Shaping Smarter Land and Shores with AI

Shaping Smarter Land and Shores with AI

Establishing a strategic roadmap for AI adoption across land and marine operations

Government | Data & AI Download PDF

About the customer

Championing sustainable stewardship across land, property and marine assets

A large UK government organisation that sits between the public and private sectors, managing land and marine assets across communities, countryside, coast and seabed for the benefit of the nation and future generations.

Their portfolio includes urban centres, rural estates, and the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland. With a remit to create lasting and shared prosperity, they operate commercially while delivering public value, supporting sustainable development, and enabling innovation across sectors such as energy, property, and conservation

The Challenge

Maximising data value in a distributed environment

Despite having made significant investments in their data estate, the organisation faced several challenges in realising the full potential of artificial intelligence. Their data landscape was highly fragmented, with information spread across different domains including urban property, retail and marine infrastructure making it difficult to unify and analyse effectively. Internally, they had only one analyst with limited machine learning capabilities, which meant that whilst there was interest in AI, there was no clear path to scale or operationalise it.

The organisation also lacked a dedicated AI platform. Existing efforts were confined to a sandbox environment, which prevented any AI models or tools from being deployed into production. This created a bottleneck where promising ideas could not be translated into real business value. Additionally, there was no strategic framework in place to guide AI adoption, prioritise use cases, or align technical capabilities with business goals. The government organisation needed a partner who could help them define a clear roadmap, build internal capability, and lay the foundations for long-term AI maturity.

The Solution

Building capability and deploying scalable infrastructure for transformation

Strategic AI Enablement

Telefónica Tech worked closely with the organisation to define a clear and actionable AI strategy. This began with a comprehensive assessment of their current estate and the development of a target operating model that aligned AI capabilities with business objectives. Telefónica Tech co-created a service catalogue to define the technical and functional services required to support AI adoption and helped articulate these needs in a way that resonated with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

To ensure long-term sustainability, Telefónica Tech supported the recruitment of a Director of Data Science and a Lead Data Scientist, whilst also mentoring the existing team. This helped embed AI leadership within the organisation and created a foundation for internal capability growth. The strategy also included a framework for prioritising use cases, enabling the business to focus on high-impact opportunities and demonstrate value quickly.

AI Platform Deployment

In parallel with the strategic work, Telefónica Tech designed and deployed a scalable AI platform within the organisation’s Azure environment. This included setting up dedicated infrastructure, implementing CI/CD pipelines, and integrating tools tailored to data science workflows. The platform was designed to be secure, scalable, and aligned with enterprise IT standards.

To accelerate delivery and demonstrate value quickly, Telefónica Tech implemented their Gen AI Accelerator and Machine Learning Accelerator. These accelerators provided pre-built components and best practices that enabled rapid prototyping and deployment of AI solutions.

The Gen AI Accelerator was used to build a chatbot that surfaced the organisation’s AI strategy documentation, making it accessible and actionable across the business. This helped drive internal engagement and understanding of the AI vision.
The Machine Learning Accelerator supported the development of more traditional data science use cases, including a framework for tracking sustainability outcomes in new developments and a model to automate procurement feedback processing.

These accelerators not only reduced time-to-value but also provided a repeatable foundation for future use cases.

The Outcomes

Accelerating delivery, reducing costs and enabling smarter decision-making with AI

The organisation now has a robust and scalable AI foundation that enables them to drive innovation across their diverse portfolio. With a clear operating model, a dedicated platform, and a growing internal team, they are positioned to adopt AI at scale and deliver measurable business value.

The implementation of Telefónica Tech’s Gen AI and Machine Learning Accelerators enabled rapid development of impactful use cases. For example:

A procurement automation solution built on the platform helped process one of the organisation’s largest tenders originally estimated to take over a year manually in a matter of days.
The AI-driven process avoided an estimated £230,000 in third-party administrative costs.
The Gen AI Accelerator also powered an internal chatbot that made the organisation’s AI strategy accessible to employees, improving engagement and alignment across teams.

These early successes demonstrated the tangible value of AI and helped build internal momentum for further adoption.

Learn more about the procurement AI use case

Technologies Used

Open AI

OpenAI provides advanced language models that enable natural, human-like interaction with data, documents, and systems. These models can understand context, generate responses, and assist with complex tasks such as content summarisation, document analysis, and decision support. Telefónica Tech uses OpenAI’s capabilities to co-create secure, responsible AI solutions that drive efficiency and unlock expert knowledge across the enterprise.

Open AI

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is a trusted cloud platform offering secure, scalable infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing enterprise applications. With robust compliance, identity management, and integration tools, Azure supports rapid innovation in regulated environments. Telefónica Tech, as a Microsoft Solutions Partner, delivers end-to-end Azure-based solutions ensuring resilience, governance, and performance across every stage of the digital transformation journey.

Microsoft Azure

Telefónica Tech’s Gen AI Accelerator

The Gen AI Accelerator is Telefónica Tech’s proprietary framework for deploying generative AI solutions at speed and scale. It includes pre-built components, governance models, and integration patterns designed to surface strategic documentation, enable intelligent chatbots, and drive internal engagement. Built with enterprise-grade security and flexibility, it empowers organisations to make AI accessible and actionable across teams.

Telefónica Tech’s Machine Learning Accelerator

This accelerator provides a repeatable foundation for traditional data science use cases, including sustainability tracking, feedback classification, and operational automation. It combines best-practice pipelines, model templates, and deployment tooling to reduce time-to-value and ensure scalable, production-ready ML solutions. Telefónica Tech’s approach embeds transparency, performance, and governance from experimentation to execution.