Government has made AI investments globally, but workforce apprehensive: Gartner

36% of government respondents to the 2021 Gartner CIO survey indicated that they plan to increase investment in AI/machine learning in 2021.

Chatbots or conversational agents are leaders in government AI technology adoption, with 26% of survey respondents reporting that they have already deployed them. Additionally, 59% expect to deploy them within the next three years, according to the Gartner Digital Transformation Divergence Across Government Sectors survey.

However, a separate Gartner survey found that AI technologies are still viewed with a level of uncertainty, especially among government employees who have not worked with AI-enabled solutions. More than half (53%) of government employees working with AI technologies believe they provide insights to do their jobs better, compared to 34% of employees who do not use AI.

Dean Lacheca, senior research director at Gartner, said, “Automation, insight and intelligence are all mutual priorities for government leaders. But the operational and service delivery workforce is absolutely critical to the success of any effort to automate or enhance the way they work. Leaders can generate greater acceptance by explicitly linking technology to practical outcomes that benefit government employees and support mission objectives.”

While chatbots and conversational agents are currently the most widely adopted, the most important AI technology for governments in terms of planned adoption is machine-learning-assisted data mining. 16% have currently deployed it and 69% plan to do so within the next three years.

In addition to the two major AI technologies, government organizations are also planning to implement more specialized AI solutions, such as Geospatial AI (Geo AI) which uses AI to produce knowledge through the analysis of spatial data and imagery. uses methods. The low uptake reflects the fact that it is more relevant to sub-sectors of government such as defense and intelligence, transportation and local government.

42% of government employees surveyed who have not worked with AI solutions understand that AI is a tool for getting things done. But only 27% of these same respondents believe AI has the potential to replace many tasks, with only 17% deteriorating when they think of efficient tasks. Perception improves among employees who have worked with AI solutions.

A high proportion of those who used AI (31%) believed it to be a threat to their jobs, while 24% of those who did not work with AI believed it to be a threat to their jobs . However, 44% of those who use AI believe it improves decision making. 31% said AI reduced the risk of making a mistake, but 11% thought it made more errors than humans.