New tool helps governments stop starting from scratch with AI

• Apolitical's new Government AI Navigator tool offers public servants free, instant access to real AI projects from governments worldwide to break down silos and encourage learning across organisations. 

• 40% of public servants currently spend a week or more collating evidence before starting new work - time that could be cut to minutes through this tool.

• The library grows as public servants add their own projects and connect with the people behind them.

Today, Apolitical launched Government AI Navigator: a free tool that enables public servants to find out exactly what AI projects have worked elsewhere, what failed and who to get in touch with to replicate success. Built with support from Google.org, the tool launches with 300 projects spanning over 50 countries and is available immediately to all public servants and policymakers.

Right now, governments around the world are running AI pilots in the dark, unaware that someone, somewhere, has already done the work and learned the lessons. Silos have become the default in government: 43% of public servants surveyed by Apolitical feel the effect of silos when designing or delivering cross-cutting policies; 28% when trying to access or share data and insights. Often, public servants are unaware of what their colleagues in the department next door are doing, let alone those across the country or in another government.

That blind spot has a real cost in both time and money. Apolitical's research found that 40% of public servants spend over a week collating comparative evidence before starting a new piece of work. Meanwhile, the IMF's Fiscal Monitor found that countries could gain 30–40% more value for money simply by adopting practices already proven to work elsewhere.

Government AI Navigator seeks to solve this. It's a living library of AI projects shared by public servants and public sector organisations. It is built to be searchable by sector, geography and scale of project, and covers everything from translation tools to traffic systems to seasonal monsoon prediction. Unlike a static repository, Government AI Navigator is built to grow and stay current: public servants can add their own projects in minutes using the AI-assisted submission process. Every user-generated case study connects users to the person behind it, so they can ask questions, share experience and learn from peers in real time. 

When public servants can see how a policy played out somewhere else, they are better equipped to design solutions that fit the realities they face today. With this tool, governments can build conditions for AI to responsibly deliver faster, smarter outcomes for the people and places they serve.

“Governments are losing billions to a problem that's hiding in plain sight: the inability to find and share what already works,” said Robyn Scott, Apolitical’s co-founder and CEO. “Nowhere is this more acute than in the case of AI in the public sector - where best practice is changing monthly. The Government AI Navigator is Apolitical's answer to that. By making real government AI experience searchable, social and alive, we're giving public servants the ability to follow the frontier, and helping governments deliver faster for the people who depend on them, while mitigating risks."

"AI has tremendous potential to transform public services, and governments shouldn’t have to start from scratch to realise those benefits. Google.org is proud to support Apolitical’s Government AI Navigator, a tool that will replace silos with shared knowledge and equip public servants worldwide with the proven insights they need to deploy AI safely, effectively and responsibly for the communities they serve," said Rowan Barnett, Google.org Director.

Government AI Navigator was co-designed with public servants from the start. A council of public sector AI experts and leaders shaped the tool, including Clare Martorana, Former US Federal CIO; Valeriya Ionan, Ukraine’s Former Wartime Deputy Minister of Ministry of Digital Transformation; Anna Nylander, AI & Digital Transformation for Government Project Manager at UNDP; and Mark Boris Andrijanič, Slovenia’s Former Minister of Digital Transformation. The council ensured it meets the real needs of government work, from the social aspect, to what information to include, to how to make it genuinely useful.

The Government AI Navigator is available to all public servants and policymakers at: https://apolitical.co/en/navigator/case-studies 

We encourage governments and public servants everywhere to benefit from and contribute to the collective knowledge of the global public sector.