Officers across England and Wales will spend less time behind desks and more time protecting their communities, as the government today launches PoliceAI – a new national centre dedicated to the responsible development, piloting and scaling of artificial intelligence in policing.
The centre, backed by a record £75 million over 3 years, will work across all forces to identify, test and scale AI tools that deliver real results, News Cover reports, citing the UK government's official website.
Early trials show the scale of what is possible: 800 hours of footage in a kidnapping case reviewed in 3 hours, producing an early guilty plea; and half a million e-books of data translated instantly, leading to the arrest of a serious organised crime gang.
PoliceAI is part of a record £140 million investment in AI technology over 3 years, including funding for 40 more live facial recognition units, tripling current capacity of a technology that is already proving its value in catching wanted rapists, domestic abusers and child sex offenders.
The government is also investing a record £16.5 million to modernise how police and the public interact. This includes AI that transcribes 999 and 101 calls, links crime reports to identify patterns in demand, and triages non-emergency calls to the right responder.
