Storm ID is delighted to be the digital partner for the Futurescot AI Challenge 2026, working alongside Futurescot to support public sector organisations to explore, test and scale practical AI solutions that address real service pressures.

Following two successful years of the Challenge, this partnership reflects a shared ambition to move beyond isolated pilots and into applied, responsible AI that delivers measurable value for Scotland’s public services.

Scotland’s public services face rising demand and constrained budgets. Protecting service quality will depend not on new funding alone, but on releasing capacity from within the system – particularly by reducing the time spent on routine, repeatable tasks. This challenge sits at the heart of Storm ID’s recent research and our white paper, Automate tasks, not jobs: The AI opportunity for Scotland’s public services.

That research analysed 50 high-volume public services, representing 177.8 million staff hours annually, and demonstrated that under realistic adoption scenarios AI‑enabled service redesign could release between 16.6 million and 62.1 million hours per year by 2030.

Crucially, the research showed that this opportunity is not about replacing people, but about automating routine work so skilled professionals can focus on judgement, care, safeguarding, teaching and complex casework.

A key insight from the white paper is that public services share common operational patterns. Rather than building dozens of bespoke AI solutions, Scotland can move faster and more safely by developing reusable, configurable components aligned to five repeatable service patterns identified across those 50 services:

  • Case & Record Lifecycle Management – summarising notes, coding documentation and updating records.
  • Application Processing & Eligibility/Decisioning – automating intake, validating evidence and drafting decisions.
  • Knowledge-Intensive Documentation – producing and standardising correspondence and reports.
  • First Contact, Triage & Routing – handling enquiries and directing cases appropriately.
  • Scheduling, Capacity & Follow-Up Orchestration – optimising appointments and reminders.

These patterns have also surfaced repeatedly through more than 50 entries to the Futurescot AI Challenge over the past two years, reinforcing the need for coordinated experimentation and reusable solutions aligned to shared workflow patterns, rather than fragmented innovation.

This is precisely why the Futurescot AI Challenge exists – and why Storm ID is proud to support it as digital partner in 2026.

The Challenge provides a structured, low‑risk environment for Scottish public bodies to apply AI to real service workflows, measure ‘time back’, and build confidence in responsible, well‑governed AI adoption. Beyond individual projects, participants will benefit from peer learning, skills development and direct access to Storm ID’s specialists in service design, engineering and applied AI, with governance, safety and ethics embedded throughout.