The IMD World Digital Competitiveness study revealed that Singapore was ranked fourth in the world and first in Asia for digital competitiveness in government practices, business models, and society.
Although the government has made tremendous progress in its digital transformation journey, some crucial areas, such as the adoption of Conversational AI (CAI), still haven’t reached their full potential.
While the government is already using Conversational AI solutions to deliver better citizen services, e.g. the Inland Revenue Authority deployment of ‘Ask Jamie’ as their virtual assistant, there is a need to accelerate this adoption across different departments to meet the ever-increasing citizen demand for convenience and ease.
Why is Conversational AI needed in the public sector?
The number of citizens that government agencies serve can range from hundreds to potentially millions. Handling complaints/enquiries individually are time-consuming and difficult. Moreover, the public tends to inquire about issues that revolve around a common topic, usually with the same questions being asked.
Without Conversational AI technology to handle such common queries, public servants will be hard-pressed to address only urgent citizen issues while spending more resources and manual intervention.
A good example of what Generative AI and NLP bring is evident in public health crises like COVID-19. During such situations, it can be challenging to harmonise and disseminate crucial information correctly and timely across different government portals. There is the possibility of providing outdated or incorrect information to the public, which can lead to public discontentment.
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This is where automation through Conversational AI technologies such as chat and voice AI agents steps in. With a small number of inquiries usually constituting the bulk of requests, the use of advanced bots, such as Dynamic AI agents, can boost productivity and efficiency, improving the overall process of citizen services by allowing civil servants to focus on more pressing issues.
How can Conversational AI make citizen experiences personalised and convenient?
Conversational AI solutions can improve the efficiency of government services by automating repetitive tasks and processes. By using a standardised system for answering questions, such solutions can provide instant, consistent and accurate information to citizens, reducing the likelihood of errors or misunderstandings.
Dynamic AI agents can also handle a myriad of tasks, from providing citizens with the appropriate information to helping them schedule appointments with government agencies, and sending reminders for these appointments, simplifying a task that would otherwise be time-consuming.
Government employees will have more free time to focus on more complex and high-priority tasks, ultimately improving the overall efficiency of the institution. This can enhance the trust and confidence of citizens in their government, ultimately leading to a more effective and responsive public sector.
Conversational AI solutions can also be useful for interactions between different government agencies. Intragovernmental agencies can use it for different services and inquiries, such as — IT help desks, legal, HR, financial services, etc., more consistently and effectively.
In addition, CAI also has the potential to greatly benefit and contribute to government services where such applications are commonly overlooked, such as taxation and social healthcare.
Taxation
Dynamic AI agents can be used in the field of taxation to assist taxpayers in filing their tax returns. By providing real-time feedback to taxpayers on the accuracy and completeness of their information, chatbots can prevent errors and ensure that tax returns are filed correctly, potentially reducing the number of rejected or delayed returns.
This can help make the process of filing taxes easier and more efficient, potentially saving taxpayers time and money.
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The automation of many of the tasks involved in tax filings, such as data entry and calculation, can also help reduce the workload on tax administrators, freeing them up to focus on more complex tasks. Overall, this improves the efficiency of the tax filing process and improves the user experience for taxpayers.
Social healthcare service
Conversational AI can also greatly benefit the field of social healthcare services. Just like in tax services, a Dynamic AI agent can be easily integrated into a hospital’s website or app, allowing patients to ask questions and receive answers about scheduling appointments, doctor’s availability, ordering medicines, reminders about their appointments and medication refills.
The automation of tasks involved in providing healthcare information, such as answering common questions or scheduling appointments, can help free up time for healthcare professionals to focus on providing quality care to patients, potentially reducing waiting times and improving the overall patient experience.
A great example can be seen in India, where the Government of Maharashtra Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD) leveraged Conversational AI to extend reach to their beneficiaries. As a result, in the last quarter alone, the department has successfully run over 4.2 million informational campaigns centred on the department’s key schemes around nutrition and the welfare of pregnant and lactating mothers, reaching out to over 590,000 users on these channels.
What does the future hold?
Conversational AI is providing an unprecedented opportunity to scale operations and automate tasks by bringing human-in-the-loop. With Generative AI, it is becoming far easier to scale complex conversations and does so in cost-effective ways.
As such solutions continue to evolve, they promise to help overcome an interaction barrier and bring in more simplified human-machine collaboration. In addition, future iterations will bolster accessibility by communicating with visual data interpretations.
Conversational AI can also significantly impact modern governance with the right infrastructure, research, and development. Having said that, it’s important to highlight that it will contribute toward enhancing human employees’ performance rather than replacing it.
With the Singapore government increasing its adoption of these solutions, we can expect the nation to quickly rise through the ranks and lead the way in making the daily lives of its citizens easier through digitally delivered citizen services.
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