Hong Kong's 1823 hotline to deploy AI for call transcription and triage by year-end

The Hong Kong government will extend artificial intelligence on its 1823 inquiry platform to transcribe, summarise and triage resident submissions, allowing staff to focus on complex cases. The Digital Policy Office also plans to explore agentic AI from the fourth quarter, with a controlled rollout to other departments. Last year, the platform handled over 7.5 million submissions, more than half resolved by automated services.

The 1823 platform processed more than 7.5 million resident submissions last year, with 4.1 million handled entirely by automated services including AI text and audio chatbots. The upcoming expansion will add call transcription, email summarisation, and automated logging to the system's workflow.

The Digital Policy Office intends to begin exploring agentic AI applications in the fourth quarter, studying how such technology might be extended to other government departments under a controlled framework. Acting commissioner Daniel Cheung Yee-wai stated that service quality improvement, not workforce reduction, is the primary objective. Assistant commissioner Simon Lam Kwok-wai projected efficiency gains of 15 percent for call handling and 30 percent for email processing.