Yesterday, we shared part one of our new Clickthrough podcast. Guests, Mike Raker, CTO of Maximus and Jason Schick, Vice President of US Public Sector at Genesys focused on how citizen expectations about service delivery are changing and the pressure this is placing on federal agencies. In the second part of the podcast, linked below, the conversation with Raker and Schick continues with a focus on how agencies can deliver the change citizens are demanding, all while working within the constraints of an agency budget.

For Raker and Schick, the two most important factors for federal agencies looking to improve citizen service delivery are partnership and the AI assist. Today, no federal agency can keep pace with the rate of technological change, so creating their own custom solutions is out of the budget and out of the question. And while COTS might be a less expensive option, it’s no secret that government agencies have unique requirements that aren’t easily bolted on to commercial solutions. What makes sense then is working with trusted partners that are fully invested in building solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of government, using best-in-class technology that has been proven to deliver results.

Where the public sector and private industry can work together to solve these challenges with the most innovative technologies, real results can be achieved. Today, AI defines the leading edge of innovative technology, but particularly when it comes to service delivery solutions. AI chatbots can streamline workloads answering simple questions and inquiries with great efficiency, while directing citizens with more complex needs to the contact center representatives best equipped to answer them. Moreover, AI can then analyze data received during an interaction to further enhance service delivery for future interactions. And these are just two examples from a growing list of how AI can help agencies improve citizen service delivery.

Federal government agencies have found themselves in the middle of a service delivery revolution driven by generational change and fueled by the power of AI-enabled technology. Long gone are the days when citizens were content to walk into an office to get answers to questions about benefits or government services. Even the days of turning to websites in the hopes of finding the right answers, they are seemingly part of the past too. Today, citizens want to be able to connect with federal government agencies in similar ways that they have become used to interacting with consumer brands: on their terms beyond the nine to five.

While government agencies might assume that the solutions they need to deliver this next generation of citizen services might be out of their reach because of constrained budgets, Mike Raker, Chief Technology Officer at Maximus and Jason Schick, Vice President of US Public Sector at Genesys, have good news. Raker and Schick joined The Clickthrough Podcast to share their insights on pathways to modernization for federal agencies looking to improve service delivery experiences for citizens.

In part one of the podcast, shared here today, and available on all major podcasting platforms, Raker and Schick unpacked the challenges facing federal government agencies in service delivery and looked at how smart investments in the cloud and total experience solutions can address the key issues without breaking budgets.

In the first part of our podcast on digital transformation trends for the defense community, Donna Settle, Vice President, Federal Defense for Maximus, former Acting CIO for the Department of Defense, Reserve Brigadier General (Ret.) Leslie Beavers, and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mary F. O'Brien  who served as the director of command, control, communications, and computer/cyber and CIO, J6, Joint Staff at the Pentagon, shared their thoughts on the evolution of the Fulcrum Strategy and much need innovation in identity access and management strategies in order to meet the demands of real world threats and requirements of the Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity.

We ended the first part of the podcast with a discussion about cybersecurity trends, but the conversation continued for much longer into other vital areas. The next part of the podcast continues to focus on digital transformation for the defense community but turns our attention to data, design, and the road ahead. Today, no organization can truly transform if it has yet to unlock the power of its data and makes that information interoperable across the entire defense ecosystem while still acting as a single source of truth. Without interoperable data any organization will struggle amongst other things to use AI to its fullest potential or capitalize on a full spectrum of intelligence that can reveal mission critical insights.

While technology grounds this modernization conversation, Settle was eager to discuss the broader underpinnings of a successful transformation – people and process. Without all three areas subject to change, digital transformation can’t be fully realized. Moreover, within the processes driving change, ensuring that human-centered design principles guide actions so that systems truly work for the end user and can support innovation at scale.

With so much at stake as tensions in the Americas and around the world continue to intensify, the ability of the DoD to leverage new digital tools and technologies in pursuit of national security has never been more important. You can learn more about digital transformation when you clickthrough to the second part of our podcast.