Across the federal landscape, the scale and complexity of agency missions demand constant focus. As public servants continue to heed the mandate to do more with less—to deliver essential services more efficiently and securely—having access to the latest AI and security innovations becomes more urgent than ever.
To better understand the factors driving AI usage within the public sector—and the barriers toward AI adoption—Google Public Sector recently commissioned a survey conducted by Government Executive of 250 federal government IT leaders and influencers across civilian and defense agencies. The results showed that while many agencies are using AI today for important work, concerns remain, particularly in terms of security, employee training, and reliability.
A new mindset: Accelerating AI adoption in agencies
According to survey respondents, the question is no longer if the federal government will adopt AI, but how fast its new role as an AI accelerator will drive transformation across the entire public sector. In fact, nearly 90% of respondents working for agencies are planning to or are already using AI, challenging the notion that the public sector is slow to adoption or overly risk-averse.
However, barriers to AI adoption remain in the federal government. Survey respondents noted that security and adversarial risk are the single biggest blockers to AI adoption (impacting 48% of all agencies). Additional concerns, such as reliability (35%) and potential workforce disruption (4%) were also raised.
As for the use cases most commonly cited, government IT leaders and influencers are using AI in a variety of ways to demonstrate impact, including:
- Document and data processing (54%): Automating the handling of the government’s massive paper and digital trail.
- Workflow and process automation (40%): Streamlining internal operations to free up employee capacity.
- Decision support systems (34%): Providing intelligence that improves everything from fraud detection to resource allocation.
At Google Public Sector, we’ve helped with many of these AI implementations first-hand. For example, last month, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) selected Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government to serve as the first enterprise AI deployed on the U.S. Department of War (DoW)’s GenAI.mil, helping more than 3 million civilian and military personnel streamline administrative tasks like drafting routine correspondence and summarizing policy handbooks.
The CDAO joins numerous other federal agencies leveraging AI to enhance their missions, such as NASA’s Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant, which helps astronauts diagnose and treat symptoms; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s deployment of agentic AI capabilities to all of its employees; and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s move to Google Workspace with Gemini as part of the General Services Administration’s OneGov Strategy.
The road ahead: Scaling innovation
Looking to the next 12-18 months, the research found that both federal civilian and defense agencies are looking to remove constraints to AI adoption across a variety of areas, including:
- Budget constraints, cited by 75% of respondents;
- Legacy systems, cited by 41% of respondents; and
- Skills gaps, cited by 37% of respondents.
To directly address these barriers, Google delivered Gemini for Government through the General Services Administration (GSA) OneGov Strategy to offer discounted pricing on AI tools. This initiative directly tackles the number-one adoption barrier by ensuring federal agencies can access world-class AI capabilities at a competitive cost.
In addition, to assist with the AI skills gap, we recently launched Google Skills, offering nearly 3,000 courses, labs and credentials from Google Cloud, Google DeepMind, Grow with Google, and Google for Education to help our customers, including government agencies, build AI skills and advance their technical knowledge.
As the research proves, government agencies are embracing AI now to tackle their most important work. However, crucial barriers remain across security, skills training, and more. Register to attend our upcoming Gemini for Government webinar on Feb. 5, where we will dive deeper into the transformative AI technology powering the next wave of innovation across the public sector.
