By Paul Hubbard - Assistant Secretary, Acceleration and Enablement - AI Delivery and Enablement Division
Over the past three months, I’ve been setting up the AI Delivery and Enablement function in the Department of Finance as its interim head. As I step back from that initial role, a few reflections stand out.
Across the Australian Public Service, AI is already being embedded into everyday work. The question is no longer whether public servants should engage with AI, but how we do so in a way that delivers real public value.
AI in government is often framed as a technology challenge. In practice, it is a delivery challenge. That shift is reflected in the APS AI Plan. AI is not a standalone innovation agenda—it is a capability that must be integrated into how government operates, alongside policy, service delivery, and institutional decision-making.
AI will not fix poor processes or unclear policy. What it can do is reduce administrative burden, improve access to information, and support better decisions. But that only happens if we focus on how work is actually done.
A central challenge in adopting AI in government is what might be described as a governance paradox. We cannot design effective guardrails without understanding how AI works in practice. But we cannot understand how it works in practice without using it. This requires continuous iteration between governance and delivery—testing in low-risk environments, learning from use, and refining assurance in parallel. This is not a compromise between safety and progress. It is the only way to achieve both. The APS AI Plan reflects this approach: an iterative, transparent model that allows capability and assurance to evolve together, rather than sequentially.
One of the risks in early AI adoption is that we simply layer it onto existing workflows.
If AI generates content that is then reviewed, rewritten, and summarised—often by other AI tools—we may be moving faster, but not necessarily delivering better outcomes for citizens. This is churn, not efficiency.
The real opportunity is to ask more fundamental questions:
- What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
- What does good look like in a specific program or policy area?
- How should workflows change when we’re designing with AI in mind?
AI changes the economics of information. Unless workflows change as well, much of its value will be lost.
Capability is the constraint
AI adoption is often framed in terms of access to tools. But now that access to ‘general purpose’ AI tools is spreading – including through the upcoming GovAI Chat trial – the constraint is shifting to capability.
AI is a socio-technical system. Its effectiveness depends on people, processes and institutional settings as much as on models. This is why capability building is central to the APS AI Plan, not as a training exercise, but as a shift in how work is designed and how decisions are made.
Governance that enables delivery
In government, governance is sometimes seen as a constraint on innovation. In practice, it is what enables innovation to scale.
Trust depends on systems being lawful, secure, fair and transparent. But it is also built through delivery—through systems that work and outcomes that improve people’s experience of government. The task is not to eliminate risk, but to understand it, manage it, and be clear about how it is handled.
A delivery task
The APS AI Plan 2025 sets the ambition. The task now is delivery.
That means iterating between governance and use, building capability across the workforce, and redesigning workflows so that AI improves how decisions are made—not just how quickly content is produced.
AI will not transform government on its own. The question is whether we will redesign how we work to deliver public value for citizens—or simply move faster at old processes.
If you’re interested in a deeper discussion of these issues, including how we are approaching AI delivery across government, you can listen to my recent conversation with James Riley on the InnovationAus podcast, in the episode Delivery: A GovTech Podcast(Opens in a new tab/window)