Getting better insights from data using AI - the way forward for public sector

The updated vision of Singapore’s Smart Nation launched last year emphasised that artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI (GenAI), was the cornerstone of digital transformation. 

The rapid advancement of AI and GenAI is transforming the way businesses operate by offering automation that streamline processes and enhance productivity in unprecedented ways – and the public sector can embrace this trend.  

Fragmented data, clarity sought in ethical implementation of AI, and legacy systems are some of the challenges that public agencies face in their digitalisation journeys to make the best out of the power of data.  

According to SAS Director of Fraud and Compliance for APAC and Japan, Keith Swanson, these are some of the challenges that SAS has sought to address, building on their 40 years of presence in Singapore helping businesses and government agencies bring data, analytics and AI together for better outcomes.  

“Where SAS has helped historically is working with organisations around getting better insights from data and applying AI and other techniques to understand what the current and future needs of the citizens are,” he added.  

Swanson shared the different ways in which SAS was helping to leverage data and AI capabilities to achieve intelligent decision making that resulted in improved citizen-centric outcomes.  

Leveraging data for growth and effective outcomes 

“We are focused on how decisioning becomes part of an organisation’s fabric, and how to leverage data wherever it might exist [and] bring that together in an on-demand nature to help make better decisions,” Swanson said.  

For him, the key to making better decisions both for the organisation and the people it serves, was to start by clearly identifying desired outcomes.  

“We often start with customers [organisations] to think of a key use case, then advance that capability and drive further sophistication,” Swanson added. This involves identifying a target and retrieving data on-demand that can help make accurate decisions based on what information the organisation has available.

He shared the example of a police force in Asia Pacific that wanted improve outcomes by simplifying the way they managed investigations and intelligence. The agency was working with legacy systems and had over 20 different data sources.  

As a result, collecting and using intelligence for investigations could take hours and even days, significantly impacting service delivery for citizens and continued efforts to improve safety and reduce crime.  

SAS worked with the police force to bring this data together to help officers better understand the information they had and streamline the investigation process.  

This enabled them to help victims of crime faster by optimising the use of the data they had available in a governed fashion. 

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Real-time decisioning capabilities for a better experience 

Ensuring a positive and outcome focused experience for citizens while they navigate digital services was among the priorities of public-facing agencies.  

“That’s transformative to how governments have been pushing the journey of digital service delivery. It is not just around how to drive a single decision, [it is about] making the journey and experience more positive and targeted for that citizen,” Swanson said. 

He added that some of the work SAS does with the private sector could be applied to government services as well. In the banking domain, for instance, real-time decisioning capabilities could help to identify and authenticate transactions to reduce the risk of government service, revenue and benefit fraud.  

“Helping validate that the citizen is genuine (not a fraudster) helps us then target that the interactions and experience [in navigating the service] was as positive as possible. And in the case that we identify as not genuine, we could then integrate real time capabilities to mitigate risks.” 

SAS integrated these data, AI and decisioning capabilities when working with a large revenue/tax agency, shared Swanson.  

“We used the technology to help identify the types of tax minimisation and evasion strategies that might be actioned in the population. We bring the data together to help them investigate and drive an outcome through an efficient and effective interaction with taxpayers.” 

When a taxpayer fills out information online, the agency then brings their data together to determine in real time what is the appropriate amount that they are due or entitled to be refunded.  

The process helps to optimise the tax revenue that pays for many of the social benefits for the community, added Swanson.  

Similarly, SAS has worked with government social benefit organisations to combine data and AI together in contextual decisions to provide the most suitable benefits for those eligible, optimising the use of taxpayer funding for those in need.  

A matter of trust 

As public agencies begin to adopt AI, they also need to ensure transparency and accountability when making use of that technology.  

“Trust is driven by understanding what is happening,” Swanson said.  

“Governance constructs drive transparency and accountability to make sure that what is happening is explainable inside the organisation and to the citizens, as to the use of the appropriate data, the appropriate logic and algorithms.”  

He added that to enhance public trust, organisations should be able to explain to the citizens that AI-powered decisions and outcomes are rooted in principles driven by policy and legislation on how the data is used and for what purpose. 

Government agencies can work to drive improved outcomes through increasing digitalisation and digital service delivery.  

Applying AI in context of governed and relevant data and right time decisions will be key to furthering the lives of citizens and continued socio-economic progress.   

Keith Swanson will be about intelligent decisioning at the upcoming SAS Innovate On Tour on August 13. Click on the image below to register for the event to learn about how analytics and AI enable data-driven transformation, real-time fraud detection, and agentic AI for transparent, autonomous decisions—paving the way for a more resilient, citizen-centric government.