Three Scottish public sector organisations have been shortlisted for the Futurescot 2026 AI Challenge.
Qualifications Scotland, Fife Council and the Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service will go through to the final stage of the competition – where they will face a public vote.
The public bodies, which were selected on criteria including impact, responsibility, scalability, reuse and deliverability, will now develop their ideas into a working proof of concept (PoC) that will be showcased at Digital Scotland on November 24th in Edinburgh.
Stewart Cruickshank, consulting director at Storm ID, Futurescot’s challenge partner, said: “We were delighted by the range and breadth of applications received this year, which were genuinely impressive in scope and potential impact for public services in Scotland.
“Congratulations to Qualifications Scotland, Fife Council and Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service for making it to the final three. Their ideas are all very compelling, and we look forward to working with them closely in the coming weeks and months to workshop their ideas into proofs of concept in time for Digital Scotland.
“This year, we want to democratise the process as well, so we look forward to sharing details of a public vote soon.”
Kevin O’Sullivan, editor of Futurescot, said: “This is now the third year of the Challenge, and as AI matures, it has been noticeable to observe the increased quality of thinking and engagement at all levels within the public sector in Scotland.
“Adoption is the vital next stage, and we look forward to hopefully seeing some of the use cases in operation – which will help reduce workloads of under-pressure public services, as well as to improve efficiencies, productivity and outcomes.”
AI Challenge 2026 finalists
Qualifications Scotland – Every teacher who marks National Qualification exams provides written feedback on how learners performed and their experience of marking. With up to 10,000 reports produced each year, it is impossible to quickly identify all the common themes and insights. AI can analyse these reports at scale, producing clear, consistent summaries that support expert decision-making and help improve future assessments and teaching.
Donna Stewart, chief qualifications and examinations officer at Qualifications Scotland, said: “I am delighted that our proposal to the FutureScot AI challenge has been shortlisted. We are exploring how we can use AI to provide enhanced insights as part of our awarding process.
“Each year, our markers submit a report for each component of an assessment that they mark. This can result in over 10,000 reports being generated each year. By using AI to consolidate and interrogate marker reports we hope to streamline that feedback process and draw out insights that will ultimately benefit our learners.”
Fife Council – The proposal aims to explore how to safely introduce automation into checking school enrolment applications and supporting documents. AI can reduce the administrative burden on schools, freeing already stretched staff to focus on supporting pupils and families rather than repetitive validation tasks.
Charlie Anderson, head of Business technology solutions, Fife Council, said: “This shortlisting reflects our ongoing commitment to exploring how innovation and artificial intelligence can help improve services, support our workforce and deliver positive outcomes for our communities. By combining ambition with careful governance, we aim to ensure emerging technologies are used in ways that are ethical, practical and focused on creating meaningful public value. We look forward to developing this proposal further and considering how it could support the future of public service delivery in Fife.”
Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service – The proposal applies AI and large language models to analyse legacy applications, helping organisations quickly determine whether systems should be retained, refactored or replaced. By reducing assessment time from months to days, it enables faster, evidence-based transformation while keeping experts firmly in control of decisions.
Ian Carrie, head of architecture and principal architect, change and digital innovation (CDi), Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service, said: “To be shortlisted as a finalist in this year’s Futurescot AI Challenge is a fantastic achievement and highlights the enormous talent and expertise within SCTS.
“We are committed to exploring the use of AI and see real potential for it to be used to improve both service and efficiency. The concept we have submitted is to use AI to transform how SCTS assess and modernise our application estate. Early modelling suggests this could reduce application assessment effort by 60–80%, compressing evaluation timelines from months to days. This would also reduce programme costs, and accelerate delivery of service improvements.”
The proofs of concept will be showcased at Digital Scotland, the annual public sector digital transformation on the 24th of November at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
For details of the Challenge, please visit aichallenge.scot.
