Gita Singham-Willis is Strategic Engagement Director at the consultancy Transform.
Digital inclusion is often framed as yesterday’s problem – a box checked by broadband rollout and smartphone adoption. But that assumption is misplaced. While connectivity in the UK is high, digital exclusion remains a persistent and evolving issue. And with the rapid emergence of AI-enabled services, the stakes are rising.
The challenge is no longer simply ‘to get people online’. It is ‘how do we support people to meaningfully participate in a digital, data-driven and increasingly AI-enabled society?’
Gita Singham Willis, Strategic Engagement Director at the consultancy Transform; photo courtesy of Transform
Digital exclusion: more than being offline
Digital exclusion is not just the absence of an internet connection. It describes a growing class of people who cannot reliably access, use or benefit from digital services essential to modern life — from healthcare and benefits, to banking, education and employment.
Exclusion is a multi-dimensional web of barriers:
- Access– Lacking a suitable device or reliable connection
- Affordability– The data poverty of being unable to sustain the costs of broadband or mobile data
- Skills and confidence– Not having the essential digital skills needed to navigate services safely
- Trust and motivation– A fear of scams, lack of confidence, or feeling that digital systems are ‘not for me’
The UK still has an estimated 1.8m adults who do not use the internet at all. Some 5% to 6% of households do not have internet access at home. Meanwhile, 16% of adults lack ‘foundation level’ digital skills, meaning they cannot complete the baseline tasks necessary to function digitally. A smaller but significant group are digitally disengaged.
These gaps are not evenly distributed. Older adults, low-income households, people with disabilities (seen and unseen), social housing tenants, people living alone and those outside the labour market are disproportionately represented. Digital exclusion mirrors – and reinforces – broader social inequality.
What is being done?
Recognising the persistence of the issue, the government has renewed its focus through the Digital Inclusion Action Plan: First Steps, published in 2025. The plan outlines a more co-ordinated approach across departments and stakeholders.
Key initiatives include:
- A Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund to support local initiatives and scale approaches that work
- Strengthening the Essential Digital Skills framework
- A pilot device donation scheme across government departments
- Improved usability of digital government services, including through GOV.UK One Login
- Building a stronger evidence base on what works and the economic case for investment
The Action Plan explicitly acknowledges that digital exclusion cannot be solved by central government alone. It requires partnership with industry, local government, charities and community networks. Voluntary organisations and social enterprises continue to deliver frontline digital skills support. Banks, telecoms providers and technology companies have launched affordability schemes and training programmes.
More recently, the UK also expanded AI skills initiatives, including the recently launched AI Skills Boost – a government-industry partnership initiative to improve UK workforce readiness by upskilling 10m UK workers in AI skills by 2030, with training courses designed to support people to get comfortable with new technology and increase AI uptake.
While this ecosystem of effort is significant, exclusion persists because it is not just a technology gap. It is a structural one.
Is AI widening or closing the divide?
AI has brought both opportunities and risks when it comes to exclusion.
On one hand, AI could widen the divide. As services become AI-enabled, a new layer of capability is required: understanding how AI works, how to question outputs, how to identify errors and how to use tools safely. This ‘AI literacy’ gap risks layering a new inequality on top of existing digital skills gaps.
If AI systems are poorly designed, biased, opaque or mandatory without alternatives, they could increase confusion and distrust, particularly among those already marginalised.
On the other hand, AI also has powerful inclusion potential.
Used responsibly, AI can:
- Improve accessibility through speech-to-text, translation and adaptive interfaces
- Provide step-by-step guidance for complex processes
- Personalise learning and skills development
- Support frontline workers to deliver more tailored assistance
AI could reduce barriers — but only if inclusion is embedded by design. Without intentional action, it is more likely to accelerate existing disparities.
What needs to happen next
To ensure AI becomes an inclusion accelerator rather than an exclusion amplifier, both government and industry must take deliberate action.
- Treat AI literacy as foundational
AI understanding cannot remain a specialist skill. It must be integrated into essential digital skills frameworks, workplace training and community learning, especially targeting those with low confidence or low baseline skills. The AI skills boost programme is a start, but this needs to be activated across those groups who are experiencing exclusion.
- Invest in the fundamentals
Devices, connectivity and local support networks remain critical. AI cannot bridge a divide where basic access is missing. Sustainable funding for community-based digital skills support is essential.
- Embed participatory service design
Perhaps most importantly, digital and AI-enabled services must be designed with, not just for, the people who use them.
Participatory design means:
- Co-designing services with older people, disabled people, carers, low-income households and minority communities
- Testing services on older devices, low bandwidth, and shared access conditions
- Providing assisted digital and non-digital alternatives
- Building feedback loops so services evolve based on real user experience
Inclusion cannot be retrofitted after deployment. It must be a starting principle. Designing for the most excluded will benefit everyone.
- Prioritise trust, transparency and accountability
One of the most needed and most difficult to address is the need for trust. We need to address issues such as bias, hallucinations, and malicious misuse transparently and ensure we understand the need for appropriate human intervention, ensuring AI-enabled services can be trusted. This includes clear explanations, redress mechanisms and human escalation routes. Trust is a precondition for adoption. Without it, even well-designed systems will be underused.
- Make this a shared accountability agenda
Digital inclusion should be treated as core infrastructure. It underpins economic growth, productivity and public service reform. This requires alignment between policy, industry investment, skills systems and service design standards.
From ambition to delivery
The UK has strong foundations: an established Essential Digital Skills framework, a renewed government Action Plan, active civil society networks, and growing AI capability. But co-ordination and execution are critical.
This is where systemic thinking matters. Improving digital inclusion in the age of AI requires:
- Strategic alignment between digital, data and inclusion agendas
- Robust data and insight to target interventions effectively
- Responsible AI governance embedded in transformation programmes
- Participatory service design methodologies
- Cross-sector partnership models that move beyond pilot funding
As AI reshapes how services operate and how citizens engage, digital inclusion must move from the margins to the centre of transformation strategy.
Technology will continue to transform society. However, it is up to us whether that transformation expands participation or widens the exclusion gap.
With the right combination of policy, industry leadership, community delivery and inclusive design, we could bring people together to embrace the future. If we fail to act intentionally at this point, we could simply create more division, more social inequality and a gap that is too difficult to close.
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