A co-pilot within government

The fundamental value of generative AI is to serve as a human “co-pilot.” Within the business of government, this doesn’t mean replacing the role of public employees, but instead augmenting their efforts with high impact and at low cost. This might mean accelerating workers’ ability to find the information they need: for example, quickly searching laws, regulations, and previous reports on a topic to locate an answer or drive new policy directions. AI tools can also help summarize meeting notes or streamline the process of drafting a standard piece of ministerial correspondence.

The Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) is harnessing the power of generative AI using Microsoft Azure OpenAI service to complete these types of routine tasks. This AI-powered assistance might allow team members to branch out into practical fieldwork, interact with citizens directly, or focus on the more human and strategic aspects of their role.

“It’s about freeing up time for the more value-added human aspects of what it means to work in government,” says Marcus Bartley Johns, Microsoft’s regional director of government affairs and public policy in Asia. With public-sector budgets perpetually under pressure—and Japan and Korea in particular confronting aging populations and a shrinking workforce—he argues that the benefit is less about governments saving money and more about optimizing time so that employees can focus on the most rewarding and high-impact work, and governments are “getting the most out of the people they do employ.”

Improving the public interface

Good public service delivery runs on high-quality interaction, whether it is a social worker in touch with vulnerable families or a call center operator explaining how to obtain a driver’s license. Already, generative AI technology is inspiring integrated translation tools that enable local communities to understand what government services are available to them in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.

For example, in the Indian state of Haryana, villagers in Biwan are using Jugalbandi, a new WhatsApp-based chatbot, to do everything from apply for pension payments to access university scholarships. The solution “understands” questions in multiple languages, whether spoken or typed, retrieves information on relevant programs—usually written in English—and relays it back in the local dialect. This saves users considerable time, compared with conducting a web search and navigating a maze of links.