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Futurescot Public Sector AI Survey 2026

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Estimated completion time 15-20 minutes.

Artificial intelligence is moving fast, and Scotland's public sector is under pressure to respond - to pilot it, adopt it, regulate its use, and build the skills and culture to manage it well. This survey asks about your own experience of AI: what you understand it to be, whether and how you use it, how far you trust it, and what you think would help (or is holding back) responsible adoption in your organisation and across Scotland.

Your responses are confidential, anonymous and will be reported only in aggregate.

There are no right or wrong answers - we are as interested in scepticism as enthusiasm. Most questions are optional.

Why are we doing this?

As a publisher and events platform covering digital government, we spend a lot of time reporting claims about AI - from ministers, public servants, vendors and strategy documents.

What's missing is a clear picture of how those claims land with the people working in Scotland's public services. This survey is an attempt to fill some of those gaps.
There are practical uses too. The findings will inform and shape the agendas for our events - spanning Digital Scotland, Health & Social Care Transformation, Cyber Security, Digital Justice & Policing and Public Sector AI - so that the programmes reflect the issues practitioners raise, rather than our assumptions about them.

And we will publish what we find, so the wider readership can see where understanding, trust and adoption really stands.

The survey closes on August 21st.

Thank you, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Kevin O'Sullivan
Section A - About you and your role
1.A1. Which part of Scotland's public sector do you work in?(Required.)
2.A2. What best describes your role level?(Required.)
3.A3. Which best describes your functional area?(Required.)
4.A4. Do you have any formal responsibility for AI in your organisation?(Required.)
5.A5. Regardless of formal responsibility, how much influence do you feel you have over whether your organisation trials or adopts AI?(Required.)
6.A6. Roughly how large is your organisation?(Required.)
Section B - Your understanding of AI
7.B1. How would you rate your overall understanding of what AI is and how it works? (scale 1-10, where 1 = no understanding, 10 = expert understanding)(Required.)
0
10
8.B2. How confident would you be explaining the following to a colleague?(Required.)
Very Confident
Fairly Confident
Not very confident
Not at all confident
What AI is, in general terms
How large language models (e.g. ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemini) actually work
The difference between generative AI and other types (e.g. machine learning for prediction, automation/RPA, computer vision)
What "training data" is and why it matters
The limitations of AI (e.g. hallucination, bias, drift)
9.B3. Which of the following can you distinguish between with confidence?(Required.)
10.B4. How would you rate your proficiency in the following?(Required.)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Coding / software development
Working with data (analysis, statistics, data management)
Using AI tools day-to-day (prompting, judging outputs)
11.B5. Where does your knowledge of AI mainly come from?(Required.)
Section C - Using AI today
12.C1. Do you use AI tools in a professional capacity, using tools sanctioned by your organisation?(Required.)
13.C2. (If yes to C1) Which sanctioned tools do you use?
14.C3. Please name the specific AI tools you use for work, and briefly what you use them for(Required.)
15.C4. Do you use AI tools in a personal capacity (outside work)?(Required.)
16.C5. Do you ever use personal (non-sanctioned) AI tools to help with your professional work - for example, using a free AI chatbot on your own device to draft, summarise or problem-solve work tasks?(Required.)
17.C6. Does your organisation place constraints on the use of AI - for example an IT or acceptable-use policy, a ban on certain tools, or rules about what data can be entered?(Required.)
18.C7. Please describe how the constraints work in practice - e.g. what the policy says, what's blocked or allowed, and whether people follow it.(Required.)
19.C8. What most limits your use of AI at work?(Required.)
Section D - Trust in AI
20.D1. Overall, how much do you personally trust AI? (scale 1-10, where 1 = no trust at all, 10 = complete trust)(Required.)
0
10
21.D2. What, if anything, do you not trust about AI?(Required.)
22.D3. And on the positive side - what, if anything, do you trust AI to do well?(Required.)
23.D4. In your own words, what would most increase your trust in AI used in public services?(Required.)
D5-D8 - AI risk and sensitive data (sub-section)
24.D5. Does your organisation hold or process particularly sensitive data or make sensitive decisions?(Required.)
25.D6. (If any selected in D5) Does your own role involve that sensitive data or decision-making? (single choice)
26.D7. How comfortable would you be with AI being used in the following ways in your organisation?(Required.)
Very comfortable
Fairly comfortable
Uncomfortable
Strongly opposed
Depends - see next question
Drafting documents and correspondence
Summarising case files or records for a human decision-maker
Triaging or prioritising cases for human review
Recommending a decision that a human approves
