AI Action Plan Explorer

Copilot Chat:

All MOJ staff now have access to Copilot Chat as our foundational offer, providing a secure, general-purpose AI assistant for tasks such as drafting, summarisation, brainstorming, and research. This supports everyday productivity across HQ and agencies, reducing administrative burdens, and freeing up time for higher-value work.

Microsoft 365:

We have continued to expand Microsoft 365 Copilot across priority roles and business areas where there is clear business value. Integrating AI into Microsoft 365 applications supports staff to work more efficiently within familiar tools and helps embed AI into existing ways of working. Ongoing evaluation is informing future deployment and identifying opportunities to maximise benefits.

ChatGPT:

As the first government department to pilot an enterprise deployment of ChatGPT, we have established a secure platform that complements Microsoft 365 Copilot with advanced AI capabilities. ChatGPT Enterprise supports complex reasoning, research, coding assistants and specialist technical use cases, while ongoing evaluations are informing future deployment decisions and the evolution of our enterprise AI capability.

This AI-powered semantic search tool is helping probation officers find the information they need more quickly and accurately, reducing the time spent searching for guidance and information.

Probation officers work with large volumes of information, including case records and operational guidance. Traditional keyword searches can make it difficult to locate the most relevant information, leading to missed information when authors have used different language and time-consuming “search flurries” to find what they need.

To address this, Justice Digital, Data & Science (JDDS) introduced a semantic search capability within the Probation Digital System. Powered by a Large Language Model (LLM), the tool understands context, language variation and abbreviations, enabling it to return more accurate results from the outset. Unlike basic keyword search, it can interpret synonyms, abbreviations, and misspellings to provide results that match user intent.

This helps practitioners access critical information more efficiently, supporting better risk management and more effective rehabilitation outcomes.

This AI-enabled software package helps analysts and policymakers unlock insights from unstructured data by extracting structured information from free-text records.

Government services generate large volumes of free-text data through daily interactions with the public. While rich in insight on service effectiveness, emerging needs and operational challenges, this information is often locked in unstructured formats across systems and underused in decision-making.

To address this, Justice Digital, Data & Science (JDDS) developed Laurium through the MOJ's Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) (opens in a new tab) programme, enabling case notes to be analysed at scale. Since September 2025, Laurium has been rolled out across multiple use cases, including parental imprisonment, Community Sentence Treatment Requirements, children on remand, prison safety, and drug recovery wings - strengthening the frontline evidence base and supporting policy development.

In recognition of its innovation, Laurium won the Analysis in Government Award (Innovative Methods) in January 2026.

Other departments are now adopting Laurium for analytical use cases. We plan to continue expanding use cases and adoption across government.

Building on strong results from its use in the Probation Service, this AI-powered tool is now being piloted in courts to explore where else AI can add value.

The tool uses securely recorded interviews to generate structured draft meeting notes for practitioners to review and refine, supporting more accurate and consistent information capture as one of several inputs to the final Pre-Sentence Report (PSR). By reducing the need for manual note-taking, it enables practitioners to focus more on interviews, apply professional judgement, and spend more time meaningfully engaging with individuals and quality assuring reports before submission.

The pilot will assess whether this tool can improve efficiency, support more consistent and higher-quality report drafting, contribute to better-informed sentencing decisions, and inform future decisions on the safe and effective use of AI across courts and probation services.

This AI-powered transcription tool helps courts and tribunals capture proceedings in real time by converting oral decisions, evidence and arguments into structured case notes and hearing records.

Following successful pilots, Judicial Transcribe has been rolled out nationally across the Immigration and Asylum Chamber. By reducing reliance on manual note-taking, the tool is reducing administrative burden and speeding up the preparation of decisions, enabling judges and legal professionals to focus on the substance of proceedings rather than record-keeping.

Justice Transcribe is transforming how probation staff capture and use information. Probation officers manage complex caseloads where timely, accurate record-keeping is essential to managing risk and supporting rehabilitation.

Using speech recognition, this AI-powered tool transcribes, summarises, and structures records from probation supervision sessions and case interactions.

By reducing administrative burdens and improving the quality and consistency of case records, Justice Transcribe is enabling probation officers to spend more time on meaningful engagement and rehabilitative work.

Following successful pilots, the tool has been scaled to over 12,000 probation officers and is delivering measurable impact. Over 1.5 million meetings have been summarised between 7 October 2025 and 14 September 2026. View the latest Justice Transcribe statistics (opens in a new tab).

Ruby is an AI-enabled digital “red box”, bringing together ministerial commissions, submissions and other core private office workflows in a single platform rather than across multiple spreadsheets and trackers.

By making work easier to manage and track, it reduces administrative burden and improves coordination across teams, allowing private offices to focus more on supporting ministers and senior officials.

Early pilots demonstrated significant benefits, with teams reporting less manual tracking, better oversight of work and more time spent on supporting decision-making. Additional AI capabilities, including automated summarisation and a chatbot assistant, have been introduced to further streamline day-to-day tasks.

Ruby is now in production across most private office teams in MOJ and has become a core part of how ministerial and senior official offices manage their work. After a successful 1-month pilot in the Department for Work and Pensions, Ruby is also being explored by several other government departments, signalling growing interest and wider adoption across Whitehall.

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) plays a vital role in protecting individuals who may lack the mental capacity to make decisions about their health and finances and have a lasting or enduring power of attorney (LPA/EPA) in place. When concerns are raised about the potential misuse of an LPA/EPA, OPG has the power to investigate concerns raised.

The continued growth in LPA demand has also seen a proportional increase in the number of concerns being raised with OPG and increasing numbers of investigations. Delays in investigations progressing can risk slowing the point of intervention, impacting the ability to intervene for the benefit of vulnerable individuals at the earliest opportunity.

