A presentation at World IA Day London 2025 in in London, UK by London World IA Day
Lightning Talk The symbiosis of IA and AI SALLY CREASEY — Senior Information Architect at GDS RICH EVESON— Senior Data Scientist at GDS London 2025
Sally Creasey Senior Information Architect Government Digital Service Rich Eveson Senior Data Scientist Government Digital Service
The symbiosis of IA and AI
What’s happening right now in AI, feels like an industrial revolution-sized change in the way we can and will work
IA and AI are 2 sides of the same coin Together, improving outcomes for users and championing the need for good data and structure
Symbiosis: IA optimising AI
1 IAs help give AI contextual awareness by deriving, curating and documenting information structure and relationships
Example: mapping the Lego domain objects Company Lego company e.g. Lego, Duplo Retailer e.g. Smyth’s Toys Set e.g. Batmobile Instructions Employees Pieces e.g. 2x2 red block Orders Support Customers Reviews Brand Theme e.g. Batman
Example: mapping the Lego domain object relationships licences work for has Company Lego company Brand has e.g. Lego, Duplo Theme e.g. Batman has sells via Retailer e.g. Smyth’s Toys Set e.g. Batmobile has has Instructions have has contains has make up Pieces e.g. 2x2 red block Employees Orders place consult has help Support consult build with Customers write Reviews
2 IAs design and implement rich semantic metadata, enabling content personalisation and recommendation
Imagine knowing the content is… For driver type Attributes: Learner, new, experienced, disqualified, 70+, medical condition About driving requirement Attributes: MOT, Vehicle Tax, Insurance, Driving licence, V5C, permits About licence type Attributes: Provisional, Full, HGV, Public service vehicle (PSV) About vehicle type Attributes: Car, motorbike, moped, van, motorhome, lorry, bus, coach About engine type Attributes: Diesel, electric, petrol, hybrid, LNG
Imagine knowing the content is… For driver type Attributes: Learner, new, experienced, disqualified, 70+, medical condition About driving requirement Attributes: MOT, Vehicle Tax, Insurance, Driving licence, V5C, permits About licence type Attributes: Provisional, Full, HGV, Public service vehicle (PSV) About vehicle type Attributes: Car, motorbike, moped, van, motorhome, lorry, bus, coach About engine type Attributes: Diesel, electric, petrol, hybrid, LNG And when something important changes, knowing what’s changed and where So we can notify users in a timely way
3 IAs work with data scientists to create labelled datasets for AI and RAG Evaluating and iterating outputs with a user-centred mindset
guide ⇒ 2.0 Illustrative image form ⇒ 1.0 correspondence ⇒ 2.0 Read more about GOV.UK Chat
4 IAs, data scientists and content designers map conversational flows and taxonomies of intent for routing
● Hi, how are you? [greeting] User input ● Can I get my money back for this watch? [refund] ● How do I do x, y, z with my watch? [technical] router ● Why are your watches so overpriced? [opinion] Illustrative image -something about the question intents work with Alessia and Dave?
Symbiosis: AI optimising IA
1 Identifying and describing patterns in large datasets and content estates
2 Named entity recognition at scale
3 Generating synthetic data (and users!) for experimentation and research
4 Using AI to generate a range of ideas for human subject matter experts to build on
Navigation Category label ChatGPT-4o curation ChatGPT 3.5 curation Gemini 1.5 Pro curation Category label Accuracy check By information architects and content designers Final human curation Using the best from LLMs and subject matter knowledge
The future…
Will we just become humans in the loop? No
The evolution of IA will see us…
● Organising and connecting content and metadata in non-hierarchical ways to enable dynamic, user-driven experiences ● Connecting UCD and data thinking, with user and organisational needs ● Understanding AI capabilities and limitations, co-creating governance and guardrails to use AI safely and responsibly
Rich Eveson Senior Data Scientist Government Digital Service Sally Creasey Senior Information Architect Government Digital Service
Sally Creasey (Senior Information Architect) and Rich Eveson (Senior Data Scientist) at GDS.
The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.
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