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In today’s digital-first world, citizens naturally expect that public services should be as quick and easy to use as their smartphone apps.

In Britain, we are at a turning point in our approach to artificial intelligence, particularly in the public sector. Governments are increasingly recognising that upgrading the ‘citizen experience’ by investing in cutting-edge technology will be vital to delivering tomorrow’s public services.

Earlier this year, in the Government’s new ‘AI Opportunities Plan’, the Prime Minister highlighted how AI tools can “transform” public services and deliver seamless experiences similar to how we manage money or book flights online. Most recently, the Prime Minister’s announcement to “reshape” the state offers a huge opportunity to reinforce the UK’s ambitions to be an AI leader across the public sector.

AI adoption starts now

At ServiceNow, we are working with hundreds of public sector bodies and can see how AI is already helping to cut through challenges, such as the 13.5 million hours doctors lose annually to outdated IT. Virtual assistants and advanced triaging systems are now helping to cut through the ‘8am rush’ to book a GP appointment. We are seeing similar impacts in other departments such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

For public services, the impact of technology is not some futuristic fantasy: it is here, now, today. The key to implementing this successfully is partnerships between the public and private sector. The Government’s plan calls for the public sector to become a “great customer” of AI services. And yet analysis by GDS suggests that almost half of Government IT spend is dedicated to ‘keeping the lights on’ maintaining legacy systems. In the private sector, businesses are implementing AI to drive productivity and enhance the customer experience. It is vital that the public sector does so too.

Delivering for citizens

The first step for government is replacing patchwork legacy systems with an AI platform to speed innovation, scale business processes, and forge a solid foundation. Analysis by the Social Market Foundation suggests that at HMRC and the DWP alone, eight million hours of staff time could be saved every year by using technology to streamline routine tasks. Moving away from legacy systems, siloed departments and patchwork IT is also crucial to delivering citizen experience, making it easier to connect to government services.

Rather than waiting for working-hours call centers and having to work out who the ‘right’ department is to speak to, digital channels and generative AI are offering real-time answers to citizens. Not only that, but AI’s capacity also to process large stores of data are making digital services more effective and accessible.

AI in public service

Forward-thinking government organizations have already adopted generative AI to deliver better service for citizens, as well as increasing efficiency and offering instant access to data. Large Language Models (LLMs) trained on domain-specific data are already helping government organizations respond rapidly, either by empowering agents with the information they need which might previously have been inaccessible, or by offering citizens direct access to data.

The future of government

From managing risk to delivering improved citizen experience, cutting-edge technology is the key to overcoming many of the hurdles seen in previous government attempts at digital transformation. Ripping out the siloed legacy systems, which are all too often seen in the public sector and replacing them with a single AI platform connecting all data across the organization, will not only drive efficiency, but also pave the way for more wholesale innovation.

The addition of AI, and of its latest evolution with Agentic AI, is a stepping stone towards a new era of innovative, automated services – with citizens able to access personalized experiences, where and when they want.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

• Agentic AI adoption will rise by 327% by 2027, boosting productivity by 30%
• Workers will need to share their roles with AI agents soon, Salesforce claims
• Many workers could be reassigned roles, report says

AI agents are here to stay, with new Salesforce research claiming agentic AI adoption is projected to grow by 327% by 2027, with the company calling the trend a revolution of "digital labor."

Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) are expecting to keep 61% of their existing workforces in their current roles, however employees are set to be working alongside AI.

Most CHROs (88%) surveyed added the redeployment of human resources alongside tech can be more cost-effective than external hiring, suggesting workers' jobs could be more secure than they think, but that the change they're subjected to could also be greater.

Combining workers with AI

In line with the projected growth of AI agents, Salesforce believes an increase in productivity of 30% could be realized. The figures also forecast a 19% reduction in labor costs.

With AI literacy identified as the top skill needed in the modern workplace, four in five (81%) CHROs are reskilling or planning to reskill employees for future roles, including reassigning many to technical roles like data scientists and technical architects.

Among the teams expected to see the biggest growth are IT, research & development, and sales. Customer service, operations and finance are expected to shrink.

