Gartner announces top government technology trends

Gartner has identified the top five government technology trends that can guide public sector leaders to deliver better, faster and increasingly more cost-effective services for citizens.

“Escalating global turmoil, continual cyber threats and the adoption of AI are putting increasing pressure on governments to meet citizen demands faster and more creatively than ever before,” said Todd Kimbriel, VP Analyst at Gartner. “Government CIOs must find new ways to meet citizen demands for modern, accessible and resilient services, by focusing on sustainable and scalable technology.”

According to Gartner, government CIOs should consider the impact of the following technology trends on their organisations and apply insights to make a case for investments to improve business capabilities, achieve leadership priorities and create a more future-ready government organisation (see Figure 1).

Adaptive security

Gartner predicts that by 2028, multi-agent AI in threat detection and incident response will rise from 5% to 70% of AI implementations to augment, rather than replace, staff. AI is creating new cybersecurity adaptations and requirements, which presents new opportunities for government CIOs. An adaptive security model merges and continually adjusts cybersecurity tools, techniques and talent to the changing threat landscape.

“Government CIOs and leaders need to overcome any lingering resistance to the adoption of adaptive security by linking its value to broader organisational objectives, such as digital innovation and transformation, national security objectives and operational resilience,” Kimbriel said.

Figure 1: Gartner top technology trends for government. Source: Gartner, April 2024. For a larger image, click here.

Digital identity ecosystems

Digital identity in government is expanding into larger ecosystems that include user authentication, unique citizen or organisation identifiers, and credential verification, such as smartphone-based identity wallets. Gartner predicts at least 500 million smartphone users will regularly make verifiable claims using a digital identity wallet built on distributed ledger technology by 2026.

According to Gartner, government CIOs can strengthen their digital identity strategy by building on use cases and partnerships that break out of traditional sector silos to add greater value for citizens, government and businesses. They have an opportunity to shape these emerging ecosystems by asserting government’s role as a potential federator, facilitator and regulator of digital identity.

AI for decision intelligence

Gartner predicts more than 70% of government agencies will use AI to enhance human administrative decision-making by 2026. Machine learning, analytics and generative AI will mature over the next two years and combine into a suite of tools that will support improved government service delivery.

“These tools will need to be subject to careful governance, so it’s important government CIOs drive AI adoption and governance policies throughout the organisation,” Kimbriel said. “They must develop a strategy that incorporates these policies with a focus on desired outcomes, then take a continuous assurance approach to ensure they are maintained after implementation.”

Digital platform agility

Government organisations are increasingly adopting platform-based solutions, such as industry cloud and low-code application platforms. This enables them to quickly deploy business capabilities and address service delivery risks posed by antiquated systems, and easily flex and scale to citizen service demands. Cloud-native capabilities in these platform solutions provide greater cost control and faster time to value.

Platform cloud-based solutions will open new opportunities for innovation and transformation of business processes in government organisations. Gartner recommends government CIOs implement a multi-cloud strategy to maximise these opportunities and mitigate the complexities of incremental modernisation across multiple systems.

Programmatic data management

Government leaders are demanding increased use of data for decision-making and planning. Programmatic data management is the systematic and scalable approach to enable enterprise-wide use of data assets, which is being advanced by automation platforms and their ability to incorporate AI capabilities. According to Gartner, more than 60% of government organisations will prioritise investment in business process automation by 2026, up from 35% in 2022.

“Data remains the basis of decision-making in government, and the growing proliferation of AI re-emphasises the need for government CIOs to enhance the quality and efficiency of data at scale by improving the rules and structures that govern it,” Kimbriel said.

Gartner clients can read more in the report ‘Top Technology Trends in Government for 2024’.

Top image credit: iStock.com/gorodenkoff