Overcoming barriers to AI to unleash transformation in government
Many governments around the world are working to take full advantage of artificial intelligence to streamline their operations and better serve citizens – but too often legacy IT systems and other barriers get in the way. At a roundtable supported by Thoughtworks and held at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2026 conference, public sector leaders discussed how governments can prime themselves for an AI future
In many countries, governments struggle with old IT infrastructure that slows down workflows, data that is poorly organised and contained within departmental siloes, and a workforce that hasn’t been trained effectively enough to exploit new technologies.
These issues are blocking the effective integration of AI tools and systems that could make lives and jobs demonstrably easier. At a roundtable, supported by knowledge partner Thoughtworks and held at Innovation 2026, public sector leaders and experts described a range of concerns, returning time and again to the need for governments to understand the implications of legacy systems being left unaddressed.
When asked how systems were holding their organisation back, one participant from the UK identified a legacy mindset, that was influencing the IT teams they work with.
Part of the problem is a risk-averse attitude that, though well-intentioned, often serves to keep old, clunky systems in place rather than embracing the ‘new’, and that here, bold senior leaders with strong change management capabilities are key.
One attendee highlighted that other countries have embarked on a journey to tackle legacy, but the UK is “still running essentially a legacy of pre-AI IT services”.
‘Something dies on the way’
The same participant also noted that there often comes a point at which promising AI projects lose momentum, and never quite get it back. As they put it: “Something dies on the way… when we’re actually trying to get things rolled out”.
Another of the attendees said that from their experience, the default negativity surrounding transformative digitisation in government is often tied to anxieties around maximising value for public money.
When proposing a technology migration initiative, departments are typically asked to submit a cost and benefits analysis. As the speaker described it, these analyses often stress the avoidance of loss, rather than the active need for better outcomes in government.
Budgetary, political, organisational
Attendees said the challenges to dismantling legacy IT systems and replacing them with AI-powered ones fall into three broad categories: budgetary, political, and organisational.
When it comes to budgetary barriers, one participant said that business case evaluations for new technology systems can be “baffling”, and that consideration of not doing modernisation work is often vital to getting the go-ahead.
They described a particular border control programme that was “going to cost hundreds of millions… The business case was: if we don’t modernise the system, the border will be insecure, so the return on investment of that is infinite, because we cannot put a cost on a terrorist attack [on the country]”.
Because of the logic of this evaluation, the project got the funding it needed. Good news in this case, though speakers agreed there had to be a more reasonable framework for funding innovative AI system projects where the stakes are lower.
In terms of political challenges, attendees from the UK said that there was political will to innovate with AI in government.
“The signals from the top are, do it – let’s get the technology. It’s how that then translates into support locally for actually making things happen. And I think there is a little bit of a gap there, if I’m honest, between the white hot aspiration and then the ability to translate that into action everywhere.”
And there was an understanding of the need to think about the organisational structures to make the most of AI – but such considerations were in the early stages.
“One of the things that we’re starting to see is a sort of organisational resistance to AI – and not thinking big enough about it.”
This attendee urged those involved in government to grasp the opportunity “to really transform and rethink the way that we do business”.
It can change “the way we interact with citizens… and I think people haven’t quite latched on to that.”
The ‘Overcoming barriers to AI to unleash transformation’ roundtable, supported by knowledge partner Thoughtworks, was held at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2026 conference on 25 March.
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
