Digital agents to usher in new era of personalised public services

Governments across the Asia Pacific region have increasingly transitioned to using digital platforms to make citizen services more convenient and efficient.

A good example of this is Singapore, which has built a whole suite of digital government services which are always easy to access and available.

Beyond efficiency, another trend governments are moving towards relates to citizen experience.

Capgemini’s Executive Vice President and Global Head of Public Sector, Marc Reinhardt, made the case for governments that digital platforms can serve a double purpose: besides boosting efficiency and covering skill or capacity gaps, they can simultaneously foster inclusivity, enhance user experience, and build public trust.

Generative AI (GenAI)-powered digital agents can offer great potential, he shared.

Be it virtual avatars as called by Singapore’s Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), digital avatars or AI clones by Channel NewsAsia, digital agents as the name suggest can engage in fluid conversations.

Marc noted that perhaps the greatest innovation of digital agents comes from natural language processing, which allows digital civil servants to understand and converse in a manner that virtually indistinguishable from human communication – at least in terms of syntax and semantics.

The more similar to humans they get, the more advisable it is to make the virtual nature of the communication transparent, to secure citizen trust.

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Digital agents

Digital agents bring a lifelike presence to digital interactions, showcase realistic facial expressions and the ability to interpret and respond to human speech and emotions – including the occasional, but quite intentional “erm” or hesitant stutter as exemplified in OpenAI’s speech-to-speech reasoning example earlier this year.

This enables digital agents to connect with users and citizens on a more personal level, facilitating a more natural and satisfying experience.

For public sector organisations, this means delivering services and guidance to citizens in a way that feels familiar and comfortable to them.

One example is GenAI policewoman Amna developed by the Dubai police force. The virtual assistant responds to voice commands in 109 languages.

Positioned at police stations and holding the rank of 1st Lieutenant, Officer Amna is responsible for answering people’s queries and providing police services such as paying traffic violations or how to open reports.

In 2023, Officer Amna successfully conducted 20,000 conversations with the public.

Investment in pilots

Officer Amma is not an isolated project.

Reinhardt observed that public sector organisations in the region are investing time and effort to develop pilots and proof-of-concepts (POCs) to use GenAI  to optimize  digital services.

The most prevalent use case is the development of virtual administrative assistants, with other use cases including content generation and summarisation.

Capgemini's digital agent, ELLEM, introducing herself. Video: Wilde on YouTube

The strong interest around AI and GenAI is positive, but the current approach is often not efficient and leads to high costs, Reinhardt cautioned.

Public sector organisations are starting to realise that the gap between POCs and the scaled, productive use of AI in general and digital agents in particular is larger than one may expect.

Capgemini is focusing on providing clients with pre-configured demos and accelerators for specific public sector use cases, so they do not need to reinvent the wheel every time, he explained.

Full scale adoption requires talent, organisational change, management of risk and a modern, well-kept data estate– which many public sector organisations are struggling with.

To ensure that Capgemini’s clients can scale their projects, the firm helps solve concerns like data sovereignty and data privacy issues, which are high on the agenda of government agencies.

Reinhardt also highlighted the twin problems of data readiness and governance - the most cited challenges related to GenAI implementation. Other areas related to AI ethics include accountability, reliability, fairness and transparency.

Capgemini’s “Code of ethics for AI” is a great asset here to leverage – and it is in process of being updated and customised for GenAI.

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Need for guardrails

When implementing these technologies, Reinhardt emphasised ensuring a robust data foundation, having training and guardrails in place, and getting substantive outputs right.

These priorities should come before focusing too much on the look or voice of digital agents.

Additionally, immersive digital agents may not be well-suited for all government services, particularly those that involve important and critical moments of people’s lives.

For example, social and welfare services often involve case workers really listening to personal matters and even providing emotional comfort.

While other services, which are rather straightforward, like renewing a driver’s license, may be more suited for digital agents to tackle.

At the end, it is a matter of the use case but also a point of consideration with regards to cultural sensitivity, to determine whether an actual human is needed or to what extent it is replaceable (or in some cases a virtual alternative is even preferred).

Need to find right niche

The key is to find a way to employ immersive chatbots where they are needed and acceptable.  Human civil servants will then have more time and resources for providing empathetic services where they matter, Reinhardt said.

When assessing whether digital agents really improve service delivery, user satisfaction and acceptance is paramount.

Measuring how well the digital agent accommodates users with different abilities and needs is also a critical benchmark.

Additionally, it is critical to ensure data privacy and security.  Regular audits and assessments of the system's security protocols can help maintain user trust and confidence in the digital agent.

AR and VR can augment digital agents

The integration of digital agents with emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) could redefine the way citizens access and interact with government services.

The emphasis on multilingual support and cultural adaptation in the development of digital agents could specifically benefit governments in culturally diverse Southeast Asia.

This enables government agencies to bridge communication barriers and provide more inclusive and accessible services to a broader population – sometimes even reaching into languages that are not official government languages and thus drive inclusion beyond what is possible today.

Overall, the future development and deployment of digital agents in Asia Pacific hold the potential to improve government-citizen interactions, offering more personalised, efficient, and inclusive services that cater to the diverse needs of the population.

If you are interested to find out more about Capgemini’s GenAI solutions, you can click here or contact their SEA team at contactsea@capgemini.com