Martin Stewart-Weeks, Practice Fellow Digital Government Strategy and Leadership, ANZSOG(Opens in a new tab/window)
What should we expect from the new Chief AI Officers that form a key part of the APS AI plan?
In a word – trust.
There are plenty of other words, of course and we’ll get to some of those in a moment. But trust is the word. And trust is the test.
Wherever the AI game is being played, it’s a game about trust. It’s the game in government and the public sector. The heart of the game.
Which is why it’s deep at the core of the new Chief AI Officer role.
Perhaps the Golden Rule might go something like this:
How can we deploy AI in a way that makes government more worthy of trust?'
Trustworthy AI. For trustworthy government.
I’ve always thought of the difference between trust and trustworthy as the difference between a value or attribute (trust) and a way of being and behaving (trustworthy). What you might call “trust all the way down” – every decision, every investment, every leadership reflex and management choice, the way forward at every fork in the road (AI is all forks in the road), all wrapped in robust reflexes of trust. It’s always the same question – will this decision, this choice boost or drain fragile reserves of trust?
For Chief AI Officers, it’s simple. To trust or not to trust? That is the question.
And perhaps too an associated Golden Rule:
Public sector performance is never just throughput. It’s always about legitimacy.
Trust and legitimacy secure the democratic contract. In the end, that’s what Chief AI Officers are doing. Protecting democracy.
More immediately, the role is defined in clear terms - Accelerating AI adoption; driving cultural change and connecting across and between agencies. It’s about shepherding a “fundamental shift” in attitude and performance that drives “consistent and collaborative capability” across the APS.
Leading systems, not just agencies or projects. And the point is “demonstrable improvements in government performance”.
The expectation is “experimentation and innovation”. That’s hard. And it comes freighted with sharp implications for leadership style and competence. It’s offering “contestable advice”. Not the only voice but an authoritative, informed and persuasive voice. And it’s about the creative tension between innovation (their job) and compliance (AI Accountable Officers).
Crucially, there’s an explicit injunction to look for excellence and momentum hiding in plain sight. Look for early adopters and fearless explorers who haven’t waited for permission. Don’t hold them back; harness their momentum and use their energy to spread and scale.
So, if that’s the intent, what’s the context?
The context is defined overwhelmingly by the speed and intensity with which the AI game itself is changing. Its power and capability relentlessly opening up monstrous opportunities and crashing into brutal risks. Its rising capabilities of execution and quality ushering in, whether we like it or not, a new craft of public leadership - to direct squadrons of tireless, inexhaustibly brilliant and efficient agents who can do so much and who will keep getting things brilliantly wrong.
So, what do Chief AI Officers need to do?
Four things.
- Be alert (and occasionally alarmed).
They will need to stay open and informed, using AI Delivery and Enablement (AIDE) and other networks, their own research and an instinct for curiosity and following the game. They’ll have to keep up and occasionally call out legitimate risks that shouldn’t be ignored. - Accept that lifting AI capability is not a training exercise, it’s an exercise in culture shift and leadership.
AI skills aren’t enough and in many ways aren’t really the point. Of course there’s a base level of knowledge and confidence that APS officers will need. But the task is to integrate and embed those skills into new agency and APS-wide capability; the point is to lift the whole game onto a new level not just have a few individuals who can play well. And it’s going to need leadership craft, nous and practice that invites engagement and innovation. - It’s an enterprise play, not a race to individual brilliance
The point is to build and grow bench strength in all dimensions of AI – skills, capability, leadership, integration into workflow and systems. The canvas is the agency and its contribution to the larger APS system. - It’s a new leadership practice: human, humble and hopeful
It invites a new leadership practice - counterbalancing the intensity of digital connection with a focus on empathy, justice, and human dignity (“governing human”); recognising that the smartest person in the room is the room (humble government); and capable of sustaining a sense of optimism and agency in conditions that will often make both feel pointless (hopeful government).
They will need to adopt many of the new dimensions of leadership for the digital age – to be architects of trust, chief sense makers, to reflexively experiment and learn, to protect legitimacy as assiduously as they chase productivity, to connect change with purpose.
Most of all, it means exercising judgement, which is the inescapably human dimension of all good leadership. We know AI is growing more powerful and convincing. But it will remain silent on the crucial questions: how should we prioritise when values clash? Which losses are intolerable despite efficiency? What risks are acceptable when acting for others? These are questions of judgment and responsibility. Human questions. Leadership questions.
The APS is pulling together a strong suite of tools, roles and methods to build AI bench strength across and within the sector, which is the right thing to do in these contingent, volatile times. Pieces of a puzzle that offer a slightly better than even chance of pulling off the trifecta – coherence, capability and confidence.
Outcome? The APS leads the world in the intelligent, fair and safe engagement with AI, not courtesy of a confected league table but by dint of clear thinking, smart investment and well directed, exceptionally well-led hard work. Gradually, sometimes quickly, but always with focus and persistence.
In that game, whose outcome is nothing less than the continuing relevance of the public sector itself, these are the new Chief Wranglers and Head Coaches.
Good luck.