Dan Chenok

In an era marked by unprecedented technological advancements and fiscal challenges, the imperative for the U.S. federal government to modernize its operations has never been more critical. This is highlighted by a recent report, led by the Technology CEO Council (TCC), in which the IBM Center for The Business of Government participated.

Blog Co-Authors: Joseph P. Mitchell, III, Senior Advisor for Strategy, National Academy of Public Administration, Cristina Caballe Fuguet, Vice President, Global Public Sector, IBM, and Dave Zaharchuk, Research Director, Thought Leadership, IBM Institute for Business Value.

We expect the following reports to be published starting in late 2025.  Short summaries of each report follow:

Accelerating Digital Transformation in Public Organizations Through Public Procurement by Ana Maria Dimand, Florida State University; Petra Ferk, New University, Slovenia; Jane Lynch, Centre of Public Value Procurement, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK; Andrea Patrucco, College of Business Florida International University; Esmee Peters, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands.

The event brought together federal agency leaders, congressional staff, industry, and academic experts to discuss the complexities of improving payment integrity. Participants explored challenges, opportunities, and solutions for using artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle improper payments, which includes fraud, waste, abuse that could affect overpayments, underpayments, and disbursements to recipients.

Blog Author:  Chuck Royal, Associate Partner, Data and Technology Transformation

As AI continues to change how government operates, this series will explore the applications of AI in the public sector, innovative case studies, use cases, and the potential impact on governance, service delivery, and citizen engagement.

Abundant opportunities exist for Al-driven transformation of critical federal government programs to enhance efficiency, strengthen citizens’ trust in government, and bolster national security. For example, secure industry-hosted shared services platforms, for functions like human resources, represent a significant opportunity for agencies to rapidly tap the efficiency benefits of technologies like AI.

Governments today increasingly face the challenge of how to integrate transformational digital technologies like artificial intelligence, while maintaining or modernizing legacy infrastructure and applications.  This challenge is compounded when officials seek to create value for the public from digital modernization when those technologies have evolved via different strategies, including “waterfall” approaches that often take longer to implement than “agile” approaches.

Earlier this year, our Center welcomed proposals to learn of real-world examples of where government organizations have implemented strategies and capabilities that have improved their mission resilience to be “future ready” and prepared to respond to disruptive events. We sought out case studies within five key domain areas: emergency preparedness and response, cybersecurity, supply chain, climate sustainability, and workforce development. (Learn more about our future shocks initiative).

Since the turn of the millennium, pandemics, heat waves, wildfires, floods, cyberattacks, supply chain interruptions, and other crises have deeply stressed governments, communities, businesses, and individuals around the world. This cascade of catastrophic events raises fundamental questions about how governments can anticipate, prepare for, and respond to these and other shocks yet to come.