75% of citizens can’t name a single way in which the public sector currently uses AI, according to new Appian report.
It’s been a year since the government published its AI Opportunities Action Plan, with £2bn allocated to implement AI research and resources. Yet new research suggests a concerning and growing disconnect between that ambition and what is being delivered.
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The report 2026 UK Public Sector AI Adoption Outlook – Why AI is succeeding, stalling, and why process matters was commissioned by process automation experts Appian and conducted independently by Censuswide. The team surveyed 1,000 UK public sector workers, including 250 respondents at the level of director or above, and 1,000 UK citizens aged 18+. The survey took place between September 29 and October 8, 2025.
Among the most striking headline figures is the fact that 75% of the citizens who took part could not name a single way in which the public sector uses AI. Just 39% trusted central government and 44% trusted local councils to deploy AI responsibly – well behind their trust in consumer technology companies (54%), banks (55%), retailers (60%) and the NHS (63%). The NHS was the organisation must trusted to use AI responsibly across the public and private sectors.
At the same time, a significant 89% of respondents working in the public sector said their organisation or department was not fully able to leverage AI at the moment, and just 29% felt their organisation was delivering on most of its AI commitments
Even so, 67% of respondents from the public sector thought AI will improve services over the next five years. For director-level respondents, that figure was 87%. That’s in sharp contrast to the citizens, for whom the figure was 44%, and just 40% of workers in administrative roles.
In addressing why AI remains largely invisible to citizens, the survey found that 45% of current initiatives use AI for bolt-on experiments or standalone tools, rather than in core service workflows.
Peter Corpe, Industry Lead UK Public Sector at Appian, says: ‘Too much AI in the public sector is still being used as a personal productivity tool rather than embedded into the processes that actually run services. When AI is treated as a bolt-on experiment or standalone tool, it struggles to deliver meaningful impact – our research shows nearly half of government’s application of AI falls into that trap. If organisations want AI to move beyond pilots and produce real value, it has to be integrated into core processes from the start.
‘AI is only as good as the work you give it. This research shows strong belief in AI’s potential, but also a clear warning: without fixing the underlying processes first, AI will struggle to deliver on its promise. Serious AI is not about experimentation or standalone tools – it’s about applying intelligence to the core processes that keep public services running.’
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