DTA looks for a whole-of-gov approach to generative AI

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) is set to explore technology options for a whole-of-government approach to generative AI.

The agency, which now plays a digital advisory role within the federal government, is also hoping to catalogue generative AI services that can be utilised at an individual agency level.

The movement at a federal level comes less than a day after iTnews revealed that state governments, including Queensland and South Australia, have taken the lead in this space, backing the Azure OpenAI service as a safe place to run experiments.

The iTnews State of IT 2023 report, released this week, also shows that some states and territories are forging ahead with more specific policy and usage guidance than has so far been published at a federal level.

A request for information (RFI) by the DTA, published this morning, sets in motion activity to change that.

While “not a procurement”, the DTA wants to understand “generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that could serve for individual government organisations or the Australian government as a whole”, the RFI states.

A specific outcome the DTA wants is to understand “ways in which the Australian government could approach generative AI with a whole-of-government approach using commercial offerings.”

“To benefit from the rapid developments in the field of generative AI, the Australian Public Service (APS) is seeking to understand how to enable the APS to harness the opportunities of AI technology in a safe and responsible manner that continues to uphold public trust,” the documents state.

“Information is being sought to help understand the range of products and services that exist in relation to this rapidly evolving technology and how they may offer value for government.”

The DTA offers three areas of government services it sees opportunities to apply generative AI technology to, though it notes these are not exhaustive.

It sees potential for citizen-facing uses to emerge, such as “chatbot or concierge services that help users navigate complex information and services in a dependable and consistent fashion”.

In addition, generative AI could help agency staff sort through reams of documentation for analytics or business intelligence purposes - “using generative AI to assist with the processing of large numbers of submissions or consultation responses, [or] assisting in distilling complex information from a range of sources.”

A third area the agency views as possible is folding generative AI into “core organisational and corporate functions”.

This, it wrote, could include “using generative AI to develop tailored learning and development experiences, streamlining complex or burdensome approval processes while maintaining and ensuring human responsibilities and accountabilities.”

The third aspect appears to be a recognition of the trend by enterprise vendors to fold generative AI capabilities into their products or suites.

For agencies that already use these application suites, this path could represent an easier entry point to generative AI, and the DTA is hoping to catalogue these capabilities as a central resource.

The examples are considerably more specific than those in interim generative AI guidance, but are also predicated on the establishment and/or use of a private federal government GPT-like service.

The interim guidance is more about safeguarding federal data and helping agencies to de-risk experiments with public-facing generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, where some agencies have encountered early issues.