Paul Dommel, Partner, Federal Tax and Finance Consulting at IBM

August 18, 2024

Presented by IBM

Transforming Federal Agencies with AI: Opportunities and Strategies

Paul Dommel, Partner, Federal Tax and Finance Consulting at IBM discusses the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) across federal agencies. AI is being leveraged in three primary areas: enhancing citizen interactions, optimizing mission-driven processes and improving back-office functions. Dommel highlights successful use cases, such as using AI and automation to drastically reduce the time for processing documents at the Department of Veterans Affairs from 30 days to 30 minutes. This shift not only accelerates service delivery but also repositions staff to more strategic roles. He emphasizes that AI should not replace human jobs but rather augment them, allowing employees to focus on higher-value tasks. Dommel also advises agencies to align AI implementations with their mission objectives, performance challenges and cost-reduction goals to ensure that AI investments are impactful and effective.

Key Takeaways:

1. AI is being utilized to enhance citizen services, streamline mission processes, and improve back-office functions, leading to significant efficiency gains.
2.  The Department of Veterans Affairs' use of AI to expedite document processing demonstrates AI’s potential to transform government operations and staff roles.
3.  Agencies should align AI strategies with their core mission and performance challenges, focusing on improving service delivery and reducing operational costs.