The UK government is opening applications for a new $1 million fellowship that is expected to attract the country’s top AI engineers into public service
With the support from Meta and delivered through the Alan Turing Institute, the 12-month Open-Source AI Fellowship will bring experts into government to build practical, open-source AI tools that support national priorities.
Using AI for the public good
Expected to begin in January 2026, the AI fellowship will put AI professionals in government teams to tackle challenges facing public services. Fellows will work on high-impact problems such as unblocking housing and construction delays, developing tools for national security, and building AI systems that support emergency services and the NHS during crises.
Projects will focus on using open-source models like Meta’s Llama 3.5, which can reduce costs and increase transparency.
Joel Kaplan, Chief Global Affairs Officer, Meta, said:
“Open-source AI models are helping researchers and developers make major scientific and medical breakthroughs, and they have the potential to transform the delivery of public services too.
“This partnership with the Alan Turing Institute will help the government access some of the brightest minds and the technology they need to solve big challenges”
Supporting the Plan for Change
This new adoption of AI is part of the government’s Plan for Change, which aims to modernise the public sector and make it more efficient, responsive, and digitally capable.
The AI fellowship is designed to move quickly from ideas to delivery, helping departments adopt AI where it offers the greatest return, both in productivity and service quality.
Fellows will be part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Incubator for AI, the team behind “Humphrey,” a collection of AI tools that already helps civil servants with tasks like document summarisation and consultation analysis.
The impact so far
The launch comes after early success with “Caddy,” an AI-powered customer service assistant co-developed with Citizens Advice. Caddy scans large volumes of official guidance and surfaces the most relevant information to help call centre workers provide faster, more accurate support.
Already used across six Citizens Advice call centres and now being trialled in the Cabinet Office, Caddy has cut call response times by half and improved answer accuracy. Around 80% of its responses are ready to use without revision, and advisors using the tool report double the confidence in their answers. Its open-source release will allow wider adoption across both public and private sectors.
Building sovereign AI capabilities
The AI fellowship will also support the development of secure AI solutions that remain entirely within government systems, essential for sensitive national security work. These include AI assistants for handling classified documents, planning and regulatory tools trained on UK law, and offline-capable AI for use during power or network outages.
In addition to building new tools, the fellows will contribute to expanding the AI Knowledge Hub, which is an internal platform that helps government teams share resources, avoid duplication, and scale successful projects. The next phase of the Hub will include a Prompt Library designed to help staff boost productivity with AI more effectively in daily operations.
Applications
Applications for the Open-Source AI Fellowship will open this week. Interested AI engineers, researchers, and developers can now register their interest to be among the first considered. Fellows will work on a range of high-priority use cases and will contribute to technologies that are open-sourced for wider public benefit.
With support from Meta and led by the Alan Turing Institute, the programme offers a unique opportunity to use AI for the public good, delivering meaningful impact in how the UK government serves its citizens.
