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Rebrand ditches dot from “Police.AI” proposal floated in January’s policing white paper as minister espouses the potential for technology to identify stolen goods and track people selling illegally obtained items

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The Home Office has formally launched a new national centre for scaling up the use of artificial intelligence for policing in England and Wales.

Creating Police.AI was one of a range of measures set out in January’s From Local to National: A New Model for Policing white paper. The launch of the centre, which is being given £75m in funding over the next three years, says it will now be known as “PoliceAI”.

PublicTechnology asked the Home Office why the name Police.AI had been changed. A spokesperson said it was “just a stylistic choice by ministers”. 

The centre will work across all police forces in England and Wales to identify, test and scale AI tools “that deliver real results”, with its funding part of a wider £140m investment in artificial intelligence in the years to 2028-29.

According to the Home Office, PoliceAI will prioritise areas where AI can make the biggest immediate difference in its first year. Running large-scale pilots to help officers triage, disclose and summarise digital evidence – described as one of the most time-consuming parts of any investigation – will be part of that work. Up to 10 areas will take part in those trials, with successful practices being scaled up to all police forces in 2027.

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The Home Office said millions of hours of police time would be freed up every year through the use of artificial intelligence. It said the next phases of work would build on the use of AI to redact audio-visual files, which is set to free up one million staff hours a year if all police forces use the technology that is being rolled out.

Elsewhere, the Home Office said that a trial that depolyed AI to review 800 hours of footage in a kidnapping case completed the task in three hours and resulted in an early guilty plea.

Another case saw half a million e-books of data translated instantly, leading to the arrest of a serious organised crime gang.

Policing minister Sarah Jones said AI is already helping police catch dangerous offenders, speed up investigations and keep communities safe – with those outcomes just the first fruits of what will eventually be possible.

“PoliceAI will transform how every force in England and Wales works, improving police access to data and intelligence, generating new evidential leads and ultimately freeing up the equivalent of 3,000 extra officers and putting more police back where they belong: in our communities,” she said. “But we will only realise that potential if we do this responsibly, with public consent at every step. That is exactly what PoliceAI is designed to deliver. Tackling tool theft and retail crime is a priority. We are investing £1m to better join up police data with property marking schemes, use AI to identify stolen goods and track resale online, and understand exactly what is being stolen and by whom. Alongside PoliceAI’s work to speed up investigations, this will help return more property to victims and get officers back onto the frontline.”

PoliceAI will become part of the planned national policing service that January’s white paper proposed.

According to the Home Office, PoliceAI will maintain a public registry of AI tools in use across policing, developed in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University’s CENTRIC research centre. A first version is expected to be available by autumn this year.

It is envisaged that AI models will be independently tested for accuracy and bias, building on the approach already established for live facial recognition algorithms.