{"id":153289,"date":"2026-08-19T13:31:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=153289"},"modified":"2026-08-19T13:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:41:00","slug":"why-are-public-sector-comms-teams-not-tracking-their-ai-visibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/why-are-public-sector-comms-teams-not-tracking-their-ai-visibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are public sector comms teams not tracking their AI visibility?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May 2026, AI assistant GOV.UK Chat launched<\/a> inside the GOV.UK app. Built on more than 80,000 pages of official guidance, it was designed to answer citizens’ questions on tax, driving, childcare, apprenticeships, and benefits. The soft launch saw great take-up, signalling to government departments, regulators, NHS trusts, and local authorities that a majority of the general public are now ‘AIing it’ versus ‘Googling it’<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

But not every member of the UK public will be asking GOV.UK Chat for answers, instead going to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and Claude, which weren’t built on official government guidance. Answers from these LLMs will serve up whatever the web has indexed, regardless of whether that material is accurate, balanced, or years out of date.<\/p>\n

The stakes are high for comms teams reckoning with this new AI-mediated information ecosystem, but even higher for public sector organisations with responsibilities to people across the country who depend on them.<\/p>\n

When the ‘official’ answer is not fully reliable<\/h2>\n

Research from the Open Data Institute<\/a> tested over 22,000 citizen-related queries against leading models including ChatGPT-4o, Gemini, and Claude, and the results found that multiple models were giving incorrect guidance on regulations including Guardian’s Allowance and Sure Start Maternity Grant eligibility. As Professor Elena Simperl of the ODI warned: ‘If language models are to be used safely in citizen-facing services, we need to understand where the technology can be trusted and where it cannot’.<\/p>\n

What can Government agencies do to keep AI answers correct if the AI systems that supply them are drawing on sources of such diverse nature and reliability as local press<\/a>, forums, campaign group websites, and out-of-date PDFs that happen to rank well?<\/p>\n

Strategy for AI visibility needs to be different for public sector comms teams<\/h2>\n

For a consumer brand, AI visibility is primarily a matter of reputation and sales, but for public sector bodies, the stakes are whether people can access a service, meet a deadline, or continue to trust an institution.<\/p>\n

Different types of public sector organisation carry different exposure:<\/p>\n