Pillar 3: Leveraging Technology to Improve Service and Efficiency

This is the third blog in a series highlighting key insights from the IBM Center's Special Report, Five Pillars of Effective Government.

Technology's impact on government operations and service quality represents one of the most significant transformations in public administration in recent decades. As emphasized in the IBM Center report How Technology Can Drive Government Efficiency, leveraging AI technology, business process innovations, cloud native applications, and strategic partnership solutions enables government to operate smarter, more cost effectively, and with greater security.[1]

Five critical dimensions reflect technology's role in modern government: emergency preparedness and crisis response; benefits delivery that balances speed with program integrity; cybersecurity to protect critical infrastructure and public trust; user experience design that organizes services around citizen needs; and administrative efficiencies enabled by artificial intelligence and automation. Together, these areas demonstrate how technology serves as a powerful enabler of government's fundamental mission to serve the public interest.

Emergency preparedness represents a critical area where technology can significantly enhance government capabilities and save lives. The increasing frequency and magnitude of natural disasters, public health emergencies, and other crises demand that governments upgrade existing technologies and adopt emerging innovations in ways that support rapid, effective crisis response.

Governments can leverage artificial intelligence to support first responders through weather forecasting, wildfire tracking, and post-disaster assessment. AI analyzes data from satellite imagery, social media, and sensor networks to predict and monitor natural disasters, enabling quicker, more effective responses that minimize impact on affected populations.

Research from the IBM Center emphasizes the importance of adaptive government structures in preparing for disruption.[2] Agencies must now plan and operate for "business as disrupted." The framework for building organizational resilience highlights how technology enables agencies to pivot rapidly in response to unforeseen crises. AI improves weather forecasting by analyzing historical patterns and real-time data to predict severe weather events with greater accuracy, enabling timely warnings and preventive measures.[3]

Similarly, AI can track wildfires by analyzing satellite images and sensor data to detect outbreaks and predict spread. Integrating multiple data streams—from ground sensors to aerial surveillance to historical fire behavior patterns—creates comprehensive situational awareness, transforming reactive disaster responses into proactive crisis management that enables governments to anticipate needs, pre-position resources, and coordinate multi-agency responses with unprecedented precision."

The IBM Center in collaboration with the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) and the National Academy of Public Administration published Preparing governments for future shocks: A roadmap to resilience, which provides a comprehensive framework for how governments can systematically build their capacity to withstand and recover from shocks. Technology serves as the backbone of this resilience, enabling real-time communication, data-driven decision-making, and rapid resource mobilization across jurisdictional boundaries.[4]

Technology can dramatically improve delivery of benefits by enabling governments to provide financial support more rapidly and accurately. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the ability to quickly distribute benefits can mean the difference between stability and crisis for millions of families.

Analytics technologies can detect fraud in benefit applications and transactions earlier, promoting cost-effectiveness and program integrity. As detailed in the IBM Center report A Prepared Federal Government: Preventing Fraud and Improper Payments in Emergency Funding, improper payments, including fraud, are long-standing and significant problems in the federal government, with cumulative "reported" improper payment estimates by executive branch agencies totaling around $2.7 trillion since fiscal year 2003.[5]

AI analyzes benefit applications and monitors transactions to detect inconsistencies and unusual patterns indicating fraudulent activity in real-time, helping governments identify suspicious applications more quickly while protecting public funds and program integrity.

The challenge lies in striking the appropriate balance. During emergencies, the imperative to provide rapid assistance can conflict with the need to prevent fraud. Technology offers a solution by enabling sophisticated fraud detection systems that operate at the speed of automated processing, allowing both speed and security simultaneously.

Beyond fraud detection, AI improves efficiency by automating administrative processes and reducing employee burden, helping governments provide financial support more quickly while freeing staff to handle complex cases requiring human judgment and empathy.

Cybersecurity represents a critical area where technology enhances government capabilities amid escalating digital threats. As government services migrate online and critical infrastructure becomes more interconnected, the attack surface for malicious actors expands exponentially. The IBM Center report How Technology Can Drive Government Efficiency notes that the federal government faces complex, urgent cybersecurity challenges from advanced adversaries who use AI and machine learning to launch attacks with greater volume, velocity, and sophistication.[6]

AI analyzes data from network logs, social media, and sensor networks to detect and predict cyber threats. By identifying patterns and anomalies indicating cyberattacks, AI helps governments detect and respond to threats more quickly, minimizing impact on critical infrastructure and sensitive data.

