4 Key Recommendations To Drive Innovation With AI: US Federal Edition

Forbes

2 days ago

4 Key Recommendations To Drive Innovation With AI: US Federal Edition
The AI gold rush continues into 2025 despite economic volatility. But this isn't a race; the winner isn't necessarily the first there. You do need to run the race to have a chance, however. In difficult times, especially for those in crisis, there is a temptation to shut down all innovation and shore up on the fundamentals. Yes, these groups must narrow their mission to focus on critical capabilities — but you can't shut down all forms of innovation. The risk is too great. Yet innovating at a time without psychological safety can be a Herculean feat. For example, US federal agencies are undergoing massive changes. Many employees wonder every day whether their badge will work today or whether lifelong colleagues will be next to go. Budgets are also getting massively reduced with little control. Yet the mission continues, with many federal workers seeking ways to move forward with fewer resources. Automation and intelligence will be key levers for remaining resources to keep up with the mission; each are a form of innovation that must be leveraged.
Get Inspired With AI Innovation
AI tools provide many benefits at a reasonable price with high accuracy and reliability that no organization should miss. Thus far, the US federal government has focused heavily on predictive AI in its use cases (based on public-sector AI inventories), but there's much to be gained from generative AI for employee productivity, process automation to execute more quickly, and real-time analytics to understand the current state across a massive ecosystem. Here are a couple current examples:
Get Started With AI Innovation To Overcome Resource Shortages
Now is not the time for long-term, disruptive innovations but rather tactical moves that create value fast in times of uncertainty. Leveraging AI along your innovation process increases innovation outcomes without having to reinvent the wheel: AI helps ideate based upon described challenges (in the worst case, you get a couple silly ideas that break the ice and allow humans to brainstorm with a refreshed mind and a positive attitude), identifies prior art and available solutions, designs test cases and executes testing of a proof of concept or pilot, and crafts content and messages for impacted target groups for maximum understanding and adoption of a new solution (no matter whether the solution is a piece of technology, a new procedure, or a working style). It doesn't require huge investments in specific AI models or platforms to benefit from AI; any public large language model (LLM) will do the job.
But how do you avoid the hallucinations, compliance issues, high upfront cost, and endless rounds of discussions to remove internal resistance? Apply four recommendations as you innovate with AI. We promise that these are proven accelerators of your journey:
This post was written by VP, Principal Analyst Sam Higgins and Principal Analyst Bernhard Schaffrik and it originally appeared here.