Unlocking UK house-building with AI-accelerated planning

The UK government is developing an AI tool built with Gemini to speed up processing of housing planning applications, aiming to cut decision times in half. The tool acts as an assistant to planning officers by automating routine tasks like extracting data from documents, identifying relevant policies, summarizing feedback, and drafting assessment reports, while keeping the planning officer as the final decision-maker with full oversight and audit trails. This matters because local planning authorities face administrative backlogs that slow down the UK's goal to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, and nearly 70 percent of planning applications are routine householder cases like extensions that consume significant officer time. The tool is being tested in early trials with three local councils and is planned to be made available nationally to all councils from 2027, building on an earlier successful tool called Extract that converts legacy planning documents into usable digital data.