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What Is Agentic AI?
Agentic AI refers to AI systems that autonomously and proactively make decisions and provide information. These systems use “agents” to perform specific services and gather information from various data sources to achieve a desired goal, such as helping citizens find the status of their tax refunds or apply for a license.
Agentic AI independently retrieves information and takes actions to achieve objectives. It fulfills the role of “AI as a helper” because it operates primarily in the background and requires minimal prompts and human intervention. With agentic AI, government employees can gain actionable intelligence faster, allowing them to focus solely on addressing citizens’ needs.
How Does Agentic AI Help Government Agencies and Citizens?
Agentic AI is a powerful tool for state and local agencies looking to enhance their interactions with citizens while remaining efficient and productive. Agencies can expedite the processing of citizen requests, such as applying for benefits or accessing public records, and improve the overall citizen experience.
Consider these possible use cases:
- An agentic AI chatbot or virtual assistant can correctly and quickly answer citizens’ queries via a website, reducing the number of calls to a customer service center. For instance, if a citizen asks, “What are the eligibility requirements for social services?” the chatbot will return up-to-date information and provide step-by-step guidance on applying for benefits.
- An internal tool allows customer service representatives to quickly deliver helpful and detailed guidance to citizens, resulting in faster case resolutions and positive experiences.
- An improved and streamlined process assists citizens who frequently engage with government agencies for licenses, permits, etc. Agentic AI can track past applications and, based on a citizen’s history, automatically and proactively send them information about renewal dates, required documentation, changes in local regulations that could affect their applications and more.
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What Is the Biggest Challenge to Agentic AI Implementation?
A government official recently shared their concerns with me about implementing AI safely and securely. “It’s going to be very difficult,” they said, “because of the risk and security concerns.”
This conversation revealed that agencies are still grappling with implementing and managing fair and equitable AI and adhering to strict data sovereignty, handling, retention and privacy policies. These challenges still exist when it comes to adopting agentic AI systems. Fortunately, agencies can train AI models within their private infrastructure without exposing citizens’ data externally. There are many benefits to this approach:
- Greater control over sensitive data and stronger assurances that AI models comply with state and local security requirements
- No need to upload sensitive information to external large language models (LLMs), reducing potential exposure and privacy risks
- Reliance on internally owned data sets to train models in a security-enhanced environment
- Enhanced ability to monitor AI drift (changes in AI models over time) and adjust the models to reduce AI hallucinations and errors
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How Can Agencies Manage Employee Concerns and Agentic AI Costs?
Agencies must also help employees understand how the introduction of agentic AI will augment their jobs and consider the costs associated with implementation. Implementing training programs to develop internal subject matter experts and overall awareness can help promote adoption of the technology.
It is essential to emphasize that agentic AI will help government employees be more productive and efficient. It is not meant to take employees’ jobs but instead to enhance their ability to meet citizens’ needs.
Regarding cost, any new AI implementation requires an investment in hardware and accelerated computing resources. The good news is that agentic AI agents can be trained using small language models designed for specific jobs. As such, they do not require the same amount of computing power as an LLM and can provide more accurate information at a fraction of the cost of traditional LLMs. This way, agencies can more easily enjoy a long-term return on their agentic AI investments.
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Is Agentic AI the Future of Government Services?
Agentic AI has the potential to revolutionize government services by making them more efficient and helping customer service representatives improve interactions with constituents. It helps agencies relieve the burden on their customer service representatives while speeding up response times and providing citizens with accurate and helpful information.
However, agencies must prioritize data privacy and security to implement agentic AI successfully. On-premises AI models offer a secure way to maintain control over sensitive data while remaining compliant with local regulations, allowing agencies and government employees to benefit from agentic AI without risking citizens’ data.
There will always be a need for human employees who can handle escalated or higher-level interactions with citizens, but agentic AI has a role to play in the future of government services as a powerful value add for agencies at the state and local levels.
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