Chatbot mentor to teach AI to Welsh healthcare staff

An AI chatbot mentor is launching for Welsh healthcare professionals to combat the growing use of AI without sufficient training or understanding. The chatbot, called Healthcare AI Learning Interface (HALI), will go live inside Y Ty Dysgu, Health Education and Improvement Wales’ (HEIW) education portal for health and care in autumn 2025. It is aimed at helping to build a digitally ready healthcare workforce by training staff on how to use AI safely and effectively. Dr Alexander Aubrey, clinical lead for AI at HEIW and GP partner, said: “AI is going to change the future of healthcare delivery, so we as healthcare professionals need to be ready for this change. “HALI addresses a critical challenge facing NHS Wales, which is the growing use of AI in healthcare without sufficient training or understanding among staff. “By providing tailored, practical examples and reinforcing ethical principles like transparency and bias awareness, HALI empowers healthcare professionals to make informed decisions and keep patient care at the centre of innovation. “Ultimately, HALI is about making AI accessible and meaningful for every healthcare role, so that patients benefit from smarter, safer, and more responsive care.” HALI has completed internal user-acceptance testing and is expected to launch in the coming weeks with a campaign on “Using AI to Learn AI” across social media. On first use, the healthcare professional chooses their role: radiographer, service manager or student nurse, and which of the five archetypes (shaper, driver, creator, embedder, user) best suits their responsibilities. They can then ask HALI how AI could help with things like weekend rota planning or diabetic retinopathy screening and learn how AI could help in areas relevant to their context. Every response the chatbot provides includes a reminder of its own limitation as well as the challenges and risks of using AI in the user’s field. Eventually HEIW plans to use anonymised analytics which will reveal where knowledge gaps cluster and enable the commissioning of targeted Continued Professional Development or deep‑dive webinars to address highlighted areas. Learners will also be able to step up to a future Community of Practice and Innovation Hub, where exploratory working groups will turn ideas into peer‑reviewed pilots. Health professionals interested in HALI are invited to join the waiting list to be among the first to try it when it launches in autumn. HEIW published the findings of its AI Education and Skills Landscape Review in January 2025, with the recommendation to give every member of the workforce a safe place to experience AI. Prior to creating HALI, HEIW built a bite-sized ‘Foundations in AI’ course on the Y Ty Dysgu portal, which has had more than 600 users since its soft launch in April 2025. The course aims to demystify terms such as’ natural-language processing’ and ‘computer vision’, explores real world use-cases, and educates users on transparency, data-protection and the human-in-the-loop principle.