LO
PilotCognitive automation2025-10-30
A language model that asks respondents follow-up questions and assigns industry and occupation codes is being piloted in a labour survey, Britain's statistics office said
Statisticianoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2025-10-30
Evidence stage
PilotSmall-scale trial in a real setting. Tells us the deployment conditions are being tested, not that they hold — so one pilot is never enough on its own; two independent ones are.
Tasks this bears on
Designing surveys, samples and trials
Deciding who to sample, how many, how to ask and how to analyse, and writing the analysis plan before data arrive.
Still human-led✓ Evidence-backed
Processing and coding data
Cleaning, editing and classifying responses so that they can be counted, such as coding written answers into occupations and industries.
Automating✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
Great Britain. The transparency record, with phase given as pre-deployment, says the tool asks follow-up questions based on a respondent's input to clarify their job and industry and then determines the SIC and SOC codes; there is close human analysis during research and development, but no direct human intervention in the questions the model asks or the results it provides, with clerical review of accuracy during the research phases. A pilot; no results are reported.
What this means
A statistics office is testing a model that asks respondents its own follow-up questions, part of what questionnaire designers used to fix in advance.
What it does not yet show
A pilot without published results.
What you can check
Open the GOV.UK algorithmic transparency record 'Office for National Statistics: Survey Assist' and find "no direct intervention from humans".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. Nor did this record change a layer: all 2 linked judgements above already rested on earlier evidence. This one adds to them.
Source
GOV.UK Algorithmic Transparency Record — Office for National Statistics: Survey Assist (published 30 October 2025) · verified 2026-10-01 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-10-01 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.