The agentic AI opportunity in government

People receiving consultation at government office

Consumer-grade digital services allow you to book a flight, transfer money, or make a dinner reservation in seconds. Yet when you want to interact with government services, the experience can feel frustratingly outdated.

This is because governments across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) face a persistent challenge: keeping pace with rapid technological advancement. For example, the UK government reports that one-quarter of the systems used by central government are outdated, resulting in £45 billion of lost productivity.

To enhance efficiency, save costs, and deliver the seamless experiences citizens expect, government agencies and departments must capitalise on new technology, such as agentic AI, as it develops.

Some government organisations are already implementing AI to automate routine tasks and help improve service delivery. The next phase will be adopting agentic AI in government. Here’s what agentic AI makes possible in practice.

The top AI priorities in government

ServiceNow’s AI in government research identified how the public sector organisations reaping the greatest benefits from transformation initiatives, known as Pacesetters, are using AI. The study found that this leading group, compared with the rest of the public sector, focuses on:

In addition, 59% of public sector Pacesetters have created new cross-functional workflows built on human and AI collaboration. Just 17% of other organisations have achieved this.

Use cases for agentic AI in government

Instead of just assisting workers, agentic AI can plan and act on its own initiative, pursuing goals independently while keeping humans in control of outcomes.

Today, public servants often sit in the centre of multiple specialised systems that weren’t designed to communicate. They’re the integration layer. And every hour spent moving data from one system to another is one fewer hour spent on citizen service.

Using autonomous AI agents, governments can augment employee efforts. AI agents can handle routine tasks, process requests, and execute deterministic workflows more rapidly—all within the institution’s guardrails—while creating an audit trail.

As governments across EMEA progress towards agentic AI implementation, here are three potential use cases they can explore:

1. Reducing paperwork burden

AI agents can handle documentation processes end to end, freeing time for workers. In settings such as social care, this allows employees to focus more on helping people instead of administration.

For example, an AI agent can transcribe a worker’s conversation with a client, extract data points, and automatically update a case management system.

2. Turning citizen portals into places of action

Representing an evolution beyond websites that house information, citizen portals can become places where things get done. AI agents can help people complete tasks such as renewing licences, processing payments, and tying new workflows to life events.

3. Advanced fraud and tax evasion detection

Autonomous AI agents can independently search through millions of transactions and flag cases that require further attention from a human, sharing the recommended action to take. As well as identifying suspicious activity, they can generate reports and trigger workflows for government agencies to take action.

How are governments using agentic AI?

Several governments across EMEA are already making strides in agentic AI implementation.

The UK government is developing an agentic AI companion to help people complete complex, multistage applications. It aims to provide personalised, proactive guidance through major life events, such as re-entering the workforce or moving home, and make dealing with government services easier.

Estonia is piloting a network of AI agents that can coordinate with different agencies to execute tasks, submit applications, and transact autonomously. For example, a citizen can ask to renew their passport, and the AI agent will communicate with border control to initiate the workflow.

In Germany, a federal data lab is developing an agentic AI assistant for government officials to use. The assistant will autonomously complete tasks and make decisions based on existing knowledge sources, helping employees access relevant information at the appropriate time.

In Nigeria, startups are working with local authorities to create multilingual AI systems that can understand Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and other African languages. Ghana-based firm Aya Data is helping to develop agentic applications informed by local context to deliver digital services in rural communities and informal markets.

These early examples show what's possible when governments move from experimenting with AI to embedding it into how services are designed and delivered. The gap between consumer-grade and government experiences doesn't have to persist. With agentic AI, public sector organisations across EMEA have a clear path to closing it.

Find out how ServiceNow can help you put AI to work for government.