Fortunately, workers seem to have plenty of time to get their affairs in order and to embark on their training journeys, because 85% of organizations have not yet implemented agentic AI.

Unprepared workers don't have unlimited time, though, because 86% of CHROs believe integrating AI will be a critical part of their role within the next five years, with four in five believing that AI agents and humans will coexist in this timeframe.

"Every industry must redesign jobs, reskill and redeploy talent – and every employee will need to learn new human, agent and business skills to thrive in the digital labor revolution," explained Salesforce Chief People Officer Nathalie Scardino.

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Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 7.

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• OpenAI’s latest AI models, GPT o3 and o4-mini, hallucinate significantly more often than their predecessors
• The increased complexity of the models may be leading to more confident inaccuracies
• The high error rates raise concerns about AI reliability in real-world applications

Brilliant but untrustworthy people are a staple of fiction (and history). The same correlation may apply to AI as well, based on an investigation by OpenAI and shared by The New York Times. Hallucinations, imaginary facts, and straight-up lies have been part of AI chatbots since they were created. Improvements to the models theoretically should reduce the frequency with which they appear.

OpenAI’s latest flagship models, GPT o3 and o4-mini, are meant to mimic human logic. Unlike their predecessors, which mainly focused on fluent text generation, OpenAI built GPT o3 and o4-mini to think things through step-by-step. OpenAI has boasted that o1 could match or exceed the performance of PhD students in chemistry, biology, and math. But OpenAI's report highlights some harrowing results for anyone who takes ChatGPT responses at face value.

OpenAI found that the GPT o3 model incorporated hallucinations in a third of a benchmark test involving public figures. That’s double the error rate of the earlier o1 model from last year. The more compact o4-mini model performed even worse, hallucinating on 48% of similar tasks.

When tested on more general knowledge questions for the SimpleQA benchmark, hallucinations mushroomed to 51% of the responses for o3 and 79% for o4-mini. That’s not just a little noise in the system; that’s a full-blown identity crisis. You’d think something marketed as a reasoning system would at least double-check its own logic before fabricating an answer, but it's simply not the case.

One theory making the rounds in the AI research community is that the more reasoning a model tries to do, the more chances it has to go off the rails. Unlike simpler models that stick to high-confidence predictions, reasoning models venture into territory where they must evaluate multiple possible paths, connect disparate facts, and essentially improvise. And improvising around facts is also known as making things up.

Fictional functioning

Correlation is not causation, and OpenAI told the Times that the increase in hallucinations might not be because reasoning models are inherently worse. Instead, they could simply be more verbose and adventurous in their answers. Because the new models aren't just repeating predictable facts but speculating about possibilities, the line between theory and fabricated fact can get blurry for the AI. Unfortunately, some of those possibilities happen to be entirely unmoored from reality.

Still, more hallucinations are the opposite of what OpenAI or its rivals like Google and Anthropic want from their most advanced models. Calling AI chatbots assistants and copilots implies they’ll be helpful, not hazardous. Lawyers have already gotten in trouble for using ChatGPT and not noticing imaginary court citations; who knows how many such errors have caused problems in less high-stakes circumstances?

The opportunities for a hallucination to cause a problem for a user are rapidly expanding as AI systems start rolling out in classrooms, offices, hospitals, and government agencies. Sophisticated AI might help draft job applications, resolve billing issues, or analyze spreadsheets, but the paradox is that the more useful AI becomes, the less room there is for error.

You can’t claim to save people time and effort if they have to spend just as long double-checking everything you say. Not that these models aren’t impressive. GPT o3 has demonstrated some amazing feats of coding and logic. It can even outperform many humans in some ways. The problem is that the moment it decides that Abraham Lincoln hosted a podcast or that water boils at 80°F, the illusion of reliability shatters.

Until those issues are resolved, you should take any response from an AI model with a heaping spoonful of salt. Sometimes, ChatGPT is a bit like that annoying guy in far too many meetings we've all attended; brimming with confidence in utter nonsense.

