Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for the Department of Revenue, State of Alaska
Senior Partner, Charles Hu, shares insights on leveraging AI to modernize The State of Alaska’s systems, enhancing citizen experiences
Alaska, New York, & Florida
Since the mainstream unveiling of generative Artificial Intelligence in 2022, every business, organization, and leader across our entire world has grappled with the question: how can Artificial Intelligence benefit my team and our goals?
While some argue that plugging in their specific AI tools will act as a silver bullet, this is not always true. The success of every team relies on three key areas: People, Process, and Technology.
Take our government as an example. Every citizen interacts with the local, state, or federal government to receive a benefit—whether it’s as simple as acquiring a driver’s license, registering for a business license, qualifying for Medicare, claiming unclaimed property, or receiving the Alaska dividend. We all submit applications, with many requiring annual submissions.
Today, employees manually ingest every application (in many cases, still via paper) using antiquated systems. Employees then authenticate and review each application for eligibility against the local, state, or U.S. Constitution through those same outdated systems. Upon review, they either approve, deny, or request more supporting documentation, which generates additional manual correspondence through phone calls, text messages, or physical letters. A manual appeals process follows if necessary, again running through antiquated systems. And the cycle continues. Do you sense a common theme?
Hundreds of thousands of government employees support these archaic processes that have remained unchanged for decades. On the other side of the coin, restless and angry citizens harbor very different expectations after living with conveniences like next-day delivery and on-demand car rides in recent years. But employees supporting these government programs aren’t to blame—they, too, have experienced the same conveniences as everyday citizens. Antiquated systems, designed and developed decades ago, keep these processes manual and archaic, dragging down the teams who just want to help their fellow citizens.
The Solution
Enter AI. While no salesperson should claim their artificial intelligence solution can single-handedly resolve all the government’s eligibility challenges—or your organization’s issues—it undoubtedly provides powerful tools to create a significant impact. As I mentioned earlier, the three key areas for every organization’s success are People, Process, and Technology. To evolve by leveraging Artificial Intelligence, organizations must first deeply understand all three within their specific context and the needs of their constituents.
At Saige, we are deeply honored to partner with the Leadership for the State of Alaska, Department of Revenue, Permanent Fund Dividend Division, and Office of Information Technology to reimagine the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend processes and technologies. Last year, the program distributed ~$1 billion and ultimately impacts every Alaska resident. Together, we aim to enhance the citizen experience, increase efficiency, and scale application processing. This initiative will save residents over 116,000 hours annually and tens of millions of dollars over the next decade.
You can read more about how we plan to achieve this, in tandem with our proprietary framework, here.
About Saige
Saige Consulting is a strategic consulting and technology development firm that leads digital transformation initiatives for enterprise clients. Leveraging AI, data & analytics, and machine learning technologies, Saige builds innovative and highly efficient operating models that dramatically improve client business results. Saige also enables enterprise clients to unlock the benefits of emerging Generative AI technologies to participate in the next wave of business process reengineering.