AWTG Ltd explores smart agents and smarter cities, with AI at the core of government innovation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a bigger role in solving practical challenges that affect everyone and impact the way we live and work. From bridging the digital divide to improving public services, the technology is helping public sector organisations rethink how they deliver services and engage with communities.
One company helping drive this transformation is AWTG, a UK-based innovator specialising in AI-powered platforms and connectivity solutions. By working closely with national government agencies, local authorities, and industry partners, AWTG is turning complex technological advancements into everyday solutions. AWTG is rolling out innovative platforms that address real-world issues, including improving connectivity access in rural areas, easing congestion in busy cities, and delivering efficient public services.
Government innovation: Smarter platforms for smarter government
AWTG is deploying smart connectivity solutions to close the digital divide, making public services more accessible, including the greater use of online services. AWTG’s suite of AI-powered solutions designed specifically for the public sector – including Kai, an AI agent that enables government organisations to deliver administrative services more efficiently. These AI agents are used in areas such as customer service (handling routine enquiries from residents and businesses), security and safety, administration, and analytics, improving response times and user experiences with public services.
In one council’s customer service department, for example, Kai helps answer everyday questions from residents and businesses, cutting response times by up to 60% and freeing up human staff to focus on more complex or sensitive issues. Beyond customer service, Kai speeds up approval processes by automatically collecting, checking and verifying documentation for approval, reducing weeks of manual effort to hours. With AI agents that automate processes, local authorities and public bodies can deliver consistent decisions faster, improving experiences for residents and businesses, building greater trust and satisfaction between governments and the communities they serve.
Bridging the digital divide through government innovation
AWTG’s work in AI is not only about AI agents or internal workflows. Some of its most impactful contributions to the public are happening out in the field – quite literally – where the company’s technology is helping bridge the digital divide, bringing essential services to hard-to-reach communities.
Projects like Borderlands 5G Innovation Region (5GIR) Programme and England’s Connected Heartland – Railway have demonstrated how AI-managed Internet of Things (IoT) devices and robust private 5G networks can support governments in monitoring environmental and local conditions on remote areas. In Borderlands, AWTG and the councils deployed intelligent sensors that track environmental conditions such as air and water quality, nitrogen dioxide levels, and even visitor numbers to remote touristic areas. These are all visualised on a central dashboard using AWTG’s service management and data platform and selectively made available to the general public.
It is an innovative solution to a problem that has challenged public sector agencies for years: how to keep an eye on large, underpopulated areas without relying on manual data collection. The project also showed how AI-managed IoT devices can play a valuable role in security and emergency response sending real-time alerts when something unusual happens or a critical threshold is crossed.
Pushing the boundaries of urban connectivity
Urban and high-density areas come with their own set of challenges, from crowded networks to ageing infrastructure. To help tackle these, AWTG has developed capacity enhancing innovations such as what was implemented in the AWTG-led SCONDA project, a major Open RAN rollout that brought AI-powered automation and smarter network integration into busy urban environments.
Automation implemented as an rApp helped reduce manual tasks like fault detection, while intelligent integration ensured that different parts of the network worked smoothly together. Co-funded by DSIT, SCONDA was the world’s first major O-RAN roll-out in a leading Mobile Network Operator’s brownfield network.
Open RAN (Radio Access Network) is an innovative take on mobile infrastructure. Instead of relying on closed, single-vendor systems, it uses open and interoperable components and AWTG has played a key role in demonstrating that this approach can work at scale. With AI in the mix, networks can manage themselves more efficiently, use spectrum more effectively, and respond faster to changes helping cities stay connected, even as demand grows, and user behaviors evolve.
Similar innovations were tested in England’s Connected Heartland (ECH), where AWTG acts as the Key Technology Partner. In ECH, for example, AWTG validated high-speed rail connectivity at the Millbrook Proving Ground, a crucial step toward bringing seamless, AI-enhanced 5G services to rail passengers and the rural community along the train tracks.
Data you can see and trust
iDAMS, an AWTG innovation for streetscape asset exchange, can accommodate hundreds of millions of physical assets from overground assets such as lighting columns, CCTV poles, bus shelters to underground assets such as fibre, enabling local authorities to make their physical assets available to enterprises who are interested to use them such as telecom operator, advertisers and EV charging companies.
Meanwhile, iCMAP gives a real-time view of network coverage from mobile such as 5G to enterprise networks such as Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN. It uses intuitive heat maps to show exactly where connectivity is strong and where it falls short. For regulators, this is a game changer. It helps pinpoint gaps so investments can go where they are needed most.
Together, these platforms show how public sector bodies can use AI not just to automate tasks, but to make better decisions, build trust, and plan more effectively for the future.
Public-private collaboration: Why it matters
If there is one common thread running through these projects, it is collaboration. None of these happened in isolation. Initiatives such as Borderlands, SCONDA, and ECH were supported by the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) and brought together a mix of partners, each bringing essential contributions to the table.
Public agencies provided the vision, co-funding, and regulatory oversight, while AWTG and partners provided the technology and expertise to make it happen. This kind of public-private partnership has proven effective ensuring that new technologies remain aligned with public priorities.
Looking ahead
From smart agents to environmental sensors, and from rural connectivity to dense urban networks, AI powered solutions are steadily helping governments improve how they serve the public. By adopting these innovations and working closely with industry partners, the public sector can create services that are not only more efficient, but also fairer and more responsive to real-world needs.
Initiatives like Kai, iDAMS, and iCMAP, as well as collaborative efforts like Borderlands, ECH and SCONDA, highlight what can be achieved when technology is guided by public purpose. The path forward is to build on this momentum and ensure AI remains a tool for empowering people, not replacing them.
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
