ICS.AI and Derby City Council Win Highly Commended at the 2025 National AI Awards

We’re proud to share that ICS.AI and Derby City Council won Highly Commended in the AI Award for Government and Public Sector category at the 2025 National AI Awards last night.

This recognition celebrates our collaboration to deliver the UK’s first unified, council-wide AI platform - an initiative that has already identified £7.5 million in savings and is setting a new national benchmark for scalable, ethical AI transformation across local government.

Judges praised the collaboration as:

“A strong application of AI with broad, impactful use cases both internally and externally,” noting its “clear financial benefits, scalability across councils, and bold ambition which has been well executed.”

Representing ICS.AI at the awards were Fiona Watson (Chief Marketing Officer) and Andrew Smith (Chief Customer Officer), alongside Councillor Hardyal Dhindsa from Derby City Council, who joined to celebrate this milestone in local government AI innovation.

Congratulations to the category winners - the UK Government Communications Applied Data and Insight Team for their innovative AI tool “Assist” - and to all the finalists helping shape the responsible use of AI for public good.

While we didn’t take home the Alan Turing AI Innovator Award, we were honoured to be recognised among the UK’s leading AI organisations. The judges noted our finalist achievement as:

“An extremely effective project with a clear and measurable impact on Council communities”.

Congratulations to the 1956 Individuals, winner of this category, for their AI-powered platform transforming customer experience through emotionally intelligent digital avatars.

We had a fantastic night celebrating the very best of UK AI innovation and feel incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved in partnership with Derby City Council.

This recognition reinforces our shared mission to help public sector organisations unlock the full potential of AI through our SMART: AI Unified Platform - driving measurable outcomes, ethical implementation, and sustainable value for communities across the UK. 

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