What we got wrong about AI in the public sector: A fireside chat with IDC

Dave Erickson

Public Sector Distinguished Architect

Elastic

Massimiliano Claps

Research Director

IDC WW National Government Platforms and Technologies Research

Everyone had a theory about how AI would transform the public sector. Some of those theories were right. A lot of them were not.

Join IDC analyst Massimiliano Claps and Elastic's Dave Erickson for a fireside chat about the assumptions, missteps, and surprises that have shaped AI adoption in government and public sector organizations.

From the hype around individual productivity to the harder questions of data sovereignty, agentic AI, and what it really means to keep humans in the lead, this is the conversation most webinars won't have.

Whether you're deep in an AI program or just getting started, you'll leave with a more honest read on where the public sector is today and where it's heading.

Highlights

• From productivity to mission: Why measuring AI's value by individual output misses the bigger picture — and what to focus on instead
• Agentic AI, for real: How the latest generation of AI agents can take on complex, context-dependent work that earlier automation tools couldn't touch
• Human in the lead: Why "human in the loop" isn't enough and what a more intentional, human-centered AI strategy looks like in practice
• The data sovereignty question: How geopolitical pressures are reshaping how European and APAC governments think about data control and strategic autonomy
• Data architecture for what's next: What needs to change in your data foundation to support agentic AI at scale

Additional resources

• Information: Elastic for public sector
• Article: Responsible transformation: Agentic AI for the public sector
• Article: Why government agencies need to move beyond monitoring and into observability
• Article: Why public sector needs AI-powered observability
• Article:How to leverage OpenTelemetry in public sector using Elastic