Preparing Governments for Future Shocks: Generative AI is key to being “Future Ready” in 2024 and beyond

By Cristina Caballe Fuguet, Global Government Leader, IBM Consulting

Looking back at 2023, the emergence of generative AI stands as one of the biggest leaps in modern era, especially as government leaders worldwide are looking for better ways to prepare their populations to withstand increasingly disruptive shock events. Such events include pandemics, natural disasters, armed conflicts, and cyberattacks , which have begun to impact nations, communities, businesses, and the lives of citizens more frequently and with greater intensity than ever before.?

To make sense of these disruptive “future shocks” and help develop approaches to mitigate their impact, the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), the IBM Center for The Business of Government , and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), along with other partners around the globe, have been sponsoring a series of events including roundtables and research projects to learn more from government leaders on how to better prepare for these events. The IBV, for example, surveyed business and government leaders to learn how high-level officials and executives think about disruptive events and found that 60 percent of leaders anticipate the frequency of shock events to increase in number. In addition, 70 percent believe shock events are likely to increase in intensity and impact.?

Roundtable participants and researchers agree that to become “Future Ready”—able to respond to shock events at speed and scale—requires governments to adopt the agile development methods widely used in technology industries, as detailed in a compendium report published this fall. The growing sophistication of predictive analytical tools can also help governments build on insights gained from strategic tabletop exercises and develop more accurate “what if” scenarios and contingency plans. Here generative AI could prove an indispensable asset to government leaders.?

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Look for generative AI adoption to surge in 2024?

As government leaders turn their attention to planning for 2024 and beyond, they are closely following generative AI’s development and how the technology is transforming the workplace as we know it. During the next 12 months, 38 percent of government leaders anticipate generative AI will moderately or significantly impact workplace capabilities, according to the IBV Future Shocks 2023 Survey . Looking ahead five years, the percentage climbs to 93 percent.?

Although generative AI adoption is still in its early stages, there are four use cases where the technology could significantly contribute to government preparation and response to highly disruptive events in the near future.?

1. Generative AI’s use of large language models (LLMs) enables the technology to recognize, summarize, translate, predict, and generate content using very large datasets. As a result, generative AI is well suited to help automate budgeting by analyzing spending patterns, forecasting needs according to trends, and improving how decision-makers allocate resources.?
2. The technology can likewise expedite citizen services by making natural language processing more conversational and summarizing cases. This will improve inquiry response, as well as direct more complex inquiries to appropriate agencies and departments when necessary.?
3. Generative AI is also well-positioned to enhance public sector decision-making through predictive analytics that deliver insights based on historical data points and current conditions. That enables government leaders to make informed decisions even when they lack relevant experience.?
4. Analysis of large data sets could also optimize emergency response to predict and respond to emergencies more effectively, helping agencies allocate resources more efficiently during crisis situations.?

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Investing in generative AI can help governments counter disruptive events?

In 2024, IBM and our partners in the “Future Shocks ” initiative will focus efforts on harvesting and sharing insights from three main research workstreams to better prepare governments to be “Future Ready”. These include survey research of global government organizations, as well as roundtables and interviews with global government leaders and experts. The third research workstream is the collection of leading practice case studies by "early adopters" and practical knowledge sharing sessions with other Government experts. The mission of this second phase of the “Future Shocks” initiative in 2024 is to help governments build a core set of capabilities to be better prepared, respond and recover from shocks with a special focus on the practical implementation steps.?

Next year, IBM and its partners also plan to host an international roundtable discussion with global leaders from the public, private, academic, and nonprofit sectors to capture lessons on cross-border cooperation. This roundtable will follow similar roundtables convened in 2023 to discuss emergency preparedness and response, cybersecurity, supply chain resilience, climate resilience, and workforce transformation.?

Governments must adopt generative AI and other transformative technologies to support decision-makers, augment their public-sector workforces and make themselves ready for the future. Investing in training and development will help ensure that government workers have the right skills to deploy advanced technologies, support mission-critical roles and be “Future Ready” to meet tomorrow’s biggest challenges.??

Let’s create Future Ready government innovation!??