Redbox

This information was sourced from "Redbox" by AI.GOV.UK, https://ai.gov.uk/knowledge-hub/tools/redbox/?directTo=library. Licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0.

The challenge

The Ministerial red box has been the primary destination for state papers since they came into government in the mid-19th century. Redbox was initially envisioned as a way to leverage AI to search through thousands of documents, chat with them and summarise them into tailored briefings.

The solution

Just like Ministers, civil servants deal with a wealth of information on a day to day basis. The Incubator for AI (i.AI) decided to streamline Redbox to improve user experience and build an app that can scale to a bigger user base. Redbox provides an easy and cheap way for civil servants to chat with LLMs (up to an OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE level). i.AI has rolled out Redbox to the Cabinet Office (CO), 10 Downing Street (No10) and the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

The results

An initial survey with 282 Redbox users revealed the following:

• Net Promoter Score of 56.
• 80% of respondents said that they think having access to Redbox improves the quality of their work.
• 89% of respondents said that they think having access to Redbox saves them time.
• 269 people told us about the task that they used Redbox for most often. The median estimated time saving on this task was 2 hours per week.

Learnings / insights

• Context is everything! Users want AI to understand the datasets that they rely on, including specific and sensitive examples like national security data feeds, or more general ones such as Hansard.
• There are many ways civil servants can be using LLMs (including some we did not expect).