The Open Innovation Team (OIT) has launched its AI Adoption Accelerator, which is a practical programme to assist civil servants in adopting AI to boost productivity. The Accelerator combines expert guidance with hands-on coaching, so teams can adopt AI safely and translate this knowledge into faster and higher-quality ways of working.

Although civil servants are experimenting with AI, this is without structure and can lead to patchy or unsafe results. By showing officials how to test AI on jobs they perform daily, and how to evaluate its output, the tool can bridge the gap between enthusiasm and reliable delivery.

The modular support can be booked individually or as a package and includes modules on planning and strategy, which are senior workshops to set clear guard-rails; hands-on support where teams practice on live cases and refine workflows; resources and tools to develop knowledge in effective prompting and safe data handling; and AI Pioneers bootcamps, which are two-day intensive sessions that train internal champions to support colleagues after the programme.

So far, discovery shops with the Department for Education have already boosted confidence and delivered improvements. Alice Douglas, deputy director for support and rewarding teachers and leaders, said: “The workshop was well tailored to our work, with examples that rang true and reflected day to day tasks. We all learnt a huge amount both about the possibilities but also the risks and how to put guard rails around our AI use.”