Understanding How to Leverage AI to Improve Public Services
Around the world, governments are deciding how to responsibly use AI to meet the needs of their constituents.
Ontario’s Grey County wanted to do the same. The County’s Digital Service Working Group reached out to Code for Canada to explore how AI could improve the design and delivery of their services.
The Challenge
Code for Canada’s team only had two 90-minute sessions to guide the Grey County team through the current state of AI technology and explore how it could be applied in their unique context.
Our Software Developer Chapter Lead Russell Hoy and Senior UX Designer Jesse Hammond got to work designing two impactful workshops with actionable insights for the Grey County team.
Our Approach
Our team wanted to leave the Grey County staff with a strong understanding of the potential and pitfalls of using AI to deliver public services.
In the first workshop, they walked staff through a primer on current AI technologies and led a brainstorming session on how they could be applied to improve public services.
The second workshop used Code for Canada’s Options Analysis framework to better understand which AI tools might best serve the County’s needs.
The Code for Canada team asked County staff to brainstorm positive headlines about an improved service. From there, they considered possible solutions and how technology (like AI) could play a role. Finally, they asked staff to consider how they might test an idea with users and use their feedback to inform a future solution.
The Outcome
The workshops gave Grey County staff a strong understanding of current technologies on the market and a framework for understanding how to assess their needs and determine a possible solution.
“The approach [of] identifying, understanding and workshopping a real problem was great and has practical application outside of AI,” shared a member of the Grey County team.
Want to Learn More?
Interested in exploring how your team could leverage AI? Get in touch.