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• Gigabyte AI TOP 100 Z890 PC blends elite gaming hardware with AI-focused design and software
• AI TOP Utility supports LLMs with 405B parameters and real-time model monitoring tools
• Eight SATA ports and two NVMe drives make storage scaling effortless for creators and devs

Gigabyte has revealed a new desktop PC designed for users working with artificial intelligence in professional creative tasks and high-end gaming.

The company says its the system is equipped with Nvidia’s flagship GeForce RTX 5090 GPU and Intel’s top-tier Core Ultra 9 285K CPU, and introduces the new Z890 AI TOP platform.

The GeForce RTX 5090 WINDFORCE GPU includes support for DLSS 4.0 and Multi Frame Generation, making it suitable for machine learning workloads.

Advanced memory and cooling design

The Gigabyte AI TOP 100 Z890 business PC comes with 128GB of DDR5 memory, supported by D5 Bionic Corsa technology, which enhances stability during intensive AI and gaming sessions.

A unique feature is the inclusion of a 320GB AI TOP 100E cache SSD alongside a 2TB AORUS Gen4 7300 SSD. The latter is built to endure heavy data writes, boasting a lifespan up to 150 times greater TBW than standard SSDs.

The system also supports up to eight additional SATA drives, making it a viable option for users needing scalable storage without sacrificing speed.

To cool all this hardware, Gigabyte installed its AORUS WATERFORCE II 360 liquid cooling system, which keeps thermal output in check even under prolonged workloads.

While not a portable machine, the system maintains a standard ATX form factor, measuring 594 x 336 x 584 mm, and supports both Windows 11 Pro and Linux.

For connectivity, the workstation offers a solid I/O setup, including front-mounted USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, USB 3.0, and audio jacks, as well as a rear panel with two Thunderbolt 5 ports, six USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI, DisplayPort In, dual 10GbE RJ-45, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.3.

Gigabyte’s AI TOP Utility suite simplifies AI workflow management, supporting memory offloading and fine-tuning for models up to 405 billion parameters. It also includes tools for dataset creation, real-time training dashboards, and model validation. Cluster computing is enabled via Thunderbolt and Ethernet links, allowing scaling across multiple systems.

According to Gigabyte, “users can access AI computing with a standard power setup and plug-and-play convenience.” This new system targets a wide range of users - from researchers and developers to content creators and gamers.

At the time of writing, there is no official word on pricing or availability, but it’s not expected to be cheap.

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• Google’s Gemini can now edit both AI-generated and personal images using text prompts
• The editing tools allow for precision changes using AI
• Gemini also now supports uploading up to 10 images or files at once

Google's Gemini AI is taking out a canvas and palette for your AI-fueled image creation in a couple of major upgrades. Gemini can now edit images directly within its chat interface, and you can send a bunch of images (or other files) for it to examine at the same time.

The new editor can work AI magic on any image you upload or that Gemini produces. You simply ask Gemini to make the changes you want. You can change the backdrop of your vacation photo to put your sad Airbnb kitchen on a Santorini cliff, get rid of that mustard stain on your jacket, and even put a funny hat on your dog despite her refusal of all headwear in real life.

You can apply multiple edits through your conversation with Gemini, stacking changes as you go. And each modification keeps earlier changes, so you don't have to start from scratch when you decide the last couple of edits made things worse.

Under the hood, Gemini’s editor is running a combination of tools that work together so you don't end up with a visual Frankenstein's monster stitching together conflicting textures, lighting, angles, and other aspects of the image. Gemini promises to keep things grounded in reality even when your imagination goes off the rails.

Google claims the editor will have many positive uses for a range of professions. Teachers could quickly build illustrated storyboards, designers could make a portfolio of product photos, and architects might visualize tweaks to building designs mid-meeting.

The editor pairs nicely with Google's move to blow up the single-file upload limit for Gemini. Now you can upload up to ten images, PDFs, or other files all at once and ask Gemini to make sense of the mess.

AI image imagination

You may be wondering how Gemini's editor will prevent people from leveraging its abilities to make deepfakes of real people or events for less than benign reasons. Google is keen to show that the company has thought of that. That's why every AI-edited image gets not one but two watermarks. One is visible, and one uses Google’s SynthID, which can only be detected with software. There are also filters powered by human feedback that block ethically dicey requests.

