27/06/2025
What AI are you using? The IEP’s AI Working Group want to build a picture of how AI is being used currently in the sector. Please fill out our quick survey here – it will take just 2 minutes.
The theme of the IEP Summit 2025 was all things AI and how it is changing the employability landscape. Thanks to our friends at CHAOS Digital, you can soon catch up on our IEP Summiteers’ insightful takes on AI in the sector.
This week we will be sharing the ‘vox pops’ from our Summit keynote speakers, who explored AI’s impact on employment and public services and provided practical guidance on harnessing AI’s potential while maintaining human-centred approaches across employment and public sector delivery.
Dr Antonio Weiss from The PSC examined how generative AI could revolutionise public services, drawing from his experience with the NHS and UK Government Digital Service.
“What I loved about the conversation, in the sense of the room, is that there needs to be a dialogue and engagement and still that kind of societal and industry wide understanding about, what does this mean? How could it affect us? What are the choices that we need to make as groups of humans together as we confront what is a really new and exciting but maybe dislocating technological age?” Antonio said.
“Today has really reinforced the need for exactly these opportunities to get together and have those conversations.”
Bolaji Olatoye of Altitude AI’s presentation demystified artificial intelligence for the sector.
“I gave examples of where data is suggesting AI is being implemented and being used by companies. It is contrary to what many people might believe: it’s adding jobs, it’s enabling employee retention, and companies are growing and humans are not actually losing their jobs in all of these companies that we mentioned,” Bolaji said. “There are examples of both for and against, but I definitely think there is opportunity to have a positive outlook on AI and the future of employability.
“Prior to AI, the criteria for employment is primarily on some core skill sets, long term salary and things like that. Whereas after AI, and in the current world that we’re in, it’s about adaptability and where employees can align with purpose and can think on a high level and be able to exercise creativity and innovation a bit more.”
Kevin Green, Chief People Officer at First Bus, is the first employer to be speak at the IEP Summit and shared people-first transformation strategies for inclusive workplace cultures. He said he wanted to be provocative to the audience and stimulate the conversation.
“I think that the challenge really for this sector is they’re doing really important work, or what they’re helping is people that are the furthest away from the job market get jobs, and jobs are important,” Kevin said. “That’s how you sustain your own life and that of your family. So what they do is important. I think what they’ve got to do is modernise, innovate, get better at both providing services to the individuals but really thinking about how they work with employers.
“So yes, I wanted to try and lead the way and challenge them and encourage them to do things differently. The fundamental thing is that the data is very clear. You know, empirical research has been done on the predictability of interviews as a way of looking at future performance and what’s absolutely clear is they just don’t work right.
So a one-on-one interview is as good as random. So what I was trying to do was to get them to think about what does work and where the evidence is pointing us in the right direction. Get multiple people to look at candidates and test them. Get them to do something which is relevant to the job that you’re going to ask them to do. If someone’s a salesperson get them to roleplay a salesperson. If they are a presenter, get them to do a presentation. If they are an accountant, get them to do some work on a balance sheet. It’s about getting them to do something which you can observe them doing and assessing them again. So I think there’s a lot of quite simple but quite important things that people need to do to improve the process of selection.”
Dr Nina Jörden from Cambridge University, who led the UK’s first public sector four-day workweek trial and collaborates with global organisations to inform policy and improve workforce wellbeing, challenged participants to look beyond AI hype, examining its real-world applications in employability practice through her research on productivity and workforce wellbeing.
Together these leaders provided practical guidance on harnessing AI’s potential while maintaining human-centred approaches across employment and public sector delivery.
What AI are you using? The IEP’s AI Working Group want to build a picture of how AI is being used currently in the sector. Please fill out our quick survey here – it will take just 2 minutes.
