{"id":461120,"date":"2026-03-06T17:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/461120\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T17:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:57:08","slug":"google-hired-by-government-to-design-ai-tool-that-speeds-up-planning-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/461120\/","title":{"rendered":"Google hired by government to design AI tool that speeds up planning process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The tool will augment decision-making by helping planning officers with administrative and analytical work and offering recommendations for determinations.<\/p>\n<p>It will initially focus on householder applications, with the goal of reducing average decision times from eight weeks to four, and has the long-term aim of allowing near-instant decisions for straightforward applications, according to public sector news website<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ukauthority.com\/articles\/google-cloud-to-develop-ai-planning-decisions-tool\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> UKAuthority<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Google Cloud was chosen ahead of four other tech companies \u2013 AtkinsR\u00e9alis UK, Cognizant Worldwide, Endava and PA Consulting Services \u2013 following a two-week competition to design a demonstration product.<\/p>\n<p>The AJ recently reported on how several AI planning tools are now offering residents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.architectsjournal.co.uk\/news\/are-you-ready-for-the-ai-planning-arms-race\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018objection toolkits\u2019<\/a>, sparking fears that councils could soon be flooded with lengthy, highly specific complaints, which could gum up an already stretched planning system.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, councils and central government have been drawing up guidelines for how AI can be used to speed up both applications and comments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">For example, a collaborative project between the Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council is developing an AI model to aid its planning consultation processes, summarising the 9,500 public comments each consultation attracts on average, the authorities say.<\/p>\n<p>Reacting to Google\u2019s contract, Lorenzo Pandolfi, founding director of London-based <a href=\"https:\/\/logic-planning.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Logic Planning<\/a>, told the AJ that increased automation was good news for the planning system, which has reached its \u2018worst level ever\u2019 of performance.<\/p>\n<p>But he warned that the possibility of AI being handed significant power at the point of a final decision risked diminishing the role of personal judgement and interpretation.<\/p>\n<p>Pandolfi argued that local policies could tend toward greater standardisation to cater to machine models, which can more accurately and consistently engage with definite, rigid rulesets.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018There would be a strong incentive in adopting IKEA-like parameters, which could have a negative impact on creativity, lateral thinking and ingenuity in the use of the \u201cingredients\u201d of a specific site or project brief,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n<p>And he speculated that these considerations might accelerate a shift towards a zonal town planning system, a binary model that is used across Europe to designate land as either buildable or off limits.<\/p>\n<p>Last June, the government announced it wanted to create an AI tool with the ability to \u2018scan hundreds of files in seconds\u2019. At the time, it said it hoped to make it available to councils by this spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tool will augment decision-making by helping planning officers with administrative and analytical work and offering recommendations for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,844,128997,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-461120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-google","tag-planning-applications","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}