Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, for what purposes the British Council has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

The British Council has incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its work to optimise productivity and efficiency. Examples include supply chain management and predictive analytics, automation of recruitment activities, analysis of grant applications, and the use of tools such as Copilot, Perplexity AI and ChatGPT in workplace activities.

The British Council released a commercial AI capability last year where AI is used to assess and adapt to English language learners' proficiency in real time. This capability will be incorporated into new learning and assessment initiatives.

The British Council is operationally independent from the UK Government.