UK police launch national AI centre to cut paperwork

TL;DR:

• A new national centre, PoliceAI, has launched to coordinate artificial intelligence adoption across all 43 forces in England and Wales.
• Backed by £75 million from the Home Office over three years, it employs around 50 staff combining frontline policing and technical expertise.
• Early projects include case-file preparation, identifying child sexual abuse imagery, and a public register explaining how forces use AI.

A national centre for artificial intelligence in policing has been formally launched to accelerate technology adoption across England and Wales, reduce administrative burdens and speed up criminal investigations. Named PoliceAI and hosted by the College of Policing, the centre has grown out of the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s AI portfolio and is funded by £75 million from the Home Office.

What PoliceAI will build first

The centre will work across all 43 forces to identify, test and roll out AI tools and training. First-year priorities target immediate operational pain points: a tool to prepare and quality-check evidence case files, with pilots this year ahead of a national rollout in 2027; technology to identify and categorise child sexual abuse images, reducing staff exposure to harmful material; and systems to analyse CCTV and digital media for faster evidence gathering. It also hosts a Threat Hub to coordinate responses to criminal misuse of AI, including deepfake image abuse.

Interim director Alex Murray, a former National Crime Agency threat director, framed the work around transparency, saying the centre is “committed to explaining how our chosen tools work and are evaluated, and the safeguards in place”. To that end, a public-facing register of how forces use AI is expected in the autumn — a notable governance commitment given long-standing concerns over facial recognition and algorithmic bias in British policing.

Looking forward

PoliceAI forms part of the January 2026 Police Reform White Paper and is intended to fold into a planned National Policing Service. The promise — freeing “millions of hours” of officer time for visible policing — echoes the efficiency case made for AI across the public sector, from the new planning-decision prototype to NHS deployments. The harder question is accountability: a centralised body procuring AI for 43 forces concentrates both the upside and the risk, and the credibility of that public register will be the early test of whether transparency keeps pace with adoption.