Making routine decisions automatically, with human oversight of the system
Interacting directly with the public (e.g. chatbots)
27.D8. Where AI touches sensitive decisions - e.g. medical decision-making, or decisions about someone's benefits or personal circumstances - which safeguards would you consider essential?(Required.)
28.D8a. Optional: anything to add on safeguards, or on which of the above matter most?(Required.)
Section E - Regulating AI
29.E1. How confident are you that we currently have the right regulatory framework to manage AI responsibly and ethically?(Required.)
30.E2. Which statement is closest to your view?(Required.)
31.E3. Who do you think should take the lead in setting the rules for AI use in Scotland's public services? (select up to 2)(Required.)
32.E4. Do you feel you understand what you are and aren't legally allowed to do with AI in your role?(Required.)
33.E5. What one change to regulation or guidance would most help your organisation use AI responsibly?(Required.)
Section F - Workforce skills and culture
34.F1. Rate your own current skill level in each of the following.(Required.)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Technical skills (coding, data science, model development)
Fluency in using AI tools (prompting, integrating into daily work)
Judging AI outputs (spotting errors, bias, hallucination)
AI governance, ethics and risk
Explaining AI to colleagues or the public
35.F2. What skills do you personally most want to develop? (select up to 3)(Required.)
36.F3. What training or support would you most like your organisation to start offering? (select up to 3)(Required.)
37.F3a. Anything else on the training or support you'd like to see?
38.F4. Thinking about your own job over the next 5-10 years, which is closest to your view?(Required.)
39.F5. How would you describe the prevailing attitude to AI in your organisation?(Required.)
40.F6. If there is resistance to AI in your organisation, what do you think drives it?(Required.)
41.F7. Is your organisation's leadership positive about the benefits of AI?(Required.)
42.F8. What do leaders in your organisation most need to do to set the right culture for AI?(Required.)
43.F9. And nationally - what is needed to lead well on AI in Scotland? For example, do politicians need to be clearer about the risks and benefits(Required.)
44.F10. In your own words, what does a good AI culture in a public sector organisation look like(Required.)
Section G - Adoption: from pilots to practice
There is a widespread view that the public sector runs many AI pilots but adopts few of them at scale.
45.G1. Does that match your experience?(Required.)
46.G2. In your view, what most prevents pilots becoming adopted services? (select up to 3)(Required.)
47.G3. Does your organisation have a clear policy on what AI use is permitted and what is not(Required.)
48.G4. How would you describe your organisation's appetite to adopt AI?(Required.)
49.G5. Do you personally feel empowered to pursue AI in your role - i.e. are you allowed to explore it, and do you have the authority to adopt it?(Required.)
50.G6. Thinking about procurement of AI in your organisation or sector, which is closest to your view?(Required.)
51.G7. And on risk appetite for AI, is your organisation…(Required.)
52.G8. What single change would most accelerate responsible AI adoption in your organisation?(Required.)
Section H - The wider AI ecosystem: industry, sovereignty and resilience
53.H1. What role should the private sector play in helping Scotland's public sector adopt AI(Required.)
54.H2. How confident are you that public sector procurement and partnership gets good value and fair terms from AI suppliers?(Required.)
55.H3. How important is it that public sector AI adoption also supports the wider Scottish AI economy (e.g. Scottish start-ups, universities, local skills)?(Required.)
56.H4. As frontier AI models become more powerful, how concerned are you about the following?(Required.)
Very concerned
Somewhat
Not very
Not at all
Don't know
Data sovereignty - public sector data processed under foreign jurisdictions
Dependence on a small number of (mostly US) technology companies
National resilience - critical services relying on AI we don't control
Security threats from AI-enabled attacks (e.g. fraud, disinformation, cyber)
Loss of in-house capability to scrutinise what suppliers provide
57.H5. Should Scotland / the UK invest in sovereign AI capability (e.g. domestically hosted models, public compute) for public services?(Required.)
58.H6. Are these issues - sovereignty, resilience, security - being seriously considered in your organisation?(Required.)
Section I - Outlook
59.I1. Overall, are you optimistic or pessimistic about AI-enabled public services in Scotland? (scale 1-10, where 1 = deeply pessimistic, 10 = highly optimistic)(Required.)
0
10
60.I2. Which statement best captures your overall view?(Required.)
61.I3. Complete this sentence in your own words: "In ten years, AI in Scotland's public services will…"(Required.)
Closing
62.J1. Is there anything about AI in the public sector that this survey didn't ask about, but should have?(Required.)
63.J2. Would you be willing to take part in a short follow-up interview or roundtable?(Required.)
Thank you. Your responses will inform [organisation/programme name]'s work on AI in Scotland's public sector. Findings will be published in aggregate via www.futurescot.com.
Current Progress,
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