Governments are entering a critical phase in the adoption of AI. It is already contributing to everyday public sector work, and the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to do so both effectively and responsibly.
The opportunity—if governments get this right—is vast. Many leaders recognize this and have set out ambitious AI strategies to improve public services and deliver better outcomes for citizens. Yet what is written in government strategies does not automatically translate into real-world impact. Across countries, approaches vary, and progress in turning ambitious plans into everyday practice remains uneven.
To understand this gap between promise and practice, we explored how governments and public servants are using, and are empowered to use, AI in practice. This research focuses on the human side of AI adoption, examining how it is experienced by public servants every day.
These insights are brought together in the Public Sector AI Adoption Index 2026, a global index that goes beyond measuring adoption to evaluate the conditions that enable effective and responsible AI use. The Index highlights practical steps governments can take to translate ambition into real-world impact for the communities they serve.
The Index is based on a survey of 3,335 public servants across 10 countries: the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, India, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia (KSA). It measures government effectiveness in deploying AI across five key dimensions:
- Enthusiasm — public servants’ excitement and interest in AI
- Empowerment — confidence and support to use AI in daily work
- Enablement — availability of approved tools and clarity of leadership guidance
- Embedding — integration of AI into everyday work
- Education — access to training
These dimensions reveal both areas of progress and persistent barriers to impact.
The Public Sector AI Adoption Index 2026 was produced by Public First for the Center for Data Innovation, with sponsorship from Google.
View the Public Sector AI Adoption Index.
