Government & Public Services
Engage with governments and regulatory bodies to further public-sector readiness.
Governments are being asked to govern technology that changes faster than any playbook; with few proven frameworks and little support.
Governments at every level are making the biggest decisions about AI in public life without proven frameworks, shared standards, or meaningful input from the people they serve.
Most public officials making decisions about AI procurement, deployment, and oversight have had no training in how these systems work, what risks they carry, or what questions to ask vendors. They're expected to move fast, but they have almost no playbook for doing it well.
What We're Seeing
There's no shortage of principles. There's a shortage of practice. Over 190 countries have adopted the UNESCO Recommendation on AI Ethics. Dozens of frameworks, indexes, and guidelines exist (November 2021). But when a city agency needs to decide whether to deploy a predictive tool in child welfare or criminal sentencing, there is very little practical guidance on how to connect those principles to that moment.
The global approach is fractured. The EU has binding law. The U.S. relies on a patchwork of executive orders and agency-level guidance. AI Governance capacity varies widely, and many countries are still building comprehensive frameworks (Global Trends in AI Governance-2025). A 40-point readiness gap separates high-income nations from middle-income ones (Government AI Readiness Index). AI doesn't respect borders, but governance still does.
Citizens are almost entirely absent from the conversation. The people most affected by AI, those navigating benefits systems, healthcare, immigration, and the justice system, often have no voice in how these tools are designed, deployed, or overseen. Most don't even know AI is involved. In recent surveys, 37% of people said they simply don't know how AI is affecting the government services they depend on (Digital Citizen Report).
The organizations building AI are often the same ones advising governments on how to regulate it. This creates a tension that erodes public trust before governance has even had a chance to take root. Meanwhile, civil society groups, researchers, and advocacy organizations with deep expertise are under-resourced and under-consulted.
Everyone agrees AI governance matters. Almost no one agrees on what it should look like or who should lead. The result is a global landscape where urgency is high, coordination is low, and the window to get this right is narrowing.
Recent Coverage
Videos are selected for relevance to this Impact Area. Inclusion does not indicate endorsement of any speaker, organization, or position.
Key Issues
Tracked by authorities
Wrongly flagged
No way to appeal
When government tools fail
Buying AI blind
What We're Doing About It
What working with us actually looks like:
We start by finding what's missing. Before anything else, we work with governments and public-sector organizations to identify gaps in policy, practice, capacity, and public trust.
We bring the right people to the table, people who may normally not be in the same room. Our network spans policymakers, standards bodies, civic tech organizations, researchers, labor groups, and privacy advocates across dozens of countries. We connect these organizations around specific projects, not abstract conversations. A government trying to build an ethical AI procurement process shouldn't have to figure it out alone when someone across the world has already done the hard work.
We help build the plan, not just the vision. A lot of organizations can tell you what ethical AI should look like. We focus on what it takes to actually get there, the implementation roadmap, the partnerships, the practical toolkits, the pilot programs. We work alongside governments and organizations to co-develop strategies they can realistically execute with the resources and capacity they have.
We stay focused on what's measurable. Every engagement produces something concrete: a readiness assessment, an implementation framework, a set of policy recommendations with clear benchmarks. Organizations we work with leave with a plan they can act on, track progress against, and hold themselves accountable to.
We don't replace what's already working. We fill in what's not. Where strong organizations and frameworks already exist, we partner with them and help extend their reach. Where critical work isn't happening, or isn't happening fast enough, we step in to close the gap. The goals are always the same: make sure AI governance and its use in government are both shaped to benefit humanity.