Challenge Group - Developing an AI-Augmented Service

The Developing an AI-Augmented Service Challenge Group brings together people to explore how AI could improve their advice services and organisations.

It is a community of interest for people considering similar practical questions: where can AI add genuine value; what should remain fundamentally human; what are the risks and limitations; and how can we move from experimenting with individual tools to using AI thoughtfully and responsibly across a service?

You will work alongside others facing similar decisions, sharing your experience and learning from theirs. Through peer challenge, practical tools, experimentation and facilitated discussion, you will test your thinking and develop a realistic approach to using AI in your organisation.

This is not primarily about becoming an AI expert. It is about redesigning services and ways of working to use AI intelligently while retaining the judgement, relationships and human expertise on which good advice depends.

The work will be a process of guided co-creation. Together, participants will agree the key questions to explore and the outputs to develop.

The group will examine opportunities and challenges, including using AI to support triage and initial enquiries; research and drafting; casework and supervision; knowledge management; administration and back-office functions; management information and organisational learning; and accessibility and the client experience.

It will also consider the practical issues raised by responsible adoption: confidentiality and data protection, accuracy and verification, professional judgement, bias and equality, governance, staff confidence and skills, organisational culture, cost, technology choices and implementation.

The emphasis will be on testing rather than assuming. Where possible, participants will identify practical use cases, experiment in their own organisations, share their learning and refine their approach.

Facilitation and specialist input will help the group challenge assumptions, draw on emerging practice and turn ideas into practical responses. Facilitation may also rotate among group members, as agreed.

Through this work, you should develop a well-tested approach to AI and be able to answer four fundamental questions:

1. Where could AI genuinely improve our service or organisation?

2. What should we use AI for – and what should we not use it for?

3. What would we need to put in place to use it safely, responsibly and well?

4. How do we move from isolated experimentation to an effective AI-augmented service?

Who it is for

The group is open to 12–18 participants from organisations that:

• are seriously exploring or beginning to use AI in their services or organisational processes;

• have a live opportunity, problem or use case to explore;

• want to move beyond individual experimentation towards a deliberate organisational approach;

• have important decisions still open about where and how AI should be used;

• have senior leadership and trustee awareness of AI’s opportunities and risks; and

• are willing to share their experience, test their assumptions and learn openly with others.

Participants should normally be CEOs, Directors, senior managers or others with sufficient influence to take the work forward. They must be able to contribute regularly and undertake practical work between sessions.

You do not need an AI strategy, sophisticated technology or all the answers. The group is designed to help you determine your organisation’s approach.

However, you should bring a live organisational challenge, opportunity or proposition that you are prepared to question, test and develop.

This is a challenge group. Its purpose is not to persuade each other that AI is the answer or compete over who uses the most sophisticated technology. It is to help each other determine where AI can make a meaningful difference, where it cannot, and what it takes to use it well.

The first session convenes on Tuesday 24th November online at 1pm-3pm.

The group will set dates together and meet monthly over the next 6 months.