AI assistant training for Swedish public sector underway

The project, A shared digital assistant for the public sector, is a collaboration between Swedish authorities, municipalities, regions, and the business sector, coordinated by AI Sweden. The aim is to promote national collaboration on AI for text tasks and create conditions for joint solutions in the public sector.

"Based on the routines and guidelines we have input into the database, the AI assistant is now being trained to answer various questions. Later, employees from home care and home nursing will test the assistant to see if we need to train it on additional tasks. It’s important that they get the answers they need and that it supports them in their daily work," says Gina Johannisson.

By involving staff from, for example, home care, the models will become relevant and effective for the specific tasks in each specific area. In-home care, this includes a tool that makes it easier for staff to find information in the collected documentation.

Gina Johannisson describes the change she hopes for:
“Our employees will be able to get answers directly in their phones and when they are with the patient/care recipient. It will also make a big difference that employees receive quick responses in simple language, as they do not have the time to sit and read long routines or guidelines. This will lead to improved quality and safety in care and support, as well as an improved working environment for employees in health and social care. As health and social care face a major challenge in meeting the needs as our patient numbers increase, we need to find more efficient ways of working, and the digital assistant is a step in that direction,” she says.

The Swedish public sector faces several challenges in the coming years, with staff shortages being one of the most central. According to forecasts from Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, 410,000 people will need to be recruited by 2031.

Increased use of artificial intelligence is one way to reduce the need for recruitment, by finding new ways of working that increase both efficiency and quality in business processes. According to an estimate published by DIGG, the Agency for Digital Government, in 2019, AI has the potential to save SEK 140 billion per year in the public sector.

The training currently taking place in Tjörn, Kungsbacka, and Gothenburg involves home care staff creating answers to questions that will serve as examples for the language model to learn from. The next step is to use this training as the basis for actual AI services used by the staff.

"This can involve more general text tasks, such as simplifying the language in a text or summarizing a document. But also answering specific questions based on the administration's own documentation. This means that employees will not have to search through numerous documents but can instead ask questions directly to an AI assistant and receive tailored answers," says Jonatan Permert.

Until the summer, the first phase of work on the assistant will involve developing the technical solution and methods for data generation and change management, in collaboration with the three municipalities and the three regions participating in the project. After the summer, the project will enter phase two, where scaling will occur based on the insights gained, together with an additional 30 or so municipalities, regions, and authorities.