This was one big post, and now it’s five smaller pieces thinking about what public service really means in a digital age, and the risks of mistaking convenience for coherence. I started by wondering about how far fitting government into our pockets offers real transformation. In the last post, the topic was the underlying plumbing that makes everything else possible. The next piece will argue for an omnichannel approach that designs for every doorway. And when you make it to the end then your reward is a piece that is all about Goths.
But now, in this third part, I want to you to think about the future (which isn’t too far from being the present): where where the interface melts away altogether. What happens when services are no longer tapped, but summoned? As AI agents emerge, does that realise the dream of transformation, or is it just that it keeps complexity out of sight?
Disappearing interfaces don’t disappear the problem
If apps promise pocket government, AI now promises agentic government: services summoned through conversation, no forms or websites needed, just a natural interface that handles everything for you. It’s an appealing vision, and maybe not far off in some domains. But abstraction without foundation risks leaving people behind.
Apps, when done right, can be transformative. They can bring government closer, offering convenience and speed for those who want it. The GOV.UK App and the wider GOV.UK ecosystem could deliver that promise. Pick the most recent government service you interacted with and imagine its app-enabled future.
For me that’s renewing my driving licence: a push notification from the GOV.UK App, thumbprint authentication (GOV.UK One Login), reusing a passport photo (Home Office), paying via GOV.UK Pay, confirming via GOV.UK Notify and a renewed credential in my GOV.UK Wallet. A seamless journey in seconds, where the user barely notices the machinery – DVLA, Home Office, GDS, or otherwise – because the ecosystem just works. Apps shine for tasks like these – quick, personal, and always on hand; when the infrastructure supports them.
That’s also the transactional promise GOV.UK has offered since 2012: one platform, one ecosystem with one consistent user journey. And, in 2012 and still today, that vision demands simple, integrated, permissioned services: plumbing that works and data that flows.
But without that plumbing then an app is just another channel, not a platform. Right now the GOV.UK App feels like it’s a solution in search of a problem. In being distinct from the GOV.UK website, for which 100% of government services are built it’s introducing friction – like requiring authentication to access a website that takes people to services using different ways to log in.
Back in 2013, GDS famously declared: “We’re not ‘appy. Not ‘appy at all.” The principle was clear: standalone apps must wait unless the core web service works as well on mobile, and even then, only by exception and driven by user need. Do not read my callback to that as an oversimplified holding to an outmoded point of view. A decade on, as user needs have evolved and so has technology, apps have a clear and valuable role.
But for government they should always be additive to the web experience. Digital inclusion is not a solved problem and while releasing early and failing fast has its merits, there is a deliberate decision to launch the GOV.UK app before the core web service meets that bar and with the open expectation that many features are going to be exclusive to the app creates a walled garden, not open doors. And for me that runs counter to what made GOV.UK a global exemplar in the first place.
AI amplifies this challenge. An AI-led bit of government in your pocket might navigate complex services but it can’t fix contradictory policies, confusing eligibility, or poor service design. I’ve learnt so much from my vibe coded experiments, one of which was to create an AI-led experience of jobs and careers support. But that example also clearly showed that the value lies not in the interface but in the underlying service.
Anthropomorphising AI is obviously not the right thing to do, but thinking about an AI agent like a person might be. It’s the work of service design – figuring out how to best help someone achieve an outcome. When you design for people whose interfaces onto the service might not be directly through a browser but indirectly via their children or a support worker then that delegated experience also reflects something of the experience for those whose interface of choice is AI.
Indeed, over time, some people will experience a disappearing interface. Entire service journeys will be handled by agents. But right now, no UK government service is designed with that in mind. They’re designed, and as long as the Service Manual and the Service Standard exist, will continue to be designed, to lower the barriers to entry and include everyone. They’re rightly not locked behind an app layer or forcing you to authenticate before you get to the content you need. That safeguards the state as service-shaped, interoperable, and testable, paving the way for an AI-mediated future without excluding anyone today.
Whether or not it’s what Martha Lane Fox had in mind, this is really the embodiment of what it means for government to go wholesale. After creating the digital centre, fixing publishing, and fixing services, the final task was to build the state as a platform: a network of capabilities, not a stack of destinations. Open APIs, shared infrastructure, and services that can flow into the places people already are. Useful then but now essential in this potentially agentic world of ours.
So AI definitely has a role. But it’s a layer, not a solution. A reflection of good service design, not a replacement for it. And any AI-led experience must be one of many. Because for all those who talk to bots, there are plenty who need a human to sit with them on the sofa over a cup of tea.
This is where transformed government shines: services designed for everyone. And that discipline must extend to every channel, digital or physical, to keep the state inclusive. A state built for everyone doesn’t retreat behind an app icon, or vanish into AI. It shows up: for real lives, in real time, across real channels.
You’ve made it past the half way point of my five part series. Next in Part 4, it’s all about the real world and exploring how public services must meet people where they are, not just through screens, but through every available entrance.
In Part 1 I interrogated the appeal of “government in your pocket” and whether it is more valuable than simply being a good soundbite. Part 2 went beneath that surface: to the plumbing that makes service delivery possible. And in the last part we’ll talk about putting GOV.UK on the High Street.
