Research looks at the future of GenAI in policy work

Researchers at UNSW Canberra and ANU have revealed research examining the use of GenAI in policy work.

Between November 2024 and January 2025, senior public servants from 22 state, territory and federal government agencies participated in research to understand how GenAI is used in policy work, including perspectives of risks and enablers for adoption.

There are a broad range of potential applications for GenAI in the work that governments do, including, for example, supporting the development of chatbots, improving data management, and supporting employee productivity.

Given that it has only been recently that GenAI tools have become available, there is a lack of research that explores their use in policy work in Australia. Against this background, the research was undertaken to examine some early experiments with GenAI in order to understand how senior public servants perceived the strengths and weaknesses of these applications, the potential of GenAI for policy work, and what needs to happen to make GenAI safe to use in policy work.

The study found that many government agencies are using GenAI to support their goals; however, opinions on GenAI’s potential varies among senior public servants. Some believe it can transform policy work, while others are cautious due to perceived risks.

Learnings from policy failures identified from the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme are some of the factors influencing how senior public servants perceive advancements in the application of GenAI, and there is widespread agreement that the use of GenAI in policy work requires adequate human oversight.

The report goes on to say that the ethical and moral complexities within matters of policy mean that the use of GenAI in the early stages of adoption has focused on internal administrative and analytical functions, particularly those that rely on administrative data. However, there remain sensitivities regarding the application of GenAI to certain activities that are perceived as potentially compromising citizen trust and confidence, such as government external-facing service delivery activities, according to the report.

The report said that current applications of GenAI tools in policy work include the following:

• Administrative applications using Microsoft Copilot.
• New content and idea generation using GenAI tools such as ChatGPT as a contemporary resource akin to a website search, in addition to more tailored GenAI tools such as those produced by Dragonfly Thinking for problem-solving and analytical policy tasks.
• Building an agency-specific knowledge base trained on agency data, policies, legislation, procedures and other guidance.
• Summarising volumes of information or documentation.
• Quantitative and computer programming functions, such as integrating GenAI coding within econometric models as an extension of existing AI analytical approaches.
   

The full report can be downloaded here.

Image credit: iStock.com/Khanchit Khirisutchalual