A shared digital assistant for the public sector
This is a collaboration between Swedish authorities, municipalities, regions, and industry, coordinated by AI Sweden. The objective is to promote national cooperation on AI for text tasks and create conditions for shared solutions in the public sector.
The ultimate goal is to support public sector employees and free up their time so they can focus on more creative and interpersonal tasks. Success requires public sector organizations to share critical resources while sharing the burden of gathering the data needed to create truly competent and flexible solutions.
Building a prototype for a shared digital assistant is one of the identified tasks to support the use of AI in the public sector. In this project we explore and identify how the prototype should be designed in order to be easy to use and accessible to every staff member, regardless of their technical skills.
Examples of tasks the assistant could be able to help with:
- Summarize and analyze large amounts of text
- Improve and edit texts to make them more readable and structured
- Create new texts such as reports, documents, and applications, customized according to specific templates and guidelines
- Classify documents and create decision support in administrative processes
- Develop personalized support to assist citizens best
It is a pioneering initiative that will free up time in the welfare sector and open up for more interpersonal and valuable work.
Julia Olander, innovationsledare på Göteborgs stad
What do we face ahead?
Public sector employees in Sweden deal with extensive and varied text-related tasks daily. These are essential to fulfill the sector's mission and provide services to citizens but are also often labor-intensive and time-consuming. At the same time, a significant shortage of staff is expected in the sector due to the aging population and declining labour force.
+50%
The number of people aged 80 or older will increase by almost 50% by 2031
Source: SKR 2022
+410,000
By 2031, the number of workers needs to increase by 410,000.
Source: SKR 2022
Alongside the challenge of a shrinking labour force and the increasing needs of an ageing population, there is also a lack of AI skills, computational power, legal requirements and, above all, the lack of Swedish data that reflects the specific needs of the sector. These challenges are too big for individual organisations, and therefore a broad collaboration across the sector with joint initiatives for AI is required.
AI technology is part of the solution
AI technology, especially large-scale language models, has the potential to greatly support this challenge. In a 2019 report, DIGG estimated that AI technology could create a value of SEK 140 billion annually in the public sector (1). Moreover, the report was written before big language models had had time to prove their enormous value.
The potential of large-scale language models is particularly relevant for public sector organizations as much of the data handled in the sector is text-based. Research also shows that using large-scale language models can significantly increase the efficiency and quality of text-based work (2).
- Agency for Digital Government (DIGG). (2019). Främja den offentliga förvaltningens förmåga att använda AI
- (2023). Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality. Working Paper 24-013, Harvard Business School.
How will the initiative be implemented?
The initiative is being implemented in three phases. Phase 1 was exploratory and focused on needs assessment, technology development, and establishing processes. In Phase 2, large-scale testing of a prototype (Svea) is being conducted, along with training initiatives and evaluation of the fundamental idea. In Phase 3, the goal is to find a long-term model for operation and continued development.
The project has developed a prototype for a digital assistant called Svea, which can already be used within the participating organizations. Svea is a web-based chat interface designed to be model agnostic and based on open source. This solution runs on infrastructure in Sweden.
In addition, the project requires extensive legal expertise, which is done in collaboration with the participating organizations. The aim is to design the system to be usable and adapted to the legal requirements of public organizations.
Change management is also a major part of the initiative. Employees and different levels of operations are engaged in finding new ways of working and using the digital assistant effectively and responsibly.
Timeline
Phase 1
- Conducted in 2024
- Funded by Vinnova and partners
- From the public sector: Kungsbacka municipality, Tjörn municipality, Gothenburg city, Region Skåne, Region Halland, and Västra Götaland Region
- Intel contributed the hardware infrastructure, including Gaudi2
Phase 2
- Funded by Vinnova
- Taking place in 2025 and continuing until the turn of the year 2025/2026
- Over 50 municipalities, regions, and government agencies are participating in and financing the project
- The AI infrastructure provider Airon is contributing the hardware infrastructure
Phase 3
- From 2026, the ambition is to hand over the initiative to a long-term operating entity
For more information, contact
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