‘AI clog’: UK public bodies battle onslaught of chatbot-generated complaints

The surge of AI-generated complaints is overwhelming UK public bodies, causing immense strain on their resources. Former Labour MP Hollie Wickens, a senior caseworker, explains that up to half of the emails her office receives are AI-generated, making their work more complex and time-consuming. The rapid development of AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini has allowed laypeople to access free, although sometimes unreliable, legal advice, administration, and personal assistance.

This has resulted in public bodies, such as local authorities, courts, schools, and businesses, being inundated with a flood of AI-generated correspondence. These complaints and legal challenges are significantly more complicated, time-consuming, and expensive to handle than traditional ones. Deborah Evans, the chief executive of Lawyers in Local Government, notes that local authorities, with their limited budgets, are struggling to cope with the increased volume of complaints, which often relate to social care services, bin collections, and planning applications.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has also observed an increase in AI-generated requests from public authorities, which tend to be longer, more repetitive, and contain unrelated comments or misdirected demands. Despite the potential productivity gains promised by AI, businesses, local authorities, courts, and schools are reporting an unprecedented surge in AI-generated complaints, letters, and legal challenges, creating a phenomenon dubbed "AI clog" or "agentic flooding."