Registers of Scotland

Registers of Scotland (RoS) manages 20 public registers covering land, property, and legal records that underpin the Scottish property system. As part of its modernisation programme, RoS set out to improve software delivery by building internal capability and introducing AI safely into day-to-day engineering practice.

Problem

RoS faced two related challenges:

1. Building a scalable, production-grade AI platform capable of handling document-heavy, high-assurance use cases such as land title processing.

2. Introducing AI-assisted development tools across engineering teams in a way that met public-sector requirements for security, governance, and auditability.

Solution

Norton Studios worked with RoS across two complementary streams.

AI Platform & MLOps Enablement

We embedded with RoS's AI engineering team to help shape and deliver their AI platform:

• Assisted in the development of an end-to-end AI and MLOps strategy, from model development through to production deployment.

• Designed an OCR-led document processing pipeline to extract and structure data from legal documents.

• Supported the platform architecture using Kubernetes, KServe, and Argo-based CI/CD for model deployment and lifecycle management.

• Applied large language models to predict and analyse changes to title deeds in the Scottish Land Register, accelerating downstream review and decision-making.

AI Code Assistance Development Rollout

Alongside the platform work, we led the organisation-wide rollout of AI code assistants:

• Designed governance and usage standards for AI-assisted coding in a regulated, public-sector environment.

• Selected and configured tooling aligned with RoS security and compliance requirements.

• Delivered hands-on training and coaching to engineering teams with a focus on safe, effective adoption, rather than novelty.

• Embedded AI usage into existing development workflows and engineering standards.

Impact

✅ Production-ready AI capability – RoS established a scalable AI platform with clear MLOps practices and deployment pathways.

✅ Faster insight from complex documents – AI-driven OCR and LLM workflows reduced manual effort in analysing land and title data.

✅ Safe adoption of AI across engineering – Teams adopted AI code assistants with confidence, backed by clear governance and training.

✅ Long-term capability uplift – RoS built internal skills in both AI engineering and responsible AI usage, reducing reliance on vendors.

By combining deep AI engineering support with practical governance and adoption, Norton Studios helped Registers of Scotland move from experimentation to sustainable, production-grade use of AI.