AI prototypes for UK welfare system dropped as officials lament ‘false starts’

Exclusive: Pilots for staff training, jobcentres and speeding up disability benefit payments not being taken up

• Serious concerns' about DWP's use of AI to read correspondence from benefit claimant

Ministers have shut down or dropped at least half a dozen artificial intelligence prototypes intended for the welfare system, the Guardian has learned, in a sign of the headwinds facing Keir Starmer's effort to increase government efficiency.

Pilots of AI technology to enhance staff training, improve the service in jobcentres, speed up disability benefit payments and modernise communication systems are not being taken forward, freedom of information (FoI) requests reveal.