The IBM Center report Preparing Governments for Future Shocks: Building Cyber Resilience for Critical Infrastructure Protection emphasizes that cybersecurity must be understood not merely as an IT issue but as a fundamental component of national security and public service continuity. The report outlines how governments can integrate cybersecurity considerations into every aspect of operations, from procurement and vendor management to employee training and incident response.[7] This insight becomes even more critical given what was found in the 2024 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach study, which indicated that the average total cost of a data breach has risen to $4.88 million, a 10 percent increase over 2023 and the highest total ever.[8]

AI performs predictive risk analysis by analyzing historical data and real-time information to predict future threats, helping governments develop prevention strategies. This shift from reactive to proactive cybersecurity represents a paradigm change enabled by machine learning. Additionally, AI automates responses to cyber threats in real-time, reducing detection and mitigation time—critical when minutes versus hours can determine whether sensitive data is compromised or protected.

The IBM Center report Preparing governments for future shocks: An action plan to build cyber resilience in a world of uncertainty provides a comprehensive framework for how governments can systematically enhance their cybersecurity posture. The action plan emphasizes that technology solutions must be paired with organizational culture changes, workforce development, and cross-agency collaboration.[9]

User experience represents a critical area where technology can fundamentally transform how citizens interact with government.[10] Best practices demonstrate how technology streamlines administrative processes and reduces burdens, particularly in disaster and health assistance, facilitating eligible populations' access to services.

Noteworthy models have emerged, particularly in providing services around major life experiences, such as having a child, starting a business, or retiring, as opposed to navigating government organizational structures. This life-event-centered approach recognizes that citizens don't organize their needs around agency jurisdictions; they think in terms of their life circumstances and challenges. Technology enables governments to reorganize service delivery around these natural touchpoints.

The goal is to create seamless experiences where citizens can access multiple services through a single interaction, rather than contacting numerous agencies separately. Consider a new parent who needs to register a birth, apply for benefits, update tax information, and enroll in healthcare programs. Technology enables a unified portal where providing information once automatically updates all relevant systems and triggers appropriate benefit enrollments.

By leveraging AI to scrutinize vast amounts of data, governments can optimize resource allocation, enhance operational efficiency, and detect fraudulent activities earlier. This proactive approach not only improves service delivery but also ensures greater accountability and integrity within government programs.

As the IBM Center's research emphasizes, governments must maintain a human-centered approach,[11] ensuring technology complements rather than supplant human interaction in service delivery. The most effective government services use technology to handle routine transactions efficiently while preserving and even enhancing human touchpoints where they matter most.

Artificial Intelligence can help agencies make better decisions by automating manual tasks like data entry and form processing. Yet recent IBM Center research[12] reveals a nuanced reality: rather than displacing workers, generative AI (GenAI) enhances human capabilities.

The report GenAI and the Future of Government Work examines AI's impact on the U.S. federal workforce and finds that GenAI primarily acts as a force multiplier for employees.[13] The research shows GenAI is expanding what workers can do rather than making them obsolete. White-collar professionals can offload tedious data processing to AI and focus on higher-value analysis, while tasks requiring critical thinking, creativity, and human interaction remain the least amenable to automation. The report stresses that to harness GenAI's potential, government leaders should reimagine workforce development and talent strategy, investing in targeted retraining and upskilling, cross-training that blends technical know-how with human-centric skills, and recruitment that favors skills working in tandem with AI.

State governments are also rapidly experimenting with AI applications. According to the IBM Center report AI in State Government: Balancing Innovation, Efficiency, and Risk, approximately one-third of states are leading in AI adoption, with another third in the middle stages, and a third still developing enterprise policies and roadmaps. States are exploring how GenAI can streamline operations, enhance service delivery, and support policy innovation. For example, Virginia launched a pilot program using agentic AI—an advanced form that can accomplish specific goals with limited supervision—for regulatory reduction, analyzing hundreds of thousands of provisions to identify inconsistencies and unnecessary burdens. Utah developed an AI-powered assistant for its Tax Commission that achieved 92 percent accuracy in answering typical taxpayer questions, enabling call center agents to provide faster, more accurate responses.

These state innovations demonstrate AI's collaborative potential. As the state government report notes, "AI success in the federal government depends not only on technical proficiency—but on governance fluency across all roles."[14] The best AI systems are built in collaboration with the people who serve the public, with clear accountability structures, transparency mechanisms, and literacy initiatives that reflect the public interest.

"Agentic AI” is a very synergistic and powerful enhancement, resulting in significant savings of time and money and the improvement of customer service. Some examples of these efficiencies are illustrated below.

