From security to AI, Gartner has revealed its top technology trends in government for 2024, which can guide public sector leaders to deliver better, faster, and increasingly more cost-efficient citizen services.

“Escalating global turmoil, continual cyber threats and the adoption of AI are putting increasing pressure on governments to meet citizen demands faster and more creatively than ever before,” said Todd Kimbriel, VP analyst at Gartner.

“Government CIOs must find new ways to meet citizen demands for modern, accessible and resilient services, by focusing on sustainable and scalable technology.”

Below are the top five technology trends Gartner believes public sector leaders should consider the impact of and make a case for investments in to improve business capabilities, achieve leadership priorities and create a more future-ready government organisation.

Adaptive Security

Gartner predicts that by 2028, multiagent AI in threat detection and incident response will rise from 5% to 70% of AI implementations to augment, not replace staff.

AI is creating new cybersecurity adaptations and requirements, which presents new opportunities for government CIOs. An adaptive security model merges and continually adjusts cybersecurity tools, techniques and talent to the changing threat landscape.

“Government CIOs and leaders need to overcome any lingering resistance to the adoption of adaptive security by linking its value to broader organizational objectives, such as digital innovation and transformation, national security objectives and operational resilience,” said Kimbriel.

Digital Identity Ecosystems

Digital identity in government is expanding into larger ecosystems that include user authentication, unique citizen or organisation identifiers, and credential verification, such as smartphone-based identity wallets.

Gartner predicts at least 500 million smartphone users will regularly make verifiable claims using a digital identity wallet built on distributed ledger technology by 2026.

According to Gartner, government CIOs can strengthen their digital identity strategy by building on use cases and partnerships that break out of traditional sector silos to add greater value for citizens, government and businesses.

They have an opportunity to shape these emerging ecosystems by asserting government’s role as a potential federator, facilitator and regulator of digital identity.

AI for Decision Intelligence

Gartner predicts more than 70% of government agencies will use AI to enhance human administrative decision making by 2026.

According to the analysts, machine learning, analytics and generative AI will mature over the next two years and combine into a suite of tools set to support improved government service delivery.

“These tools will need to be subject to careful governance, so it’s important government CIOs drive AI adoption and governance policies throughout the organization,” said Kimbriel.

“They must develop a strategy that incorporates these policies with a focus on desired outcomes, then take a continuous assurance approach to ensure they are maintained after implementation.”

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Digital Platform Agility

Government organizations are increasingly adopting platform-based solutions, such as industry cloud and low-code application platforms.

This enables them to quickly deploy business capabilities and address service delivery risks posed by antiquated systems, and easily flex and scale to citizen service demands. Cloud-native capabilities in these platform solutions provide greater cost control and faster time to value.

Platform cloud-based solutions will open new opportunities for innovation and transformation of business processes in government organizations. Gartner recommends government CIOs implement a multicloud strategy to maximize these opportunities and mitigate the complexities of incremental modernization across multiple systems.

Programmatic Data Management

As government leaders are demanding increased use of data for decision making and planning, Gartner expects investment in this arena to be prioritised.

Programmatic data management is the systematic and scalable approach to enable enterprise-wide use of data assets, which is being advanced by automation platforms and their ability to incorporate AI capabilities.

According to Gartner, more than 60% of government organizations will prioritize investment in business process automation by 2026, up from 35% in 2022.

“Data remains the basis of decision making in government, and the growing proliferation of AI re-emphasizes the need for government CIOs to enhance the quality and efficiency of data at scale by improving the rules and structures that govern it,” said Kimbriel.