Last month, technology leaders, government representatives and industry experts met at the House of Lords for a dynamic breakfast discussion on the the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in public services, hosted by Oracle and GovNet. Over the course of the morning, the public sector attendees listened to presentations on leveraging AI for innovation, operational efficiency, and strategic decision-making. The morning, led by Oracle, Nvidia and Cohere, who are pioneering advancements in AI infrastructure, illuminated how AI can address pressing governmental challenges, enhance productivity, and deliver citizen-centric services.
The event was opened by Nick Wallace, VP Cloud at Oracle UK, who welcomed the audience and explained the company’s mission is to help people see data in new ways, discover insights, and unlock endless possibilities.
Paul Willmott, Chair of the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), addressing the critical importance of digital transformation in government. Comparing today’s expectations of public services to the seamless functionality of commercial platforms like Netflix, he underlined the necessity for AI-powered efficiency. Paul stressed that digital government is no longer optional, as citizens demand more accessible, responsive, and transparent services – “digital government is efficient government” after all. He closed by calling for leadership and collaboration to tackle legacy systems and unleash AI’s full potential. As Willmott noted, today’s government is under dual pressures: rising service demands and constrained budgets, and AI might be the answer we need to tackle these challenges.
Dan Westley, Oracle’s Head of Cloud Engineering – Public Sector, explained the company’s approach to building a sovereign AI foundation, designed to meet the UK government’s data security and compliance requirements. Highlighting Oracle’s deep UK presence, including its cloud regions and innovation hubs, Dan presented AI as the backbone of enhanced public service delivery. He detailed Oracle’s historic credibility in infrastructure and their wide range of AI-enabled services, including generative AI applications like fraud detection and healthcare optimisation. The demonstration of Oracle’s UK AI Strategy Agent showcased how language models can be used to summarise policy documents and extract actionable insights. Westley underscored Oracle’s unique sovereign cloud solution, operated by UK security-cleared personnel, ensuring both data security and regulatory compliance.
Chris Skidmore of the Royal Navy followed, presenting a compelling case for AI’s role in workforce management and decision-making within the navy. From predictive analytics in recruitment to retention strategies informed by data insights, he illustrated how the navy is leveraging AI to tackle longstanding challenges. He also addressed the challenges of managing complex data securely and navigating the cultural shifts required to adopt new technologies. Chris’s reflections on AI’s potential to enhance recruitment and retention strategies demonstrated how even legacy organisations can harness AI to remain competitive. He emphasised the importance of balancing innovation with robust security measures, ensuring that AI implementation aligns with both operational goals and data sovereignty requirements.
Therese Overstedt and Debbie Johnson from NVIDIA shifted the focus to AI infrastructure, explaining how the company has transformed from a gaming hardware leader into a global AI powerhouse. NVIDIA’s comprehensive AI ecosystem supports use cases ranging from smart city planning to national security applications. The speakers illustrated how NVIDIA’s generative AI roadmap enables complex multi-step problem-solving, providing tools for defence, healthcare, and urban planning. The presentation also touched on NVIDIA’s AI Factory, a platform enabling real-time intelligence and decision-making at scale. A key takeaway was NVIDIA’s emphasis on interoperability between AI infrastructure and domain-specific tools, ensuring that the technology aligns with diverse public sector requirements.
Closing the presentations, representatives of Cohere highlighted the company’s expertise in building enterprise-grade language models tailored to public sector needs. From text summarisation to semantic search, Cohere’s models address real-world challenges with enterprise-level security and scalability. They described how Cohere’s partnership with Oracle has embedded advanced AI solutions into widely used applications like Netsuite and Fusion, benefiting over 25,000 businesses globally. Use cases such as policy analysis and intelligent chatbots demonstrated Cohere’s capacity to revolutionise public sector workflows.
The event wrapped up with a call to action from the partners, who reiterated the need for partnerships between government and private enterprises to unlock AI’s full potential. While AI offers extraordinary opportunities to enhance public services, its success hinges on overcoming challenges like legacy systems, cultural resistance, and ensuring data security.
The discussions underscored that realizing AI’s full potential requires a balanced approach—integrating cutting-edge technology with thoughtful leadership and cultural adaptation. As governments and private enterprises work together, AI’s role in shaping a more responsive, transparent, and efficient public sector becomes ever clearer.