TL;DR
Ten of the eleven AI tools the Cabinet Office has deployed or bought rely on models built by US companies, according to an FOI answer reported by Computer Weekly on 5 November. The request also sought the government’s plans for coping if those suppliers became unavailable. Officials confirmed such material exists but refused to release it.
What the FOI shows
The request came from Aventail, a UK AI company whose chief executive argues for infrastructure that lets public bodies change provider. The underlying models come from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft or OpenAI, used directly or via Azure and AWS. UK hosting is in place, but design, pricing and access terms are set by the US firms.
The single exception is PolyAI, a British firm whose models serve SSCL, which runs shared back-office services for government. The Cabinet Office named Google Gemini as its main approved enterprise generative AI tool. The list also covers Minute, which writes up meetings, GCS Assist for communications staff, and Hansard AI for research on legislation.
Asked for continuity plans or risk register entries on an outage at these providers, the government argued that disclosure would help criminals and so harm crime prevention.
The lock-in question
Aventail chief executive Joe Ward said he supports the government adopting leading US models, but warned of “a house of cards” if essential services hinge on continued access to one supplier. Stephenson Harwood’s Mark Lewis, a lawyer specialising in IT outsourcing, said lock-in by AI labs mirrors what happened with cloud. He conceded that no one outside knows whether the government negotiated protective contract terms.
Why it matters
The finding lands in a week when we have also covered UK dependence questions over compute and critical minerals. In our view, the FOI shows the gap between that rhetoric and what departments actually run day to day. UK-hosted data does not equal UK control.
Looking Forward
The unanswered question is what happens if a US provider changes its pricing or withdraws a model. Public bodies procuring AI now can at least ask for exit terms and the option to run open-weight alternatives, even if the Cabinet Office’s own plans stay private.