Extract from Laurie Usewicz’s article “Bridging Expertise and Trust: Introducing a Public Sector Competency”
There’s no way around it: Federal and state agencies face unprecedented challenges and extraordinarily high expectations. Managing growing data volumes, tight deadlines, and the pressure to maintain public trust adds up to no small task. Whether navigating FOIA requests, managing high-profile investigations, or responding to litigation under intense time constraints, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
At the same time, agencies are adopting one of the biggest disrupters we’ve seen in government technology: generative AI, which has rapidly grown in popularity across segments and industries. Offering transformative opportunities to modernize investigations, litigation, FOIA responses, and more, AI also introduces complexity—and the need for confidence in both the tools and the people implementing them.
As Gregory Barbaccia, chief information officer at the Office of the Federal CIO, recently noted, “AI is not just about automation—it’s about trust, performance, and enabling our workforce to meet the mission faster and smarter.” That sentiment echoes what we’ve long heard from our public sector customers: to move fast, you first need to be confident.
