Build and Modernize AI Applications for Public Sector Services

Public sector organizations have limited resources yet are always trying to deliver as much as possible for the public. Generative AI is becoming an increasingly important tool in helping public sector organizations in this effort as it can help increase productivity and improve service quality, specifically by building and modernizing applications that use AI capabilities.

AI applications can be used in public sector organizations to:

• Enable self-service portals and contact centers
• Boost employee productivity and case management optimization
• Support RFP creation and automation
• Accelerate proactive data-driven decision making
• Strengthen cybersecurity resilience and threat detection
• Unlock legacy app process migration

But the key ingredient to creating intelligent applications is having access to data that can power them; and public sector organizations have large amounts of data.

Creating modern applications can help build public trust and deliver innovation faster. They can improve agency interactions and enhance employee experiences, productivity, and service quality for the public. Public sector organizations typically have custom-built, on-premises apps that don’t speak to each other and manage multiple sources of siloed, inconsistent data. However, these constraints should not stop public sector organizations from achieving their goals and creating modern AI applications.

Three Building Blocks of Intelligent Apps

Here are three ways public sector organizations can start the modernization process and start building new intelligent AI applications.

Innovate faster with modern application infrastructure

Legacy applications are often slow, inflexible, and costly to maintain. Modernizing these applications to a cloud-based platform can significantly enhance scalability and reliability, which will allow public sector organizations to innovate faster.

By automating deployments and management tasks, organizations can reduce the time and cost associated with provisioning infrastructure. This modernization effort also helps attract and retain developers by providing a more dynamic and efficient work environment.

Moreover, transitioning to a cloud-based infrastructure ensures better disaster recovery capabilities and continuous service availability. Public sector organizations can migrate applications with minimal code changes, preserving PaaS to reduce costs and improve time to market.

Modern cloud applications enable better access to legacy backend systems, increasing the availability of critical information. These advancements demonstrate how a cloud-based infrastructure can streamline operations and foster innovation. Additionally, by adopting a hybrid cloud approach, agencies can balance on-premises control and cloud flexibility, optimizing resource utilization.

Explore these resources to help you modernize your infrastructure:

• Harness the Power of Cloud: Guidance to Help You Along Your Adoption Journey
• Migrate Your Workloads to the Cloud and Modernize Your Government Organization
• Introduction to Cloud Computing
• Cloud Migration Cost Management Resources
• Cloud Financial Models

Improve public interactions with AI-powered chatbots

Generative AI powered Chatbots is one way you can improve interactions with the public. Legacy applications often struggle with siloed data and static functionalities, limiting the effectiveness of virtual assistants. Modern AI-powered applications can quickly search across organizational data and respond dynamically to a broad range of user prompts.

Chatbots are easy to create and can provide a positive user experience and enhance service quality and responsiveness. For example, chatbots are available 24/7 and can guide people through complex requests. They can also translate content into multiple languages. These AI solutions can also be customized to specific organizational needs, ensuring they address unique operational challenges and user requirements.

Chatbots can also be used internally to answer employee questions about department policies and find information created by other teams.

Explore these resources to help you implement a chatbot in your organization:

• How to Build and Deploy a Chatbot for Public Sector Services
• Create bots for public sector services with Microsoft Copilot Studio

How to use your data to enhance experiences, productivity, and service quality

Public sector organizations have vast amounts of data that can be used to enhance experiences, improve productivity, and enhance service quality. AI-powered apps can leverage the data to quickly find information – even if the data is coming from multiple, disparate data sources.

Manual data collection and analysis in legacy systems are prone to errors and inefficiencies, but a cloud-based management landing zone can be used to ensure data availability, scalability, security, and governance. AI-powered applications can access the data and can process it in near real-time, even if it’s coming from multiple sources. AI can provide insights and uncover hidden patterns, which can help public sector organizations make more informed decisions and enhance overall service quality.

For example, AI can help agencies draw insights from reports and data by identifying patterns and anomalies. In turn, these evidence-based insights can inform policy formation and even provide evaluations of policy impact. Additionally, these tools can help in compliance monitoring and reporting, ensuring that agencies meet regulatory requirements effortlessly while maintaining high operational standards.

Explore these resources to help you use your data to enhance experiences, productivity and service quality:

• Unlock the Value of Your Data: Create a Unified Data Estate to Transform Government Operations
• Data Culture: Data Driven Organizations

How to get started

1. Take the Microsoft Learn Course Enhance public sector services with generative AI to discover how AI can enhance productivity, improve cognition, and accelerate discovery in public sector organizations and learn about the importance of responsible AI practices.

2. Define Objectives: Clearly articulate what you aim to achieve by integrating AI into your applications.

3. Evaluate Infrastructure: Assess your current IT environment to identify where AI can be integrated.

4. Develop Skills: Train your workforce in AI technologies and methodologies. Consider specialized training programs for public sector employees.

5. Select AI Solutions: Choose AI tools and platforms that align with your objectives. Microsoft Azure offers a suite of AI services suitable for government applications.

6. Plan Your Integration: Develop a detailed plan for incorporating AI into your applications, including timelines and milestones.

7. Pilot Projects: Start with small-scale projects to demonstrate the value of AI and refine your approach.

8. Monitor and Adapt: Continuously evaluate the performance of your AI initiatives and make adjustments as needed.