• Financial Operations: Multi-agent AI can streamline and enhance the accuracy of complex processes such as integrated supply chain planning or logistics, enabling government agencies to optimize resource allocation across programs and respond rapidly to changing circumstances.
• Human Resources Operations: Human resources operations can benefit from agentic AI by using technology to provide HR professionals with recommendations on qualified candidates for hiring from applicant pools. The ability to develop human resource plans, skill set needs, and hiring forecasts is greatly enhanced in both speed and precision. Additionally, AI agents can interact with employees to allow them to complete HR tasks like enrolling in benefits, generating proof of employment letters, choosing tax deductions, or updating addresses through self-service interactions—reducing administrative burden while improving employee experience.
• Procurement Operations: Procurement operations can benefit by using AI agents to identify and vet suppliers based on a range of criteria including quality, price, location, capacity, and reputation. These agents can anticipate potential disruptions such as weather events or geopolitical issues, proactively suggesting alternative sourcing options. AI can be applied to the compendium of previous contracts to select appropriate language for new procurement vehicles, ensuring consistency, compliance, and best practices.
• Information Technology Operations: Information technology operations can take advantage of existing AI agents that are either built into infrastructure platforms or integrated to execute FinOps capabilities which optimize the use of IT assets and ultimately reduce costs. As government IT environments become increasingly complex, AI agents can monitor system performance, predict potential failures, optimize resource allocation, and even execute routine maintenance tasks autonomously.

Leveraging technology to improve service and efficiency requires a multifaceted approach that balances innovation with accountability and automation with human judgment. By focusing on emergency preparedness, benefits delivery, cybersecurity, user experience, artificial intelligence, and administrative efficiencies, governments can enhance their service delivery, decision-making processes, and overall engagement with constituents.

The integration of AI, automation, and innovative technologies, while maintaining a human-centered approach, will be crucial in achieving these goals and ensuring that technology serves the people effectively and ethically. As the IBM Center's research demonstrates, successful technology implementation in government requires more than simply deploying new tools—it demands organizational change, workforce development, thoughtful policy frameworks, and sustained leadership commitment.

The path forward requires governments to be adaptive, innovative, and resilient, qualities that technology can enhance but not replace. Technology is not merely a tool for operational improvement but a catalyst for transforming how government fulfills its public service mission.

Footnotes

[1] How Technology Can Drive Government Efficiency, 5.

[2] Nicholas D. Evans, A Guide to Adaptive Government: Preparing for Disruption, (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, March 2023), 6.

[3]  J. Christopher Mihm, Preparing Governments for Future Shocks: Building Climate Resilience (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, IBM Institute for Business Value, & National Academy of Public Administration, October 2023), 8, and Daniel J. Chenok, G. Edward DeSeve, Margie Graves, Michael J. Keegan, Mark Newsome, and Karin O’Leary, Eight Strategies for Transforming Government (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2022), 32 .

[4] J. Christopher Mihm, Rob Handfield & Tony Scott, Preparing governments for future shocks: A roadmap to resilience (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, IBM Institute for Business Value, & National Academy of Public Administration, October 2023),  https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Preparing%20governments%20for%20future%20shocks.pdf.

[5]Goodrich and Westbrooks, A Prepared Federal Government: Preventing Fraud and Improper Payments in Emergency Funding, 11.

[6] How Technology Can Drive Government Efficiency, 14.

[7] Lisa Schlosser, Preparing Governments for Future Shocks: Building Cyber Resilience for Critical Infrastructure Protection (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2024), 10, https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Building%20Cyber%20Resilience%20for%20Critical%20Infrastructure%20Protection.pdf.

[8] How Technology Can Drive Government Efficiency, 14.  

[9] Tony Scott, Preparing Governments for Future Shocks: An Action Plan to Build Cyber Resilience in a World of Uncertainty (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, IBM Institute for Business Value, & National Academy of Public Administration, March 2023), 4, https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Preparing%20governments%20for%20future%20cyber%20shocks.pdf.

[10] Ines Mergel, Human Centricity in Digital Delivery: Enhancing Agile Governance (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2022), 10, https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/Human-Centricity%20in%20Digital%20Delivery-Enhancing%20Agile%20Governance.pdf.

[11] Dawson et.al., Digital Modernization for Government, 43.

[12] How Technology Can Drive Government Efficiency, 2025, 9

[13] William G. Resh et al., GenAI and the Future of Government Work, (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2025), 28, https://www.businessofgovernment.org/sites/default/files/GenAI%20AND%20THE%20FUTURE%20OF%20GOVERNMENT%20WORK.pdf.

[14] Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene, AI in State Government: Balancing Innovation, Efficiency, and Risk (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2025), 10.