How human-AI synergy can power the future of work in government

Here are some core themes that are emerging:

• Worker-AI synergy. When machines and humans work together using their individual strengths, they can create outcomes greater than the sum of their parts. Gen AI can analyze data streams from sensors, drones, satellites, or human inspection reports to assess damage and forecast maintenance needs for public infrastructure such as bridges, roads, railways, and tunnels. This can lead to improved public safety and more efficient resource allocation. Automating manual and repetitive tasks can free government workers to focus on more complex and strategic work while machine intelligence combined with human judgment can lead to more robust decision-making.

• A new paradigm of AI agents and multi-agent systems. AI agents are reasoning engines that can understand context, plan workflows, connect to external tools and data, and execute actions to achieve a defined goal. Through their ability to reason, plan, remember, and act, AI agents can address key limitations of typical language models and can act on behalf of the user more effectively.²

Multi-agent AI systems go a step further to orchestrate complex workflows that involve coordination, real-time decision-making, and interaction with various platforms and collaborators. A primary AI agent breaks down the steps of a task and delegates those steps to other specialist agents, bringing a human into the loop when necessary. This collaboration can enhance quality by narrowing each agent’s scope, enabling high levels of specialization, and improving access to information, as agents can work off the same or different language models and interact with a variety of tools.

• The power of AI “adds.” The potential benefits of AI automation and augmentation are undeniable. But true transformation will likely happen through AI “adds”—these are entirely new (perhaps still unexplored) capabilities and activities made possible by AI. The biggest expected benefit of AI isn’t being able to do your current work faster but rather being able to do tasks that were not possible before. Whether it’s a data scientist processing previously unfathomable volumes of health data or a contact center worker communicating with customers in a foreign language, the biggest shapers of the future might be the things we aren’t yet doing today—and identifying those “adds” will be invaluable.

• Human imagination and the elevation of roles. As various forces of change continue to redefine work, it is clear the traits that make us uniquely human, the things machines cannot do very well, are our biggest assets. Take creativity and imagination, for instance. Human imagination will be a fundamental factor in determining how roles are redesigned and elevated to do more and how government missions can be accomplished in radically new ways. AI capabilities, combined with the ability to imagine how to use them and what to try next, can accelerate innovation by generating novel ideas.

• Shifting time, shifting skills. With AI and gen AI unlocking new capabilities and activities for workers to engage in, the skills they need and use frequently are expected to change. For example, as AI agents take over routine and manual tasks, there will be a high demand for skills such as designing, implementing, and operating these new systems. Human-machine teaming skills such as prompt engineering, bias and hallucination detection, and task discernment—deciding if a human, machine, or combination of both is better suited to perform a task—may become pivotal for professionals as AI becomes more integrated into workflows.

• Using AI to enhance human capabilities. AI is already helping workers improve how they perform some fundamentally human activities such as learning, brainstorming ideas, communicating, teaching, and coaching. Sure, an AI bot can’t learn for you, but it can break down and structure educational content to help with comprehension or present the information in audio and visual formats to suit various learning styles. Similarly, AI-powered translation, text-editing features, audio and visual content generation capabilities are breaking barriers in how people communicate with each other. Like a personal coach, AI can also offer real-time feedback to boost performance. Even in work performed primarily by a human, AI can observe and provide guidance at critical moments as a “tap on the shoulder” or suggestion agent.