Google DeepMind announced a partnership with the UK government on June 16, 2026, to develop an artificial intelligence prototype designed to cut local council planning decision times in half.
Built using Google's Gemini model, the tool acts as an assistant for planning officers by handling data extraction and case analysis. Google DeepMind is collaborating on the system with Google Cloud, consultancy Faculty, and local authorities in Barnet, Camden, and Dorset. Following early trials in those three areas, the UK government plans to make the tool available to all councils nationwide in 2027.
The UK government aims to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, but administration backlogs frequently slow local planning departments. Householder applications, such as loft conversions and extensions, make up nearly 70 percent of all planning submissions each year. To speed up processing, the prototype consolidates site data onto one screen, identifies relevant national and local policies with citations, summarizes consultation objections, and drafts initial reports with proposed conditions.
Planning officers maintain full decision-making control under the system. Officers review every line generated by the AI, retain authority to approve or reject applications, and can edit all rationale. The prototype records its operations at every step to maintain an audit trail.
Document Digitization
The system builds on Extract, an earlier Gemini tool created by the UK government's Incubator for AI that was released to every council in England earlier in June 2026. Extract converts legacy PDF documents into structured digital data in minutes. Trials across more than 20 local planning authorities indicated that Extract will save the average council roughly 255 hours of manual work per year.
Google DeepMind framed the rollout under its National Partnerships for AI initiative. The company previously announced similar public-sector agreements with Singapore in May 2026, the Republic of Korea in April 2026, and India in February 2026, following a December 2025 scientific discovery initiative with the U.S. Department of Energy.
