July 6th 2026
Case study authors:
Katie Thorn (Digital Care Hub), Daniel Casson (Casson Consulting) and Caroline Green (Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University) – co-conveners of the AI in Care Alliance.
Overview
The AI in Care Alliance brings together partners from across adult social care, academia, the technology industry, and policy to explore how artificial intelligence can be used responsibly, ethically and meaningfully in care.
The Alliance places co-production at the heart of its work, ensuring that people drawing on care and support, providers, care workers, and technology experts all have a voice in shaping how AI is developed, tested and implemented, and that the solutions are practical and usable.
The combination of care organisations and their knowledge of how AI can transform the way they care and remain operationally and financially resilient, with the tech partners who are driven to innovate to improve people’s experience, creates a strong coalition of the willing to ensure progress is embedded in realty.
AI is being widely used to varying degrees across the social care landscape in the UK, from performing administrative tasks to being directly integrated into existing care software systems. It has the power to transform people’s lives, give people greater quality of life, help care workers and organisations be as effective as possible to support people. The potential is significant and as more providers lean into the benefits, interest in its potential grows.
The AI in Care Alliance was announced at the 2nd AI in Social Care Summit in March 2026. It was evolved from the Oxford Project on the Responsible Use of Generative AI in Social Care, which was co-convened by the Oxford Institute of Ethics in AI, Casson Consulting and Digital Care Hub.
Our mission is to establish a community of best practice, which:
- Puts people at the heart of AI development and implementation, ensuring that technology serves the needs and upholds the rights of individuals drawing on care and support.
- Provides practical guidance and tools to navigate the ethical and technical challenges of integrating AI, based on our values framework.
- Drives policy and regulatory change to create a supportive and safe environment for responsible innovation.
The approach: embedding co-production from the outset
The AI in Care Alliance has taken a structured approach to co-production following best practice set out by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and Think Local Act Personal (TLAP). It does this by:
- Bringing together diverse voices
- Co-designing through principles and priorities
- Creating practical tools and frameworks
- Iterative learning and shared insight
This approach has been independently evaluated over the last two years and will be continuously refined and adapted as needed.
The role of co-production
Co-production is not treated as a single activity, but as a continuous thread running through our work.
From the outset, we have worked with care and support workers, people with lived experience, providers, commissioners, sector experts, industry and academia to codesign our approach.
We had 5 working groups who worked together to express their own concerns, desires and hopes around the responsible use of AI in care:
- People with lived experience
- Care workers
- Care providers
- Technology suppliers
- Ethical framework development.
Each group had published their own output. We then brought representatives from each of these groups together to identify common themes. From these co-production sessions, we have published our AI guidance and our co-produced definition of responsible AI use in adult social care:
“The ‘responsible use of (generative) AI in social care’ means that the use of AI systems in the care or related to the care of people, supports and does not undermine, harm or unfairly breach fundamental values of care, including human rights, independence, choice and control, dignity, equality and wellbeing.”
Impact
While the Alliance is still relatively new, the project’s co-production approach already exists: Co-produced AI Guidance:
- Tech Suppliers Pledge
- Care Workers Statement of Expectations on the Use of AI
- Better choices, more control? Principles and priorities for the responsible use of Generative AI in care and support
- Risks of Generative AI in Care
- A collaborative Call to Action
- Top Tips for Care Providers on the Use and Implementation of Generative AI
- A range of recorded webinars
- 2 Academic publications
International usage
In addition, the Alliance’s approach has been tested and adopted internationally – in Ireland, Germany, Canada, America, and at the UN. FamTech – a US based tech industry association have adopted our framework for their members nationally.
Learnings so far
The AI in Care Alliance has shared several important lessons for organisations exploring co-production in digital innovation:
- Start with people, not technology
- Turn values into practice
- Create time and space for honest conversations
- Discuss risks, concerns and limitations openly
- Invest in ongoing engagement
Conclusion
Co-production can be a challenging route to take where hierarchy and structured leadership is the norm. There must be time and pre-defined ways of working built into project planning to ensure there is adequate space to hear, and respond to, all voices.
The AI in Care Alliance demonstrates how co-production can act as a foundation for responsible innovation, ensuring that discussions about new technologies involve those who will use and benefit from them, support the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.
Find out more: AI in Care Alliance
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