Up to 15% of parliamentary statements in the UK contain AI text
AI has crept into high-end politics.
UK and Swedish flags. By Cybernews / Shutterstock.
- Researchers found AI-generated paragraphs in 15% of UK House of Commons statements reviewed for 2026.
- No UK or Swedish parliamentary documents in the study disclosed any use of AI.
- In Sweden, fully AI-written motions rose from 0.1% in 2022–23 to 6.5% in 2025–26.
- Researchers warn undisclosed AI use may introduce errors and weaken public trust in government.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
15% of UK parliamentary statements in the House of Commons contain at least one AI-generated paragraph.
According to researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Edinburgh Napier University in the UK, what’s just as concerning is that not one document actually discloses that AI was used.
They developed custom AI detectors and scanned 13,565 Swedish parliamentary motions and 4,209 British statements filed between 2021 and April 2026.
In the UK, 2.1% of 2026 texts were classified as predominantly AI-written, and 15% flagged at the paragraph level.
The trajectory has been even more stunning in Sweden, the researchers found. In 2022–23, 0.1% of Swedish motions were fully AI-written, but by 2025-26, this number exploded to 6.5%, and there’s no transparency about it.
Regardless of the extent to which AI has been used, there may be risks associated with a lack of transparency. Furthermore, it is a matter of trust from the recipient’s perspective,said Minerva Suvanto, the report’s lead author and a PhD student.
In many areas, such as in journalism or academic writing, there are often requirements to clearly disclose whether AI tools, such as large language models (LLMs), have been used.
In the case of parliamentary texts in the UK, the guidelines on the disclosure of AI use are more vague, even though The Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government recommends that officials be open with the public about where and how algorithms and AI systems are used in their official duties.
This clearly isn’t happening. According to the researchers, since the LLMs are still prone to hallucinations, their use is dangerous to policymaking as such.
“Other research shows that the use of AI may change the intended ‘tone’ of a document, or even potentially introduce outright errors,” said Dr. Peter Barclay from Edinburgh Napier University’s Computer Science group.
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Since AI-generated texts often seem persuasive and well-written, such issues might be overlooked even by the original author.
Perhaps most importantly, though, undisclosed use of AI may further erode public trust in government.
An Opinions and Lifestyle Survey by the UK Office of National Statistics in June 2026 showed that only 4% of respondents would trust AI to carry out decision-making in government.
Another political survey conducted in 2021 suggested that citizens value authenticity in politicians more than competence and even integrity.
