Hello,

The blue skies finally made their way to London. The last Friday of February was particularly beautiful, and it was still sunny at the end of the work day. More of that please.

Sarah spoke at the AI Fringe 

Sarah spoke at the British Library for the AI Fringe on trust, safety, and Design’s role in shaping AI for the public good.

She highlighted a key issue: AI is everywhere, but trust is fragile. People either distrust it or over-rely on it, creating risks for organisations. If AI isn’t explainable or fair, organisations face legal, competitive, and reputational threats.

Today’s AI products hide too much—like an iceberg, most of the system is unseen. That’s no longer enough. To earn trust, organisations must be transparent, explain AI’s decisions, and give users control. Trust isn’t automatic but it’s key to success.

Data crunching research results

We’ve been deep in data, extracting insights from a large body of research on digital identity. We hope to share more soon. 

Continuing our work on adoption of critical AI-enabled services

Our work on mindful friction in AI is reaching that interesting point where a framework is appearing. We’re looking at how to assess trust in AI-enabled experiences, and how to deal with the risks and opportunities it creates through carefully designed interventions. Not only by applying friction to the user interface, but also at a systems level within the AI architecture. We’ll be sharing more about this soon.

Helping an organisation to design for trust in a new family focused service 

Working with an organisation to design a service that helps support healthy relationships between parents and children. We really enjoy the opportunity to develop relational services and this is a compelling one.

Join us to give communities a voice in public sector data and AI projects with Connected  by Data

On Thursday March 20th we will be at Churchill Hall for an unconference - it’s for people inside the public sector who are interested in ensuring that public, community and worker voices are heard in decisions about data, digital and AI.

Join us!

• Celebrating the news of more success for OpenSAFELY, which will see millions of health records shared safely for research. Rory Cellan Jones has a good write up.

• On humanity’s last exam by Maggie Appleton. We all enjoy Maggie’s no nonsense writing, at the end she says “So, next time you hear someone making grand statements about AI capabilities (both critical and overhyped), ask: which model are they talking about? On what benchmark? With what prompting techniques? With what supporting infrastructure around the model? Everything is in the details, and the only way to be a sensible thinker in this space is to learn about the details.” Amen to that.

• The actions of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It’s difficult to sum up, but our concerns are about a lack of transparency, accountability, and the big impact on public services. DOGE seems intent on both destroying core services but also the government’s technology capacity. Bruce Schneier sums it up by saying “DOGE is hacking America.” 

• Worrying outcomes in the UK from not signing the Paris summit AI declaration to removing end-to-end encryption for iCloud users. We want to see more creative and inspirational leadership. Leadership that takes us closer to more progressive, responsible approaches to technology.

• Peter Wells  wrote a brilliant-as-usual post on the top 5 high impact datasets that the UK should prioritise as part of the AI Action plan. One of them? Legal data.

• We’ve been sharing how important legal data and understanding are as materials for AI-enabled services. Our previous client, Ryan Hurst, shares “That’s why the opportunity today is so compelling… Imagine a world where AI doesn’t just regurgitate legal language but helps people grasp how laws have evolved over time. Where it doesn’t just list amendments but connects them to historical debates and real-world consequences. Where it helps individuals—not just legal experts—track how their representatives vote, how policies change, and how different governance models approach similar challenges.” It’s a great blog post.

Here’s an all too rare photograph of some of the team sharing lunch together. 

See you next month -

— The IF Team

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