03/02/2026
“AI wasn’t part of my job description. Now it’s part of how I get things done.”
Southampton City Council’s Debt Management Centre deals with complex cases that go back a number of years. Accuracy matters, and small inefficiencies quickly add up.
That’s the environment Junior works in. Reviewing statements, answering queries, and helping residents navigate often complicated account histories.
When he joined our AI for Business programme, Junior wanted to build on the back-end work he already enjoys. Working with spreadsheets, numbers, and making process improvements.
What surprised him was how quickly AI could be applied to real tasks. He had mostly seen it used for answering simple questions, and hadn’t realised it could support deeper technical work.
Within his first few sprints, he started using AI to improve parts of his Excel workflow. Making statements of account clearer. Reducing the chance of manual errors in a high-volume, detail-heavy service.
As his confidence grew, he began taking on more technical spreadsheet work. Colleagues started turning to him for support, and he’s now getting closer to the kind of data problems he’s always been interested in.
Now he’s not just processing data – he’s improving the way the service runs, and giving his team cleaner, more reliable information to work with.
That’s the kind of capability the AI for Business programme is designed to build, starting from the work people already do.
