Transport for London received a record 4,769 freedom of information requests in 2025-26, 5% above the previous peak in 2023-24.
Local authorities are seeing more complaints on subjects ranging from adult social care and missed bin collections to planning objections. Councils also report more residents using the tools to appeal decisions, including a marked rise in parking appeals.
Before chatbots were widely used, the average complaint to a local authority ran to about two pages. Officials now treat unusual length, stock phrases and bullet points as signs that a letter may have been generated by a machine.
Those letters are often described as unnecessarily verbose, and as dressing relatively minor incidents as major offences. Much of the correspondence sounds intimidating, those handling it say, but fails to say what outcome the writer wants.
MPs’ offices, local authorities, courts, schools, lawyers and other public bodies across Britain are being swamped by complaints, requests and legal challenges drafted with artificial intelligence, often long, formal and slow to answer.
The surge is landing on organisations that already say their resources are stretched. What takes a user moments to generate can take staff hours to read, check and reply to.
Hollie Wickens, a senior caseworker in a Labour MP’s office, said the flow “started as a trickle in 2024 and now it’s an onslaught.” She said about half the emails her office receives are “some form of AI,” and that the tools have made requests and complaints more complex and time-consuming despite her decade in the role.
The GMB union, which represents MPs’ office staff, has found the rise in casework to be widespread. Lisa Gillmore, president of the MPs’ and peers’ staff branch, said: “AI is not lightening the load in MPs’ offices.” Where offices keep their own figures, that casework has doubled or more, and staff are carrying it with no let-up, the union has warned.
Evans, speaking about the pressure on councils, said artificial intelligence tools often treat an ordinary complaint as a legal claim. “It will start referring to statute and pull out case law, but not necessarily tied to the jurisdictional boundaries in which you operate,” he said. Wickens said chatbots can help people who would struggle to draft a letter on their own. Her office has nevertheless stopped answering automated “click to email your MP” campaigns so staff can concentrate on constituents’ own requests.