysis, insight and planning

  • See the demand that is coming – predictive modelling for health, social care, transport, education, housing and other services to anticipate future pressure points
  • Optimising resources – identifying better rotas, hours, routes and staff utilisation, vehicles, facilities and resources
  • Test ‘what if?’ safely – scenario planning to explore the impact of policy or budget changes on demand, waiting lists, costs and service levels
  • Spot problems early on – real-time dashboards and anomaly detection to explain trends and flag errors, system failures or fraud quickly

11:15 Employing AI for smarter back-office operations

  • Doing paperwork faster – summarising long reports and consultations, drafting routine letters, emails and standard responses
  • Turning meetings into effective actions – automated transcription that turns discussions into clear minutes, key decisions and follow-up task lists
  • Getting valuable data from documents – extracting structured data from PDFs, scans and emails into case management systems and other uses
  • Finding and managing information – intelligent search and records management to classify documents, support FOI/GDPR and inform retention/disposal

11:30 Question and answer session

11:45 Comfort break

Session 3: Building AI-ready public and third sectors – money, risk and people

12:00 Getting more from every pound – applying AI to spend, procurement and assets

  • Shine a light on spending – using analytics to spot duplication, under-used contracts and opportunities for shared procurement
  • Smarter tender evaluation – summarising bids, comparing options and highlighting strengths, weaknesses and risks for decision-makers
  • Predictive maintenance – optimise maintenance of physical assets and equipment using data and failure history
  • Better supply planning – forecast and manage demand for key supplies in all service areas to cut excess stock and reduce waste

12:15 Enhancing compliance, governance and risk management

  • Building-in compliance checks – automated scanning of documents and emails to flag potential GDPR, FOI or security issues
  • Safer disclosure – AI-assisted redaction and preparation of documents for FOI responses and publication
  • Governing AI use – logging prompts and outputs to support audits, Data Protection Impact Assessments and transparent reporting on AI systems
  • Stronger internal controls – continuous monitoring of finance, payroll and HR data to spot unusual patterns or potential fraud

12:30 Supporting internal HR & workforce management

  • Plan the workforce of tomorrow – modelling future skills needs, retirement and turnover to guide recruitment and training
  • Fairer, faster recruitment – AI-assisted screening against clear criteria, with strong safeguards against bias
  • Always-on staff support – chatbots answering the routine questions so that teams can focus on complex issues
  • Listening at scale – using surveys and analysis of free-text feedback to spot morale and wellbeing issues early

12:45 Question and answer session

13:00 Chair's closing remarks

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Using AI in Scotland's public and third sector bodies: what works?

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