Put simply, councils' frontline staff are being forced to do more with less, making these highly complex service environments prime candidates for intelligent automation. But, as is often the case when it comes to the deployment of agentic AI technologies - there's a lot to consider if the initial investment is to deliver the desired outcomes. Consider the following:

• 66% of councils have trouble understanding where AI can deliver the greatest value.¹
• 43% of local councils saying the lack of clear use cases is a barrier to AI adoption.²

While many councils have already realised agentic AI's applications for purely transactional services (e.g. the payment of parking fines or council tax), it is clear that a deeper understanding of its potential applications is still needed.

One common misunderstanding around AI is that it is best used to replace human agents wherever possible, but this is a fatal misconception. This technology's full potential is as an enabler and enhancer of human expertise and experience, allowing frontline staff to consistently deliver their best while simultaneously ensuring their wellbeing is protected. 

Consider a list of services like the one we touched on at the beginning of this article - a quite typical service wrap for local Government organisations. No human agent could sensibly be expected to be able to deliver that many services, but at the same time, hiring individual specialists for every area is not going to be practical when doing more with less is the order of the day.

At Exponential-e, we're already working closely with a number of Government organisations (and numerous others from across the public and enterprise sectors) to bring these concepts to life and establish a clear standard of best practice around where and how agentic AI is implemented. These "cyber advisors", as they are increasingly called, are transforming the way local Government's contact centre environments operate, ensuring citizens enjoy the fastest possible resolutions, while simultaneously freeing up time and resources that can be reinvested in other public services.

Indeed, these new models have transformed the way many businesses interact with their customers, applying lessons learned from established subscription-based services, such as gyms and streaming services. From both traditional retailers and ecommerce specialists offering scheduled deliveries of household essentials, groceries, and entertainment products, to the now-ubiquitous software-as-a-service model and premium subscriber options on popular social media platforms, there are numerous channels for forward-thinking businesses to establish 'sticky' streams of income, with more still to reveal themselves.

However, the rules around offering and managing subscriptions and memberships of any sort are about to change, particularly with regards to cancellations…

Throughout 2026, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)'s regulations around buyer protection and autorenewals are going to evolve, as part of the existing Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act), in order to help consumers avoid getting trapped in unwanted subscriptions. Organisations found to be in violation of these new regulations can expect to face fines of as much as 10% of their annual revenue.

As a result, any retailer that offers subscriptions or memberships of any kind must be aware of how these changes will impact them in the months ahead and, adapt their systems and processes to ensure they remain fully compliant with all applicable regulations, and - most importantly - ensure that they are still able to offer a world-class experience for their subscribers. 

So, what's about to change and how can we best prepare?

• Specific pre-contract information must be provided. The DMCC Act distinguishes between key pre-contract information and full pre-contract information. Both must be provided in full at the initiation of the contract, or the customer will not be bound by the stated terms. Compulsory elements include:
• Full details of payments, include frequency and amounts.
• Minimum total liability.
• Schedule of reminder notices.
• Full cancellation rights.
• Reminder notices will be compulsory. It is no longer enough to assume a customer will automatically want to renew their subscription. Reminder notices must be sent in advance of the renewal date.
• Cooling-off periods will also be compulsory. This applies to both new subscriptions and renewals. Customers must have 14-day window to cancel their subscriptions without penalty.
• Cancellations must be as simple as possible. Cancellation instructions must be provided, and the process must not include any unnecessary steps. This also applies to online subscriptions. Confirmation must be provided within 24 hours.

• Designing a bespoke ITSM platform in-house is extremely complex and time-consuming, and so may not be practical for internal IT teams. As a result, as organisations scale up, they find themselves in an 'IT limbo', where a simple spreadsheet is no longer fit for purpose, but a full-scale ITSM deployment will not be achievable
  
  
• Most off-the-shelf ITSM platforms only offer limited scope for tooling, which can be a problem when highly specific compliance obligations must be adhered to
  
  
• If an organisation wishes to maintain its own, in-house resolvers (i.e. their internal IT team), relying on a third-party for ITSM services may prove problematic, as the provider may not wish to provide full access to their own system, as opposed to user access

Based on these challenges, it seems like what's needed is a solution to bridge the gap, allowing smaller IT operations to access the benefits of ITSM without the cost and complexity of a fully bespoke deployment. While this has been largely considered impossible for a number of years, our ongoing conversations with organisations already utilising our evolving portfolio of Managed IT solutions, we realised there had to be another way… 

This was the impetus for our ITSM as-a-Service platform, which combines the industry-leading ServiceNow® platform with leading-edge domain separation technology within our own MSP environment. This makes all the benefits of robust ITIL capabilities readily accessible to IT environments of all sizes via proven, standardised approaches that take away the traditional complexity while still maintaining enough flexibility to accommodate most established workflows.

For example, if an organisation wishes to maintain its own resolvers, as in the example above, we are able to offer a fully separated instance to enable this, with tickets automatically distributed back to the designated agent.

We are able to take this further for organisations who predominantly work with third-party providers, seamlessly integrating our platform with the wider IT ecosystem without putting the integrity of critical data at risk. Tailored instances for specific tasks can also be implemented, if required.

In this way, we empower our customers to take their Managed IT ecosystems to the next level, with ITSM as-a-Service providing the tools to achieve greater control and visibility of their IT workflows, with ample room to scale and pivot as their requirements evolve. 

The full range of benefits offered by this new model are already revealing themselves, with one NHS organisation's revamped service desk having achieved... 

• 75% of IT tickets resolved at the first point of contact
  
• More than 5,000 gold ratings from end users
  
• An NPS raised from 57% to 90%

• Allowing employees the freedom to use their preferred devices without compromising the integrity of corporate infrastructure  
  
• Ensuring users' personal data is not inadvertently put at risk
  
• Maintaining full compliance with an evolving range of data protection regulations
  
• Ensuring a diverse range of devices and operating systems all receive the latest security updates as soon as they become available
  
• Ensuring corporate security policies are consistently enforced every time employees connect to the corporate network, without this requiring an impractical level of manual effort
  

All IT teams will already have systems and processes in place for asset management, ensuring corporate devices are kept secure throughout their lifespans and that users are equipped with whatever they need to best fulfil their roles. However, when employees are free to connect through whatever devices they like, control and visibility become increasingly difficult to maintain.

IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms must therefore evolve, providing IT teams with the tools they need to accommodate BYOD and other new ways of working without requiring the inherent cost and complexity of building a bespoke solution in-house.

We explore these challenges in our latest report, Rethinking IT Service Management: A New Model of Seamless IT for the Modern Workforce, in which our IT experts posit a new approach that allows for a truly holistic view of all workflows while still providing employees with the flexibility to which they have become accustomed.