Crafting an AI strategy for government leaders

The city of Chicago is using algorithms to try to prevent crimes before they happen. In Pittsburgh, traffic lights that use artificial intelligence (AI) have helped cut traffic times by 25 percent and idling times by 40 percent.1 Meanwhile, the European Union's real-time early detection and alert system (RED) employs AI to counter terrorism, using natural language processing (NLP) to monitor and analyze social media conversations.2 Such examples illustrate how AI can improve government services. As it continues to be enhanced and deployed, AI can truly transform this arena, generating new insights and predictions, increasing speed and productivity, and creating entirely new approaches to citizen interactions. AI in all its forms can generate powerful new abilities in areas as diverse as national security, food safety, regulation, and health care. But to fully realize these benefits, leaders must look at AI strategically and holistically. Many government organizations have only begun planning how to incorporate AI into their missions and technology. The decisions they make in the next three years could determine their success or failure well into the next decade, as AI technologies continue to evolve. It will be a challenging period.