Tech Trends Transforming the Public Sector

Digital transformation in the public sector is accelerating as customers work to meet demands for improved citizen services, enhanced healthcare outcomes and modernized educational experiences. Public sector organizations increasingly rely on cloud and AI technologies from AWS to enhance service delivery, increase operational productivity and power the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) needed to support essential functions. 

To further accelerate this transformation, AWS undertook multiple initiatives last year. We launched a $50 million Generative AI Impact Initiative to accelerate adoption in the public sector, hosted important dialogues about responsible AI innovation and expanded our collaboration with Defending Digital Campaigns to offer low-to-no cost security services for U.S. federal political campaigns. AWS also committed $20 million to revolutionize the way we understand and treat pediatric healthcare and cancer. 

As this digital transformation gains momentum, here are five key technology trends reshaping the public sector in 2025. 

Generative AI adoption accelerates across U.S. government agencies

A 2024 AWS survey found that 89% of public sector leaders think it’s important for their organization to adopt generative AI, yet only 48% had started implementation. By the end of 2025, we expect government employees will have the opportunity to apply AI to some aspect of their work, enabled by the creation of robust, compliant cloud solutions tailored for public sector entities. This shift will transform how government entities deliver services and complete missions, driving significant productivity gains while scaling operations and accelerating innovation. In fact, research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) forecasts that generative AI applications alone could deliver an estimated $1.75 trillion in annual productivity value across government segments by 2033.

Across the global public sector, we’re seeing customers put generative AI to work. In the UK, Swindon Borough Council uses generative AI to transform complex government documents into accessible formats, reducing conversion costs from hundreds of dollars to pennies per page. In the U.S., the Nebraska Judicial Branch has revolutionized how 180 courts process legal exhibits, using generative AI to reduce search times across 285,000 annual cases from hours to seconds. The U.S. Air Force leverages AI-driven predictive maintenance to monitor operations and predict equipment failures, helping ensure mission readiness.

Government employees increasingly will use generative AI-powered tools and chatbots to automate routine tasks, find information faster and work more efficiently. It’s also been estimated that organizations could see a 30 to 45 percent productivity improvement with applying generative AI to customer care functions like call centers and I expect we’ll see further traction with modernized capabilities for reducing handle times and increasing first call resolution.

Generative AI advances healthcare research access and collaboration

In medical research, generative AI and cloud technologies are ushering in an era of collaboration by enabling secure sharing of large-scale health datasets across institutions. This initiative demonstrates how cloud technology serves as a crucial foundation, enabling secure sharing and analysis of distributed patient data collections.

Generative AI also addresses other key barriers to research by streamlining data management and analysis. It simplifies the complex task of aligning different data standards without extensive coding, making diverse healthcare datasets more accessible and analyzable. This capability extends to unstructured data, converting it into formats suitable for complex modeling and analytics. Researchers working with high performance computing resources have the burden of managing their infrastructure. 

Autonomous AI systems, known as AI agents, can automate these complex workflows, enabling researchers to focus on scientific discovery rather than infrastructure management. As this technology opens up a new era of open science and accessibility, researchers can now share entire experimental processes, enhancing reproducibility and allowing the scientific community to build on each other’s work. And, smaller institutions can now access advanced computing power and AI capabilities once reserved for well-funded organizations.

Investments in secure, personalized and applied learning experiences will drive education advancements

The education sector is experiencing major changes driven by personalization and data analytics.

We see the propagation and the increasing effectiveness of virtual AI chat teaching assistants for on-demand student learning, optimized critical student services systems’ to track performance and availability and creative and innovative exam preparation tools that adapt to students’ individual needs. These investments will continue to enhance the student experience. They will also continue to create a strong imperative for reskilling and upskilling university faculty in new and differentiated solutions to meet the diversity of student needs.

Along with this transformation, equipping learners with skills for high-growth jobs across public and private sectors is crucial. Institutions will continue to creatively invest in hands-on experiences with transformative technologies that address real-world challenges. Collaboration with governments and employers to address skill gaps will be crucial to align learning with in-demand fields.

Purpose-built processors and infrastructure improve AI efficiency

Speed, energy efficiency and cost benefits of purpose-built AI infrastructure support government resource optimization initiatives worldwide. 

Digital Public Infrastructure drives government productivity worldwide

DPI acts as a country’s digital backbone enabling essential functions like identity verification, benefit entitlement eligibility, paying for goods and services and sharing data. Today, DPI is further transforming government services globally by enabling faster, more efficient citizen services. This includes capabilities like providing instant access to government resources via smartphones and replacing inefficient, manual processes with efficient digital solutions for services like benefit applications, permit requests and document renewals.

Cloud technology is crucial to DPI’s success, offering the necessary scalability, reliability and security for handling large volumes of sensitive data, managing spiky demand and processing transactions across multiple government services. The social and economic impact is significant. India, for instance, saves approximately 1%, or approximately $43 billion (USD),of its GDP annually through DPI initiatives. If replicated globally, this could lead to worldwide savings exceeding $1.1 trillion per year.

Real-world implementations demonstrate DPI’s transformative impact. Consider Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Service, which manages operations across 12 states, has automated case processing using generative AI, saving over 40,000 hours annually while maintaining security and improving responsiveness to both plaintiffs and government stakeholders.

DPI adoption also accelerates digital modernization more broadly, resulting in more consistent public service delivery, increased digital inclusion and enhanced agility and responsiveness during crises. The real-world impact is substantial. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, governments with DPI reached an average of 51% of their citizens with direct benefit programs, compared to only 16% for those countries that lack DPI.

Dave Levy is vice president of Worldwide Public Sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Dave leads the government, education, healthcare, aerospace and satellite and nonprofit businesses globally. He and his teams help customers realize the potential of technology to transform their organizations and fulfill their missions.