By Thorsten Meyer | October 20, 2026 | ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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Complaints, FOI requests and tribunal claims have surged since ChatGPT launched. Much of the new volume is genuine. The real problem is a state built on essays.
For more than a decade, the number of Freedom of Information requests sent to British public bodies barely moved. Then, after ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the line started to rise: slowly at first, then faster.
That chart opens a new Sky News report by technology correspondent Rowland Manthorpe, published on October 20. Using data seen by Sky News, he shows the same shape across almost every channel where citizens put things in writing: complaints about water companies, councils, GP practices, the Department for Work and Pensions, and claims to employment tribunals.
The report’s argument is simple. The British state runs largely on paperwork, and AI has just made paperwork cheap. What happens next depends on how government responds: by making it harder to ask, or by changing what it asks for.
The pattern: flat for years, then a ChatGPT-shaped curve
Sky News measured the growth in each channel since ChatGPT’s launch:
| Channel | Growth since ChatGPT launched |
|---|---|
| Household complaints about water companies | 144% |
| Complaints about English local authorities | 78% |
| Written complaints to GP practices | 71% |
| Complaints to the Department for Work and Pensions | 64% |
| Individual employment tribunal claims | 62% |
| Complaints about legal services | 49% |
| Written complaints to the NHS | 35% |
| Complaints about police forces | 34% |
| Complaints about public services | 23% |
Every channel has its own reasons for more complaints. Water companies, for example, have had a difficult few years. What stands out is the shape, which repeats across unrelated services: a long flat line, then a slow rise from late 2022, then acceleration.
Manthorpe also ran a small test. He put 100 recent FOI requests through an AI-text checker: it labelled 89% as fully AI-written and 9% as human. A smaller sample from 2019 came back entirely human. He is careful to say this isn’t conclusive. AI detectors are unreliable, and the test doesn’t prove AI caused the rise. But it fits the pattern.
The trend isn’t only British. A paper by researcher Chris Schmitz, reported by TechCrunch in September, documents 84 possible cases of what he calls “agentic flooding” in 11 jurisdictions. Most were roughly flat before 2022 and have climbed since. The UK Housing Ombudsman went from about 2,600 complaints in 2022 to just over 7,000 last year. The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau saw complaints grow fivefold.
Infographic 01 · The paperwork curve
Flat for a decade. Then ChatGPT made paperwork cheap.
Across almost every channel where people write to the British state, volume has risen since November 2022. Much of it is justified.
Growth since ChatGPT launched
Change per channel since November 2022, as measured by Sky News. Bar length on a 0–150% scale.
Each channel has its own causes. The repeated shape, flat then accelerating from late 2022, is the signal.
Not just Britain
Other measurements of the same trend.
- UK Housing Ombudsman: about 2,600 complaints in 2022, just over 7,000 last year (TechCrunch).
- US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: complaints up fivefold over the same period.
- 84 cases in 11 jurisdictions of possible “agentic flooding”, most flat before 2022 (Chris Schmitz).
- ICO guidance, May 2026: AI-written FOI requests are valid; authorities may ask for clarification.
Schmitz: “The vast majority of cases we find are people who are entitled to claim for something, claiming for that thing.”
Sources: Sky News, Why AI could break Britain’s bureaucracy (20 Oct 2026); TechCrunch (10 Sep 2026); ICO (May 2026).
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What it feels like on the other side of the inbox
An academic survey of civil servants earlier this year, cited by Sky News, asked how far AI-generated content from the public affects their work. 58% said it has a significant impact. The quotes are blunt:
- “It’s like being bombarded with correspondence at speed.”
- “It honestly feels in some instances we’re arguing with ChatGPT.”
- “It’s exhausting and can be quite anxiety-inducing.”
Regulators have noticed. In May, the Information Commissioner’s Office published guidance on AI-generated FOI requests. Public authorities had told it about higher volumes and more complex requests, some of which misquote legislation or need significant clarification. The ICO’s answer: AI-written requests are still valid requests, authorities don’t need to work out who or what wrote them, and they can ask for clarification when a request is badly formed.
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The next wave: agents that file for you
Most of today’s volume still comes from people copying text in and out of a chatbot. That is about to change. AI agents, such as the agent service from Meta that Manthorpe demonstrates in the report, don’t just draft a letter; they act on your behalf.
Manthorpe asks the obvious questions. What happens when everyone can appeal every parking ticket at the press of a button? Or when every delayed rail passenger claims Delay Repay automatically? Could those systems keep working?
Tom Loosemore, who founded the Government Digital Service and set up GOV.UK, doesn’t soften his answer: “This is pretty existential for the kind of government services that rely on you writing lots of stuff as part of your application process.” Without fundamental changes, he says, “I can’t see the current way we run benefits in the UK surviving.”
