Utilising AI to drive human connection

Reed in Partnership is proud to be the first employability services provider to collaborate with Beam – a leader in tech-enabled welfare services – to utilise their cutting-edge ‘Magic Notes’ AI technology.

Originally developed for local authorities to liberate social workers and other frontline staff from intense administrative duties, Magic Notes saves time by recording and capturing discussion and action from appointments with groundbreaking accuracy. The result? An end to time-consuming note-taking, and more time spent supporting service users.

And now, for the first time, Magic Notes is being utilised in the employability sector. Employment Advisers delivering our government-funded employability services are using the tool to allow for more time to focus on what truly matters: delivering direct people-led connection and support to our participants.

By trialling an integration of Magic Notes into our operations, we have increased our ability to provide even more personalised, efficient, and effective employment support, to help more unemployed jobseekers find sustainable work.

How does it work?

Magic Notes is an AI-powered meeting summarisation tool, built by caseworkers for caseworkers. Designed to eliminate time-consuming admin, it records and transforms client meetings into structured, high-quality reports—instantly generating a first draft in the format required.

With just one tap, staff can press ‘Record’ on a smartphone or laptop, conduct their meeting as usual, and receive a fully formatted write-up—ready for review within seconds. By automating paperwork, Magic Notes empowers Employment Advisers to focus on what truly matters: delivering life-changing support to jobseekers.

The pilot

Our journey with Beam and Magic Notes began in May 2024. It was immediately clear that there was a link between the goals of both companies; we both want to use technology to drive connection. Following a period of discovery and governance, in September 2024 we commenced our pilot on our delivery of the DWP's Work & Health Programme, commissioned by the South London Partnership - who gave approval for the approach to be trialled.

From the outset, the Beam team was hands-on in their approach. They met with our team in South London to understand our work processes and how Magic Notes could add the most value. Beam developed bespoke templates for capturing appointment summaries and conducted interactive training sessions with our Employment Advisers. We were then ready to integrate Magic Notes into our service offering.

The pilot aimed to evaluate three key aspects:

1. Does Magic Notes improve efficiency?
2. Does Magic Notes enhance the quality of service?
3. Do both Employment Advisers and participants respond positively to its use?

The results

Testing took place between October and December 2024, yielding significant results:

• A 64% reduction in the time taken by Employment Advisers to document notes after an appointment.
• 80% of Employment Advisers reported ancillary benefits, including better connections with participants and more time for valuable tasks such as CV writing and interview preparation.
• 100% of Employment Advisers expressed a desire to continue using Magic Notes.
• 100% of Employment Advisers found Magic Notes easy to use.

What we learned

As well as discovering the potential value that Magic Notes can add to our service offering, we learned that collaborating with a company like Beam can bring tremendous benefits. Joining together companies and people with a common goal to improve the quality of public services, and combining the expertise of both organisations, has the potential to increase the pace of service improvement and innovation.

Seb Barker, Co-Founder at Beam, said: "It's been incredibly exciting to partner with Reed in Partnership on this groundbreaking work, setting the standard for ethical and human-centred AI. Employment Advisers play a vital role in changing lives, and it’s great to be able to provide them with technology that makes delivering support easier. Magic Notes is empowering frontline staff with AI that works for them, so they can focus on delivering the life-changing support that jobseekers need most."

Moving forward

We are now mutually reviewing use cases across our services to understand where Magic Notes can be used to add additional value.

Our Associate Director of Continuous Improvement & Innovation, Bradley Ebsworth-Willis, said: “We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Beam. From the start of our relationship their passion for high quality public service delivery shone through and I’m excited about where our partnership can go.”

People are at the heart of our AI strategy, and that will not change. Our goal is to empower teams to focus on activities that add the most value to our customers and participants, enabling us to deliver impactful services. AI will not change our purpose or values; instead, it will empower us to improve what we already excel at – positively transforming lives and communities.