MORE than £1.3 million of taxpayers’ money is being earmarked to develop job-saving AI technology at Essex County Council – estimated to save almost £1 million a year by next year. It comes after work in 2024/25 to look at the effectiveness and affordability of using AI within the council reports the Local Democracy Reporter.

Essex County Council says £900,000 per year could be saved by 2027/28, but “there is a high risk that this estimate, of both gross benefits and ongoing costs, could change”. It adds that the “estimated AI financial benefits of £900,000 per annum is a savings ambition target and is not built into the Medium-Term Revenue Strategy.”

A statement said: “Benefits have been quantified based on learning from AI and Robotic Process Automations and AI Proof of Concepts, where staffing hours can be saved by implementing AI technology.”

The county council has said there are “countless examples” of where AI has proved to be far more reliable than humans in performing certain tasks, but people don’t trust it and that “It is somehow more palatable to accept human error than that of machines”.

A statement from Essex County Council, as part of a blog post, said: “There is only one Essex County Council they can engage with. This is why we have chosen to take a considered, responsible approach to our rollout of AI.

“We have had considerable success with the use of Co-Pilot to help our staff with some of their day-to-day tasks. We have automated some repeatable, robotic processes, and we are testing other use cases. However, our AI is “human in the loop”.

“We are using it to augment decision-making rather than replace the humans making the decisions. And we are designing our strategy with our residents and learning about their feelings towards AI so that we can make sure we are meeting all their needs. Not just the technical ones.”