Leveraging AI: what's holding the public sector back?

Digitial innovation is a government imperative, so why are more agencies not leveraging AI-driven cloud opportunities?

While the private sector has well and truly adopted complex, multi-cloud ecosystems, the public sector has been slow in its transition delayed by time, budget and regulatory considerations. Only approximately half of government agencies currently reside on the cloud, either private or public.

Digital innovation is key to supporting government IT teams to meet the evolving needs of citizens and policies over time. The cloud has evolved from a new technology to the driver of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and data analytics. While all present significant opportunities for government agencies, to get there they need to be in the cloud. Managing the performance of high-traffic websites and demanding applications, as well as highly specific infrastructure requirements across various departments, are just some aspects new technologies such as AI in the cloud can help improve.

The pace of change and uncertainty around the social and economic landscape is increasing to new heights. As the last few years have demonstrated, it’s clear operating effectively in times of peak demand for government agency services and applications is critical for the future. With the rapid digital innovation of the private sector over the past years, the public sector is now faced with delivering on heightened expectations in its speed, quality and security of digital services and applications — or risk declining public trust.

Established businesses relying on these emerging technology ecosystems have implemented strategies to bring clarity to their data lifecycle, to fuel growth and productivity in the digital environment. So, what’s standing in the way of the public sector moving to the cloud and levering emerging tech?

The obstacles

There are many advantages of moving to the cloud to tap into emerging technology and operate assets more efficiently. For example, smart traffic light systems or shifting from traditional analog forms of service to more interactive digital self-services. Australia is doing quite well in building modern government services, from website procedures to self-service forms. In particular, we have a world-first NSW Department of Customer Service and have witnessed a significant evolution of Service NSW, which played a critical role during the pandemic and natural disasters. Our public sector organisations are evolving to provide stronger engagement and more robust services to the general public.

But that’s not to say adoption in the public sector is without challenges. There are several variables at play, from the size of the agency to limited budgets and legacy infrastructure. The biggest issue in adopting cloud services is making sense of cloud technology within the existing IT service management. Let’s also not forget the red tape. There are usually procurement requirements and a process to follow, including raising a tender or RFP.

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) was established to drive some of these changes. Its mission is to secure the Australian Government’s investment in its digital future, with “a bold strategy that sets the vision for Australia to be one of the top three digital governments in the world by 2025”. The DTA aimed to set up a better framework and capability to work with public cloud hyperscalers to make that journey smoother and more streamlined, refresh existing policies, make it easier for the sector to adopt new capabilities and encourage innovation.

Another challenge we’re seen is resourcing, though the technical skills gap isn’t specific to the public sector or commercial industries. There is generally a knowledge, skills and experience shortage in the market — and regardless of the business size, all organisations are feeling this. It’s probably time that public sector agencies look to move certain workloads to the cloud to bridge this growing skills gap. Especially when it comes to technology and innovation, the public sector should be tapping into solutions that are available now to plug the gap until they can hire more internal resources.

Embracing a data-driven mindset

With all that’s said, it is not too late for the public sector to establish a foundation for critical emerging technologies. Cloud is more than just a more cost-effective way to outsource your old, on-premises data centre. It’s an entirely new way of approaching the software side of a business, and the cloud’s biggest benefit is its ability to accelerate innovation. For government agencies looking to survive in an ever-changing world where Big Tech sets the pace, you’ll need your cloud deployment to turbocharge innovation.

Using your data to its full potential, and deriving maximum value from your data investment, requires clear thinking about the problems you want to solve, what activities will have the most impact and how you’ll coordinate all the moving parts.

Government agencies have an abundance of data. Most of it is sitting in applications such as web apps, ERPs or CRM systems. Its collection helps to automate daily processes, make them more trackable or auditable and preserve a historical record of actions and services delivered. This mountainous volume of data also contains insights into trends and patterns that can guide decision-making and innovation. That is, they can do two things: ensure it’s of sufficient quality and get it to the right place for further analysis.

To do this requires moving to a data-driven mindset. This journey can be difficult. The skills, processes and infrastructures related to data analytics are very different from those related to data collection and organisation. Here’s how to get started:

• The first place to start is to identify the data you currently have and understand not only what this data is but also where it is and how you can best get to it.
• Then, identify the most achievable use case with the biggest impact. Asking: What does your desired result look like? Is it better dashboards and visualisations, automating report generation, or leveraging predictive analytics to support management and executive decision-making? The use case you’re looking to solve will influence immediate technology decisions around accessing the data from data lakes and building the pipelines for delivering that data to the relevant systems and users.
• The next key decision is whether to build an infrastructure around your data lake that’s used only for your specific system or use case or to build a foundation that accommodates future use cases. Asking: Can this same data also help build predictive models or drive automation elsewhere in the business? If so, what are the additional systems to consider?
   

For government agencies, emerging technologies have the potential to transform the services and experiences offered. By helping to develop new offerings, work more efficiently, improve the bottom line and ultimately better target public preferences through the use of data.

Focusing on AI-based analytics, which continues to evolve, government agencies have an opportunity to leverage large amounts of data to easily create customer microsegments and, as a result, deliver unparalleled personalisation. AI can help you micro-segment your target audiences by giving you the ability to achieve goals, such as:

• Share data between all areas of your agency so everyone has access to greater insights.
• Deploy visual data transformation to make it easy for everyone to understand data without code-wrangling.
• Deliver highly personalised customer experiences based on deep data.
• Recommend services based on engagement.
   

Information is the lifeblood of most businesses today. That’s why cloud, data, analytics and artificial intelligence have become an essential part of digital transformation journeys. It takes time to implement projects and influence attitudes when there are so many obstacles to navigate — and that’s a problem when the pace of technological change is so rapid. Cloud and emerging technology can enhance government operations and support agencies to overcome these challenges in an increasingly complicated environment that demands nothing less than excellent customer service standards.

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