Integrating AI in Government: Lessons, Applications, and Innovations
NEW MAGAZINE FORUM
Published 28 January 2025
Originally published in The Business of Government Magazine 2024 Edition
Artificial and augmented intelligence (AI) have proliferated across all sectors of society. With the adoption of AI in government expanding as these technologies evolve and their applications broaden, this is no futuristic concept. It has become an integral part of modern governance, reshaping how the U.S. federal government operates and delivers services. From safeguarding national security to streamlining routine processes, AI technologies are transforming the public sector at an unprecedented pace. This forum is dedicated to exploring the dynamic intersection of AI and government operations, focusing on its current applications, potential, and the critical questions it raises about trust, ethics, and effective implementation.
The U.S. federal government has embraced AI across a spectrum of mission-critical activities. Tax agencies use AI to enhance compliance and detect fraud, while defense agencies rely on it for mission planning and insider threat detection. Generative AI tools are beginning to revolutionize communication, augment decision making, and unlock new efficiencies in public procurement and service delivery. The adaptability of AI offers enormous promise—but it also demands careful oversight and strategic governance.
In recent years, significant strides have been made to institutionalize AI within government frameworks. The American AI Initiative, launched in 2019, underscores a national commitment to AI innovation. Since 2020, the U.S. federal government has taken several steps to address and regulate the use and application of artificial intelligence as well as the burgeoning impact of generative AI (genAI) from the advent of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 to recent efforts to support the development of responsible AI technologies and policies, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) AI Risk Management framework. Taken together, these efforts focus on promoting innovation, ensuring ethical standards, managing risks, and safeguarding national security.
The 2020 The Business of Government magazine dedicated a forum on the evolving use of artificial intelligence in government, which highlighted the insights, findings, and recommendations derived from three collaborative report on AI and its early evolution published by the IBM Center and Partnership for Public Service. That form aimed to spark a conversation on the use of AI, help prepare federal leaders to assess the inevitable changes coming and provide government leaders with insights to navigate this transformative time.
This recent forum continues that conversation bringing together perspectives from a sampling of recent IBM Center reports further exploring the operation and use of emerging technologies like AI and documenting lessons learned, recommendations, and next steps.
- AI and the Modern Tax Agency: Adopting and Deploying AI to Improve Tax Administration. The first contribution in this forum focuses on a report that provides analysis and makes recommendations for the IRS and tax agencies around the world to leverage AI to improve customer service and education, compliance and enforcement, and risk management—and to do so while mitigating risk and building trust using AI.
- Pathways to Trusted Progress with Artificial Intelligence. The second contribution in this forum examines the governance and applications of AI and how governments need to develop and communicate a framework for the public to understand why AI is being used; what has been done to ensure that the AI is fair, transparent, and accurate; what experiments were done to ensure that the output is reliable; and how public value from AI is being measured and created.
- Navigating Generative AI in Government. The third contribution to this forum highlights a practical set of considerations and potential actions that can help government agencies to capture benefits and minimize risks from the use and application of generative AI.
- Government Procurement and Acquisition: Opportunities and Challenges Presented by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The fourth contribution in this forum addresses using AI to transform public procurement, analyzing challenges and recommending ways to capitalize on opportunities. It makes recommendations about how to use AI to transform public procurement, which can increase speed, efficiency, and effectiveness in acquiring goods and services that serve public needs by fostering facilitating intelligent automation across the federal acquisition system.
- Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector: A Maturity Model. The fifth and final contribution to this forum provides public sector leaders a view into the “art of the possible” by emphasizing how AI programs can accelerate the transformation of government programs to better serve the public and do this by offering them framework for establishing a successful AI program. The challenge has always been to design and implement an AI program that has all the critical elements in place to successfully achieve the goal of improved mission delivery and citizen services.
These forum contributions, and the reports they are based on, highlight the opportunities and challenges AI presents to federal agencies and offer frameworks for its responsible use. By synthesizing insights from these resources, this forum aims to foster a deeper understanding of how AI can enable smarter, more efficient governance while maintaining the public’s trust.
The conversation around AI in government is not just about technology—it is about people, processes, and the policies that shape its use. As we navigate the evolving role of AI, this forum provides a platform to examine how federal agencies can balance innovation with accountability, adapt to emerging trends, and deliver on their mission in a rapidly changing world. Together, we will explore how AI can empower government to serve its citizens better.
This technology will remain front and center. The curated insights offered in this forum can help those leading the upcoming presidential transition as they begin to think about what’s next and how best to develop safeguards and guardrails for this technology as it continues to expand and evolve.