The editor and expanded upload option are not breaking new ground, but they add depth to Gemini. It’s not just about what Gemini can tell you, it’s about what it can help you make. Google is investing a lot of effort in building Gemini into the kind of well-rounded, versatile toolkit that people are comfortable relying on.

Instead of thinking of Gemini as a mere digital notetaker or search engine with a sense of humor, Google wants people to view Gemini as a partner in creative and productive tasks. We’re still a ways off from a world where you ask Gemini to “design a birthday card and bake the cake,” but it's closer than you might think. Until then, being able to throw ten files at Gemini and have it respond with something coherent while also placing a hat on your dog is a pretty good start.

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• Buffalo Skeleton Hard Disk turns file storage into living, moving art
• Want to see your data being read in real-time? This drive delivers it visually
• Not just storage, it’s a show - only 50 units available

To mark its 50th anniversary, Buffalo has introduced a special edition external HDD dubbed the Skeleton Hard Disk (HD-SKL). This drive reimagines the company’s 1998 skeleton model and offers a rare peek into a hard drive in action - something even the best SSD options can’t provide.

Through its transparent window, users can watch the magnetic head move as it reads and writes data, enhanced by a companion Windows app called "SeekWizard."

The software allows the drive to perform demonstration seek patterns - such as sequential and random seeks - transforming the HDD into a visual showcase of mechanical data retrieval.

A special edition to bring back memories

Founded in 1975 by Makoto Maki, Buffalo is celebrating its evolution from an audio-focused firm to a major player in PC peripherals. Its original Skeleton Hard Disk, released in 1998, had a 4.3GB capacity and featured a transparent cover.

The 2025 special edition is limited to just 50 units, and while the design nods to nostalgia, the HD-SKL features a high-end aluminum chassis, precisely milled and anodized in matte black, echoing the style of the 3533 yarn drive player Buffalo launched in the late 1970s.

Inside, the HD-SKL offers 4TB of storage and connects via USB 3.2 Gen 1, with backward compatibility down to USB 2.0. It also supports the Micro-B port.

The drive comes preformatted in exFAT for broad operating system support, though USB-C users will need to supply their own adapter.

Weighing around 1.5kg and measuring 126 × 185 × 115 mm, it’s bulkier than today’s sleek portable SSDs - but its appeal is clearly different.

The product is scheduled to ship in June 2025 for at 100,000 yen (about $688) following a lottery-based sale ending May 25.

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• QNX report claims robotics market will more than triple by 2030
• Automation and production are the most common applications
• Despite safety improvements, many report having experienced safety issues

New research from QNX claims over three-quarters (77%) of global tech leaders trust robotics for essential workplace functions, and the future of the workplace could soon be more automated.

The report predicts one-fifth of the workforce could be automated via robotics within the next decade, with 71% of organizations already using or planning to adopt robotics soon.

As a result, the global robotics market is projected to grow to $163.9 billion by the end of this decade, up from $51 billion in 2024.

Your job might soon involve more robotics

The report added managers note safety and risk mitigation and reliability and performance as key drivers of trust in robotics, with automation emerging as the most common use case (50%), next to production (46%), support (36%) and high-risk tasks (28%).

However, QNX highlighted varying levels of comfort for executives working alongside robots.

Assembly (77%), material handling (73%) and logistics/delivery (70%) are areas where managers are happy to introduce automation, however fewer are comfortable with robotics in medical procedures (51%), customer service (55%) and maintenance (63%).

Additionally, one in three (32%) say that workplaces are not prepared for robotics, with 29% having already experienced a robotics-related safety incident. Three in five (58%) also expressed security concerns.

"Trust is fragile and can easily be broken if robotics are built and deployed without the necessary foundational software to make them performant, safe, secure and reliable," explained QNX VP of General Embedded Markets Jim Hirsch.

However, despite the hesitation, it's clear there's a hunger for more robotics adoption, with 90% noting advancements in technology and 86% adding that improved safety are driving them forward.

Looking ahead, and with artificial intelligence already teaching us lessons about mixing new technologies with humans, 92% feel that employees need to be involved in discussions surrounding robotics integration.

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