To address this, the Justice AI Unit is working with OPG to design and test AI-enabled workflows that assist investigators with elements of the investigations process, reducing manual tasks. Investigators remain fully responsible for reviewing outputs and making decisions using their professional judgement, with AI supporting investigators with their work. Working in collaboration with Microsoft Forward-Deployed Engineering, the team has identified parts of the end-to-end investigations process where AI and automation can add value. This includes supporting time-intensive, repetitive manual tasks such as preparation for financial analysis, as well as practical tools to streamline day-to-day investigative work, improving quality and consistency.

A financial categorisation workflow is already in a controlled live pilot. The workflow processes transaction data within financial data sent to OPG, and automatically categorises transactions into structured groupings, providing investigators with a clearer starting point for financial review. During the pilot, performance is being monitored against key criteria including accuracy of categorisation, time saved compared to manual methods, and the consistency and usability of outputs in real investigations.

This work aims to reduce manual effort, improve consistency, and give investigators more time to focus on professional judgement and case-specific decision-making.

HMCTS is exploring how advanced analytics can improve listing and make better use of resources across courts and tribunals. Following a 12-week discovery phase, opportunities were identified to optimise hearing room capacity and support the judiciary to list cases more efficiently.

By applying data-driven insights to listing decisions, the approach aims to reduce inefficiencies, improve utilisation of courtrooms, and support smoother case progression. Work has been informed by engagement with Listing Officers and the judiciary to ensure it reflects listing practices and constraints.

Pilots are underway to test data-driven approaches in selected sites within the Crime jurisdiction. This will help assess the practical benefits of data-driven scheduling and inform potential wider rollout.

Fred is an AI-powered chatbot that helps people on probation understand their requirements and stay on track with appointments, unpaid work, licence conditions, and rehabilitation activities. By providing clear, accessible information when it is needed, Fred helps people navigate probation more confidently and reduces uncertainty about what is expected of them.

As part of wider efforts to modernise probation services, Fred demonstrates how AI can make public services more accessible, responsive and user-centred. By providing personalised guidance and on-demand support, the tool aims to improve engagement, support compliance, and enable probation staff to focus on higher-value, person-centred interactions. Fred does not make any decisions regarding sentence management, nor does it discuss content outside of probation.

The project is currently being piloted in London, Norfolk and North Kent. Early feedback from both people on probation and practitioners has been very positive.

One individual reflected: “When I left prison, I was completely isolated, with addiction and mental health struggles. If I'd had Fred to talk to, it would have been a lifeline”.

Online probation check-ins is a new service that enables people on probation to check in with their probation officer using a digital tool, providing an update on their wellbeing and support needs. The service supports existing supervision arrangements, with information from check-ins used to inform face-to-face meetings.

For identity verification, the service matches a video taken by the person on probation against a photo held on file. The platform makes a recommendation on image match, which is reviewed and verified by a probation practitioner.

This AI-powered algorithmic tool developed by Justice Digital, Data & Science (JDDS) helps prison staff to manage violence in prisons.

The tool produces an estimate of the number of violent incidents that an offender in custody is at risk of being involved in over the next year, based on their age and previous behaviour in custody. These factors were selected due to substantial evidence linking them to incidents of violence in custody.

Prison staff use the estimate, in conjunction with other data sources, to quickly identify whether an offender is likely to be involved in violence whilst in custody and how frequently. This enables HMPPS staff to prioritise their resources effectively and improve the safety within prisons. The tool also saves staff having to trawl through lots of data about offenders to understand the relative risk and greatest violence offenders.

Prison staff have said that the tool's estimates help them to be proactive and target the right groups of prisoners for support and wellbeing sessions, and that they see it as an important part of their toolkit for managing and reducing violence in custody.

All prisons have had access to this tool since 2019; its AI-enabled components have been strengthened in recent years.

Justice Digital, Data & Science (JDDS) have developed an Acquisitive Crime Mapping Tool which uses location data and analytical tools to support the investigation of acquisitive crime and strengthen collaboration with policing partners.

The Acquisitive Crime (AC) pilot operated across 19 police force areas, where individuals on probation for acquisitive offences were required to wear GPS tags. Location data from tagged individuals is automatically matched against police-recorded crime locations. These matches are reviewed by the AC Hub, which prepares evidence packs - such as visual maps overlaying movement data with crime scenes - to support further investigation by the police. Following a successful pilot, the tool is now being scaled.

Established in 2019, LawtechUK is a MOJ-funded programme that supports the growth of the UK's legal sector through mentoring, accelerator programmes, investor engagement and industry partnerships. It has helped to support a majority of the recorded 315 UK-founded ventures. In 2025, those companies attracted almost £189 million of investment, a 35% increase on the previous year. The additional £4.5 million investment will enable LawtechUK to continue supporting the development and adoption of legal technologies that benefit businesses, consumers and access to justice, while reinforcing the UK's position as a global leader in legal technology.

At London Tech Week, the Government announced the AI Growth Lab, an advisory sandbox designed to accelerate the development and adoption of AI products. The legal services sector was selected as the first sector to participate, reflecting strong demand from industry for greater regulatory clarity around the use of AI. Through the Lab, regulators and innovators will work together to explore practical challenges associated with deploying AI in legal services, helping organisations understand how existing rules apply in practice and enabling responsible innovation.

The programme will focus on practical regulatory challenges which may include, but are not limited to, client confidentiality, data protection, explainability and risk management, supporting firms to adopt AI while maintaining high standards of consumer protection and professional ethics.

By bringing together government, regulators and industry, the AI Growth Lab will help create the conditions for responsible AI adoption, supporting growth, improving access to legal services and demonstrating how collaborative regulation can unlock innovation.