Following recent machinery of government changes, the most senior AI official in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been appointed to a post in the newly-created Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Ollie Ilott arrived in government in 2023 as the inaugural director of the DSIT-based AI Security Institute. Last year he was moved into an interim department-wide role as director general for artificial intelligence. Earlier this year his post was made a full-time appointment, with emerging technology also added to his brief.
Immediately after taking office last month, new prime minister Andy Burnham announced that DSIT was being scrapped, with its operations and responsibilities being spread across several departments. This includes various teams, functions and people related to AI moving to a new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet – which will be based in the Cabinet Office.
A key part of the OPMC will be a new AI Taskforce which will be chaired by Lord Patrick Vallance – with Ilott serving as its civil service leader, according to updates freshly made to his GOV.UK profile.
The page describes Ilott as the director general for artificial intelligence in the OPMC and in the Cabinet Office and head of the prime minister’s AI Taskforce. It says he was appointed to the role in July.
As well as his previous roles in DSIT, the GOV.UK profile adds that the senior official “previously was deputy principal private secretary to the prime minister, leading the domestic affairs team in No10 Private Office”. He held this post during the premierships of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak.
Earlier in his career, “he led on the Cabinet Office Covid Taskforce’s strategy team and worked on Brexit in the Civil Service from 2017 to 2020, [and] before this he was a researcher at the Institute for Government”, it says on GOV.UK.
During his latter stint in the tech department, Ilott was one of five directors general whose roles have been created since the 2024 election, and who collectively represented the second-highest rung of government digital leadership, underneath DSIT permanent secretary Emran Mian.
With the Government Digital Service set to move into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Mian’s position at the head of the digital and data profession across the civil service is to be taken over by DCMS perm sec Susannah Storey.
Ilott’s move to the Cabinet Office follows AI minister Kanishka Narayan also being relocated from DSIT into a role split between the central department the enlarged Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology. Narayan has also been promoted into a cabinet-level position.