Government Communications Service Assist (formerly called GCS Co-Pilot)
The report from the live assessment for CO's Government Communications Service Assist service
Service Standard assessment report
Government Communications Service Assist (formerly called GCS Co-Pilot)
Assessment date: 10/04/2025
Stage: Live
Type: Assessment
Result: Green
Service provider: Cabinet Office
Service description
Assist aims to improve government communications through making Government Communication Service (GCS) members more efficient and effective in their roles. GCS identified an opportunity to enable government communicators to become more efficient in common daily tasks, such as writing communications plans. This unlocks additional time to be spent on other impactful tasks, including cross-government collaboration. Assist provides government communicators the ability to quickly produce first drafts, receive instant feedback on work and brainstorm ideas using Generative AI. The tool is underpinned by accurate and reliable GCS-specific guidance and resources. This helps ensure Assist’s outputs incorporate the profession’s best practice guidance and frameworks.
Service users
This service is for
Government Communication Service profession members
- 6500 members across Civil Service, in almost every organisation
- split into seven job families
- across all Civil Service grades
- based in all departmental offices
Things the service team has done well:
The team has done well to draw on a wide range of research data and insights from across the government to support their understanding of their users and how their users use artificial intelligence (AI) in different contexts. Their fast-moving cadence of conducting user research and gathering insights to inform and drive product iterations provides a high level of confidence, as does the way they prioritise features based on user pain points, such as the time taken to make first drafts of communication plans.
The team has stayed firmly in an achievable scope and focused on improvements that add genuine value to their users and overall government efficiency.
The team utilises all appropriate tools to iterate and make evidence-based decisions when building and improving the service. Multiple professions utilise the dashboards and data to collate and cleanse granular data. User data is complex and has been dealt with in a secure and safe way, while maintaining the quality of analytics to drill down into pain points and user issues. Qualitative and quantitative data is handled appropriately and securely and the team are aware of GDPR and PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data handling policies. Appropriate MI tools are used depending on the ask. A high level view of analytics is shared with departments and users on a scheduled basis to encourage digital take up and identify areas for improvement. KPIs are clear and well understood.
The team have proved that LLMs (Large Language Models) can help staff with their daily work and support an efficient Civil Service.
The team are working across government departments to share learnings, expertise and knowledge in this innovative area to support the wider Civil Service.
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service was rated green for point 1 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: The team discussed their plan to prioritise conducting further user research focused on accessibility and digital and AI confidence. The panel highly recommends this work continues as a priority to understand more about how this impacts its users.
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard.
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service was rated green for point 4 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: The team should consider having a permanent or long-term content designer in the team. They can improve all text and design within the service and also add an additional layer of assurance and improvements to the service by taking a view on the quality of content Assist creates.
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 5 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: The team should make renewed efforts to recruit user research participants with accessibility needs. The panel recommends having a target for this, or some measure of success to focus their efforts. If the team continues having difficulties recruiting users with accessibility needs, they should consider further ways to mitigate this risk. The team should also consider recruiting user research participants with English as a second language. They may have their own specific needs or in some cases a different approach to writing prompts.
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard.
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service was rated green for point 7 of the Standard.
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service was rated green for point 8 of the Standard.
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service: Consider empowering stakeholders to self-serve into a high level data view if possible, removing the burden of the team to provide ad-hoc data to stakeholders.
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard.
12. Make new source code open
Github URL: https://github.com/Government-Communication-Service/assist_service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard.
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 14 of the Standard.
Next Steps
This service can now remove the beta banner and proceed into a live phase, subject to Digital Spend Control approval.