Artificial intelligence holds significant potential to improve the delivery of public services in Australia. Opportunities exist across the spectrum of activities carried out by the APS: from automating backroom administrative processes; to improving service processing and response times; to AI-enabled public interfaces that offer customised services to users.

Realising these benefits will require the public service to develop, adopt and use AI in ways that are trustworthy. If done well, with AI solutions that are designed and implemented in ways that demonstrate integrity, competence and empathy towards users, and deliver a clear improvement in the performance of public services, using AI could see the APS realise substantial efficiency gains and deliver a better experience and outcomes for the whole community. If done poorly, the APS will not only fail to capture the benefits of AI, there is a risk of eroding trustworthiness such that future adoption or use of AI is not accepted by the community. This could also affect service delivery innovation by the APS more broadly, compromising the ability of the APS to serve the Australian community.