UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office via Caution Your Blast · Government digital services
Generative AI for the UK Foreign Office
Two engagements for the Foreign Office's consular services: first a travel portal, then a public-facing generative AI service for British citizens abroad, one of the UK government's earliest production GenAI deployments.
The client
Caution Your Blast is the digital partner for the Foreign Office’s consular services. Richard Grove, their technology lead, contracted Poiema twice: once in 2021 for a travel portal, and again in 2023 for a generative AI service.
First engagement: travel portal
A React front end with Node.js serverless functions on AWS Lambda, built alongside the service’s designers in Figma and Miro. The contract was renewed after the first three months.
Second engagement: production GenAI
In late 2023 the Foreign Office wanted a public-facing service that could understand a citizen’s situation in their own words and route them to the right consular help. Alex designed and shipped it end to end: React and TypeScript front end, Node.js back end, integration with the OpenAI API, and the AWS infrastructure underneath.
Shipping GenAI inside government meant meeting public sector security review, WCAG accessibility standards and the gov.uk service standard, while still moving at startup pace. The initial three-month contract was extended to five. It ended only because Alex relocated to the United States.
Why it matters for you
This is the reference point for our AI work. We have taken a large language model feature from idea to a live public service under real accessibility, security and compliance constraints. If you want AI features in a product that people depend on, this is what that looks like.
I most recently worked with Alex developing Large Language Model tools, where he was able to quickly understand the latest technology, its possibilities and how to apply these to the real world. I'm yet to find a skill or technology he cannot master. He's a pleasure to work with, always positive, always reliable, and one of the best I've ever worked with.