About GOV.UK Chat

GOV.UK Chat is an experimental tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI). It’s designed to answer questions about business and trade and help you find information on GOV.UK.

How GOV.UK Chat works

GOV.UK Chat is powered by the same large language model (LLM) used on OpenAI’s ChatGPT (opens in new tab).

OpenAI used millions of articles, books and other pieces of text to train the LLM. This is how ChatGPT has the language skills to respond like a human.

GOV.UK Chat combines these language skills with relevant information from GOV.UK to answer your questions.

Risks and limitations of GOV.UK Chat

GOV.UK Chat provides links to official GOV.UK guidance with each answer.

Before acting on anything GOV.UK Chat tells you, use those links to check the answer is right.

Hallucination

The biggest limitation of emerging technologies like ChatGPT and GOV.UK Chat is a problem known as hallucination.

This is when an AI system gives false information or facts in its answers, but presents them confidently.

Hallucinations happen for lots of reasons. For example, if an AI system has gaps in its knowledge, it might hallucinate information to seem up to date.

Use of training data

GOV.UK Chat is designed to only use GOV.UK guidance. Occasionally, it tries to answer questions using information from the LLM’s training. For example, if it cannot find relevant information on GOV.UK.

If the training information is false or outdated, this could cause GOV.UK Chat to give an inaccurate answer.

More information

For more information, read the findings of our first generative AI experiment: GOV.UK Chat (opens in new tab) and subscribe to the Inside GOV.UK blog (opens in new tab) for updates.

If you have a question or problem, get help and support with GOV.UK Chat.