Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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228. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide an update on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in her Department; the AI technologies the Department uses, the purpose and function of said technology in the context of the work of the Department, and the associated costs of the licensing or use of AI by the Department in the past 12 months, in tabular form. [38615/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department continue to review and follow guidance issued by the National Cyber Security Centre, Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, and the Department of Public Expenditure NDP Delivery and Reform on the use of Artificial Intelligence.

The following details the use of AI technologies within the past 12 months for which no cost has been incurred:

A limited trial is underway to assess the opportunity for productivity gains of a Generative AI services, use cases within the trail include, summarising public information, translation of public information, editing text in plain English, and grammar and spelling assistance. All text is reviewed and verified by a human.

An initial proof of concept was carried out to explore the possible use of Machine Learning tools to support and augment the data analysis of ‘free text’ data items. This proof of concept focused on the potential of using Machine Learning to infer a possible overall sentiment (positive, negative , neutral) present in a sample of non personal ‘free text’ data.

My Department has no AI systems in place that processes citizens information.

My Department will continue to assess the suitability of AI on a solution by solution basis.