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Spam or unmet need? The evidence says: largely need
The tempting response is friction. The Financial Ombudsman Service found that about a third of its complaints were AI-generated and started charging some professional representatives to bring complaints. The number of complaints fell.
But the data points the other way on what the volume actually is. At the DWP, the share of complaints that are upheld has fallen from somewhere in the 50s to close to 40%, Sky News reports. That’s a decline, not a collapse. And 40% of a much larger number means more justified complaints in absolute terms than before. Schmitz reaches a similar conclusion across his cases: “The vast majority of cases we find are people who are entitled to claim for something, claiming for that thing.”
That changes the question. If many of these new claims are justified, AI isn’t creating fake demand. It is removing a barrier that used to keep entitled people out: the effort and confidence needed to write a formal complaint or appeal. Blocking AI-written submissions, or making everyone pay, would shut those people out again.
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Loosemore’s answer: stop asking for essays
Loosemore calls the friction route “a terrible, terrible decision,” because it starts an arms race against big tech companies that “are going to find ways around the friction you put in front of people.” His alternative is “a pretty fundamental reset of how we think about the design of our public services, to make them much more about data and much less about you having to write an essay to apply for something.”
What would that look like in practice? A few design moves follow directly from his argument:
- Ask for facts, not prose. Replace free-text complaint letters with structured forms: what happened, when, reference numbers, what outcome you want. A model can fill a form in seconds, and a caseworker can read it in seconds.
- Use the data the state already holds. Many claims, such as Delay Repay or benefit eligibility, can be checked against existing records. Where the facts are already known, pay or decide automatically and skip the application.
- Give agents a front door. If agents are going to file anyway, offer an official, rate-limited interface with identity checks, so automated claims arrive structured and verifiable rather than as long PDFs.
- Triage by substance, not by length. Group duplicate and near-identical submissions, and route clear-cut cases to fast decisions so caseworkers spend their time on the hard ones.
- Measure outcomes, not volume. Track upheld rates and time-to-resolution per channel. Volume alone tells you nothing about whether a service is being abused or finally reached.
Loosemore admits this is a big change for many services and “probably requires a reset of quite a few political opinions as well.” It is also slower than charging fees. But it is the only option that doesn’t get worse as AI gets better.
Infographic 02 · Friction or structure
Make it harder to ask, or change what the state asks for?
Tom Loosemore, founder of the Government Digital Service, calls the friction route “a terrible, terrible decision”. His alternative: services built on data, not essays.
Two ways to respond
Based on the Sky News report and the examples in it.
| More friction | Structured data | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Fees, caps, rejecting AI-written text, longer forms | Structured forms, reuse of state data, an official channel for agents |
| Effect on volume | Falls quickly (Financial Ombudsman) | Volume stays, cost per case falls |
| Effect on justified claims | Also blocked: ~40% of DWP complaints are upheld | Faster decisions, more of them automatic |
| As AI gets better | An arms race against big tech | Gets easier: agents fill structured forms well |
| Political cost | Low now, high later | High now: a reset of many services |
Five design moves
What “much more about data” can mean in practice.
- 1
Ask for facts, not prose
Structured forms: what happened, when, reference, desired outcome.
- 2
Use data the state holds
Check Delay Repay or eligibility against records; decide without an application.
- 3
Give agents a front door
An official, rate-limited, identity-checked interface instead of long PDFs.
- 4
Triage by substance
Group near-identical submissions; fast-track clear-cut cases.
- 5
Measure outcomes
Upheld rates and time to resolution per channel, not raw volume.
Sources: Sky News (20 Oct 2026), including interview with Tom Loosemore; design moves: Thorsten Meyer AI analysis.
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Why this matters beyond Britain
Britain has a well-documented FOI and complaints system, which makes the trend easy to see there. But every administration that runs on letters, forms and appeals faces the same economics: AI drives the cost of writing a formal request towards zero, while the cost of reading one stays the same.
For businesses, the lesson is identical. Any process that relies on effort as a filter, from customer complaints and warranty claims to insurance disputes and supplier tenders, will see that filter disappear. The organisations that cope will be the ones that redesign the intake, not the ones that make the door narrower.
Verdict
The surge in British paperwork is real, it follows AI adoption closely, and it is likely to grow as agents take over the filing. But most of it isn’t spam. It is people claiming what they are entitled to, now that writing the claim costs them almost nothing.
Friction treats that as an attack and will lose. The better answer is the one Loosemore describes: public services designed around structured data, where a claim is a set of facts the state can check, not an essay someone has to read.
Sources
- Sky News: Why AI could break Britain’s bureaucracy (Rowland Manthorpe, October 20, 2026)
- TechCrunch: AI agents are flooding public services with new requests (September 10, 2026)
- Information Commissioner’s Office: New guidance to support public authorities dealing with AI-generated FOI requests (May 2026)
- Civil Service World: ICO publishes guidance to help public authorities handle AI-generated FOI requests
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