Dot Collective Joins DBT's AI³ Programme as Lot 1 Supplier
Dot Collective has been named a successful supplier for Lot 1: AI Lab on the Department for Business and Trade's new AI³ programme, joining a small pool of vetted partners trusted to bring AI into government.
We’re proud to share that Dot Collective has been named as a successful supplier for Lot 1: AI Lab, part of the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) new AI³ programme, following an award decision on 31 July 2026.
Getting onto this framework puts us alongside a small number of suppliers trusted to bring AI capability into the government.
What AI³ is, and where we fit
AI³ is the model DBT’s Digital, Data and Technology team is using to move AI from idea to impact, in three deliberate phases: AI Lab, for rapid, time-limited exploration and assessment of AI use cases and experiments; AI Factory, where promising experiments get developed into production-ready tools; and AI Operations, covering maintenance, scaling and long-term operationalisation.
Our role sits at the front of that pipeline. Under Lot 1, we’ll work embedded alongside DBT’s team, under agreed statements of work, on:
- Rapidly identifying and prioritising AI use cases worth pursuing
- Technical feasibility assessments
- Data ethics and governance
- Rapid prototyping and experimentation
It’s also a natural next step for us. Off the back of joining G-Cloud 15 last month, Lot 1 puts us right at the point where public sector AI work starts: design. It’s the same discipline we bring to every engagement, working out what’s worth building, before we build it and run it.
Why this matters to us
Government departments need partners they can trust with AI at scale. AI³ exists to give DBT a vetted pool of suppliers who have proven they can deliver, safely and efficiently. Being on that list shows we’re one of them.
For existing and future clients, it means the same thing: whatever stage you’re at with AI, we’re ready to help you, and we’ve been tested on it.
“Getting through AI³’s evaluation wasn’t easy, and that’s exactly why being named as a supplier means so much to us. It tells us the public sector trusts us to bring real rigour to AI work. Now we get to prove it, helping DBT turn promising ideas into things that actually work.”
Tom Dibble-Burge, CCO & Co-founder at Dot Collective
Let’s chat
We're looking forward to getting stuck into the work ahead and showing what public sector AI can actually look like when it's done properly.
Working on AI use cases in government and want a partner who’s already embedded in this kind of delivery? Get in touch via our contact form and one of our team will get the conversation going.