Drupal AI Initiative Announces Webinar on Southwark Council’s AI PDF Workflow

Drupal AI Initiative has announced a webinar on 16 June 2026 at 16:00 BST examining how Southwark Council implemented an AI-based PDF publishing workflow within the LocalGov Drupal ecosystem. The session will focus on automating document conversion and improving accessibility in public sector content delivery.

The webinar will feature Angie Forson, web and digital programme lead at Southwark Council, in discussion with James Hall, product lead for websites at Everyone TV. The session will present how the council addressed the operational challenge of converting large volumes of PDFs, a process that traditionally requires significant manual effort and delays publication.

Southwark Council developed an automated importer that reduces document processing time from hours to minutes, often under one minute per file. The system converts PDFs into structured HTML, enabling faster publication and improved accessibility across government websites.

The workflow operates through a three-stage pipeline within Drupal. A parser extracts content from PDF files, an artificial intelligence layer transforms it into structured HTML with logical pagination, and the output is saved as review-ready pages within Drupal publications. Logging mechanisms allow errors to be tracked and corrected.

The implementation uses a plugin-based architecture within the LocalGov Drupal framework, allowing different extractors, AI models, and output formats to be configured. This approach supports reuse across multiple Drupal deployments and enables adaptation to varying operational requirements in the public sector.

The project was developed in collaboration with Chicken and the LocalGov Drupal community using an iterative, user-centred approach. It received the Digital Leaders AI Impact Award 2026, recognising its application of AI in improving efficiency and accessibility in public services.

The webinar will cover technical implementation, operational outcomes, and opportunities for reuse across Drupal-based government platforms. Further details and registration are available here.