Government agencies embracing AI

Adoption of AI technologies among government departments worldwide is increasing, despite concerns from employees about the impact of the technology, according to Gartner.

In a research note, Gartner said chatbots are the leading AI technology in terms of adoption by agencies, with half of government organisations having deployed the technology (26%) or planning to do so in the next 12 months (24%).

Machine-learning-supported data mining is the next most popular application, with 16% having adopted the technology and 20% planning to do so within 12 months. In total, 84% of are expected to be using chatbots within three years, and 85% are expected to be using machine learning for data mining.

Meanwhile, around half of respondents plan to be using other AI technologies such as biometrics, computer vision and GeoAI within the three-year timeframe, and 45% expect to adopt machine translation or deep learning.

Gartner said product leaders should be exploring how other AI technologies can be incorporated into their product roadmap to reflect the expected increase in demand.

But despite the enthusiasm of IT leaders, separate Gartner research found that public-sector employees remain uncertain about AI.

Around 42% of government employees surveyed by the research firm who have not worked with AI solutions understand that AI is a means to getting work done. But only 27% of these same respondents believe AI has the potential to replace many tasks, worsening to only 17% when it comes to what they consider to be skilled tasks.

“Automation, insight and intelligence are all interconnected priorities for government leaders,” Gartner Senior Research Director Dean Lacheca said.

“But the operational and services delivery workforce are absolutely critical to the success of any attempts to automate or augment their ways of working. Leaders can generate more acceptance by clearly linking the technology to practical outcomes that benefit government employees and support mission objectives.”

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