5 insights from public sector leaders: Solving organizational challenges with data and AI

Despite the best intentions of many public sector leaders to build data-driven organizations, the reality is that 65% of public sector leaders still struggle to use data continuously in real time and at scale. The upside? Many leaders are taking advantage of AI and generative AI to tackle this critical need. But to reach that level of advanced data maturity and harness the power of these technologies, public sector teams need to manage and analyze exponentially growing data volumes — all while dealing with complex mission challenges.  

We partnered with Socratic Technologies to dig deeper into the state of data in the public sector — the data behind the data, if you will. Over 1,000 C-suite, business, and technology leaders from around the world were surveyed on the current state of their organizations. With data and results from nearly 200 leaders in the public sector, the research reveals five key insights about their operational challenges, underlying data problems, and investment priorities (AI, GenAI, and automation). Here’s a sneak peek at the results.

Based on the research, only 32% of public sector leaders use data insights for daily decisions. So, even when most organizations have no shortage of data, they continue to struggle with drawing strategic insights from it. Some challenges include:

• Teams struggling to adopt data tools and products

• Inability to monitor data and use insights in real time

• Difficulty with efficient use of AI to analyze data

• Tough to analyze data at scale

• Data silos and sprawl

AI and generative AI are already proving to be a powerful tool in driving better operational outcomes. Nearly all the survey respondents were excited and optimistic about the possibilities of using data and AI to increase productivity, citing the following as just a few of the potential benefits:

• Improved productivity (through a unified data view)

• Better operational resilience

• Enhanced customer experiences

• Reduced disruption and risk

• Lower costs

This next-generation technology is changing how we cultivate ideas, solutions, and insights — unlocking unprecedented opportunities for innovation, productivity, and efficiency. Though the public sector is more cautious around AI adoption primarily due to government regulations and data privacy, nearly all the participants identified these top use cases where they’ll lean into AI:

• Automation of manual processes and workflows based on line of business requirements, such as customer support, research and development, and procurement

• Data ingestion and augmentation 

• AI assistants that can help with information retrieval and summarization for day-to-day tasks 

• Data summarization and analysis

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