Scaling AI: The year ahead with 10 Downing Street’s chief analyst Laura Gilbert
In this ‘Five Minutes With’ series, we interview senior civil servants about their achievements in 2024 and goals for the year ahead. Our first interview is with Laura Gilbert, the outgoing chief analyst and director of data science at the UK’s 10 Downing Street.
Look out for the rest of the series in the new year.
What was your organisation’s top achievement in 2024?
For me, it’s the incredible people we have managed to hire into the Incubator for AI, who have driven forward some really exciting innovative products with the potential to save and improve lives in just a few short months.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in 2024?
The election – it triggered a nearly six-month pause in our hiring, severely risking a number of major deliveries. The team have had to work all hours to try to keep things to schedule.
What are your priorities for the year ahead?
Delivering more products at scale. We have three products going into scaling and nine in alpha/beta phase. We need to make sure these products are robustly evaluated, intensively tested for performance and safety, and deployed where they can best add value.
What change would you most like to make to how government uses digital, data and technology in 2025?
I would like a far higher percentage of officials to be skilled up in how to solve problems using technology, who to speak to, how to procure or contract – basically for government to transform into a much better customer with a much higher percentage of tech products delivered cheaply and robustly in house.
What would your dream holiday destination be for a break in 2025?
Langkawi. They have six types of animal that fly (when you wouldn’t expect them to) – flying frogs, fish, snakes, lizards, flying foxes, and colugo (flying lemurs). And king cobras. And the food is amazing. My kind of place.
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