{"id":595695,"date":"2026-05-21T06:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T06:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/595695\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T06:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T06:24:09","slug":"derby-city-councils-ai-helpers-only-resolve-half-of-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/595695\/","title":{"rendered":"Derby City Council&#8217;s AI helpers only resolve half of cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The council said it was the first UK local authority to replace its main switchboard with a &#8220;digital front door&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Residents are directed to Darcie for the council&#8217;s customer service centre &#8211; which handled about 26,000 calls in March this year &#8211; and to Ali for Derby Homes&#8217; housing inquiries. Together, the two systems have handled more than 3.2 million routine inquiries since their launch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The council&#8217;s wider AI programme has identified over \u00a312m in savings across the authority, half of which come from adult care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The leader of the Derby Conservatives, Steve Hassall, said that most residents wanted to speak to an &#8220;actual human&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For many Derby residents, trying to contact the council has never felt more frustrating, more impersonal or more inaccessible&#8221;, he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For elderly residents, those without strong digital skills, vulnerable people, or anyone facing urgent and complex problems, this so-called &#8216;digital front door&#8217; can feel more like a digital barrier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Has this programme genuinely improved customer service, or has it primarily become a cost-cutting exercise dressed up as innovation?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council said it was the first UK local authority to replace its main switchboard with a &#8220;digital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-595695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595695","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=595695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}