The Future of Citizen Services is Generative AI

From streaming entertainment to online shopping, Canadians have grown accustomed to personalized, on-demand experiences in their daily lives. This is precisely what citizens now expect from their public services - seamless, intuitive interactions tailored to their needs. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing that same level of convenience to citizen dealings with governments, healthcare providers and educational institutions by anticipating needs, offering customized solutions, and optimizing processes.

By streamlining processes and reimagining interactions, generative AI is transforming citizen experiences, making services faster, more efficient, and highly personalized. Imagine a future where government agencies can anticipate needs before they’re even arise, offer customized solutions for complex problems, and drastically improve the way public services are delivered.

Bolstering this innovation is AI’s ability to analyze vast datasets in real time can equip public sector workers with insights that were previously buried in a sea of information, enabling better decision-making. Routine tasks like processing applications, scheduling appointments or providing general information can be automated, freeing up time for employees to focus on more complex, innovative work.

Climate and crisis: As climate change amplifies the wildfire threat, organizations around the world are turning to Amazon Web Services (AWS) loud services and technologies like AI, Internet of Things (IoT) and others to prevent, detect, and combat these natural disasters. For example, Exci, an Australian company, uses AI and machine learning (ML) to detect bushfires within minutes of ignition and notify the authorities. San Diego Gas & Electric, which serves 3.6 million customers in Southern California, flies drones over 75,000 power poles capturing images of their equipment in high risk areas. They use AWS ML services to analyze the images and flag anomalies or defects that could pose a fire hazard. This year, the University of Alberta and AWS ran a hackathon at the newly launched Artificial Intelligence Discovery Place (AIDP). The event focused on managing the impact of wildfires on communities and the environment. The winning team created a system using AWS generative AI services to help the public verify information during a crisis by mining data from the Government of Alberta and major news outlets to provide accurate and reliable information.

Healthcare mobilization: Canada’s aging population is facing hurdles unlike those seen in previous generations. While labour shortages and thin profit margins strain the healthcare industry in the homecare sector, generative AI is now playing a critical role in ensuring aging Canadians can safely remain at home. Montreal-based AlayaCare is transforming how home-based care is delivered to Canadians. The company’s cloud-based software runs on AWS, and leverages several AI services –including generative AI—to assist with tasks such as matching and scheduling caregivers with clients, and extract clinical information from unstructured documents like forms and notes. This helps free clinical workers from administrative tasks so they have more time to focus on patient care.

Human Resources and the Military: As the Canadian military undergoes a digital transformation, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) is investigating new tools to provide its Information Systems Security Officers (ISSOs) with additional research support using generative AI. The RCAF-built “Jimmy” is a new AI Assistant that can rapidly review and summarize internal policies, orders and directives in a closed digital ecosystem and provide information to ISSOs responding to queries. The assistant helps reduce time spent on the manual tasks of searching for information, helps policy authors identify gaps in directives, and has the potential to bridge the gap between experienced administrators and new talent.

To realize the full potential of generative AI, organizations need access to technology in a timely and cost-effective way. AWS recently launched the AWS Public Sector Generative Artificial Intelligence Impact Initiative, committing $50 million in credits, training and technical expertise to help customers in the public sector develop new technology solutions. Open to new and existing public sector organizations, the Impact Initiative’s qualifying factors centre on one principle: the AI solution must help solve society’s most pressing challenges.

AI can help governments better allocate resources, drastically improve citizen services, even prevent and mitigate natural disasters. While the excitement around AI’s potential is palpable, the technology must be developed and deployed responsibly.

As public sector organizations develop generative AI solutions, adopting a people-centric, responsible AI approach is crucial. This means designing AI tools that prioritize transparency, fairness, and accountability – ensuring that as citizen services improve, they do so with equity and trust at the forefront. For example, our models are built to detect harmful content, reject inappropriate content in the user input. They also help reduce the spread of disinformation by providing an invisible watermark on all Amazon Titan-generated images.

By embedding these principles into AI strategies from the start, governments can unlock the full potential of this technology while safeguarding the public interest.

The AWS Public Sector Symposium is taking place in Ottawa, Canada on October 9 to show public sector leaders how the AWS Cloud can transform the services they provide to Canadians, while meeting their security, sovereignty and sustainability requirements. Registration is still open for those interested in joining.