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The recent report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Governing with Artificial Intelligence: The State of Play and Way Forward in Core Government Functions, is remarkable in its breadth. It maps more than 200 public sector artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives across 38 countries and the European Commission – covering areas from service delivery and justice to citizen engagement and public safety.
To show the scope of this activity, the OECD highlights where governments are most frequently applying AI across core functions:
This surge of experimentation is fascinating. It demonstrates how governments are increasingly embracing innovation to improve efficiency, accessibility, and responsiveness. But the report also makes clear that pilots and use cases alone will not deliver long-term results. What is missing are the governance frameworks and the digital skills that make AI adoption transparent, accountable, and sustainable.
The AI Governance Gap
While the OECD documents impressive momentum, it also highlights persistent institutional shortcomings. Technical capacity is not the core obstacle – governance is. Across countries, the same gaps appear:
- Central coordination and leadership are absent, leaving projects fragmented.
- Ethical and legal guardrails remain underdeveloped, slowing adoption and eroding trust.
- Algorithmic oversight tools such as audits or transparency registers are rare.
- Monitoring and evaluation systems are lacking, making it difficult to measure impact.
- Weak data governance undermines the scalability of AI solutions.
- Procurement rules remain rigid and unsuited for fast-moving technologies.
- Skills shortages persist at both technical and policy levels.
- Stakeholder engagement mechanisms are seldom formalized.
The result: a patchwork of AI use cases, impressive on paper but fragile without the structures to sustain and scale them.
Why AI Governance Frameworks Are Essential
The OECD emphasizes that frameworks – not pilots – are what transform AI from experiments into trusted reforms:
- Governance ensures coherence, preventing duplication and waste.
- Oversight builds legitimacy, safeguarding transparency and accountability.
- Procurement and data reform enable scale, rather than locking projects in silos.
- Monitoring provides evidence, proving whether AI is truly improving outcomes.
Without these, adoption risks remaining politically fragile and socially contested.
Beyond Technology: Digital Skills – Competence and Capacity
Digital transformation depends on aligning technology with institutions, skills, and leadership. NRD Companies’ Digital Government Competence Framework (DGCF) demonstrates how digital literacy, professional expertise, and leadership capacity must evolve in parallel with infrastructure.
This perspective reinforces the OECD’s central conclusion: while governments are eager to adopt AI, the foundations are not yet in place. The shortage of digital skills across the public sector remains a critical, unresolved issue – and without addressing it, AI cannot move from pilots to trusted, large-scale implementation. Ultimately, AI is not only a technological upgrade but a governance challenge that depends on people, institutions, and capacity.
Suggested Paths for Risks Mitigation
Lesotho provides a noteworthy example of how governments can take a governance-first approach to artificial intelligence. Instead of beginning with pilots or fragmented use cases, the country commissioned the development of a national AI governance framework and policy through the Ministry of Information, Communications, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MICSTI).
This decision places Lesotho among the few countries prioritizing building the foundations before deploying AI solutions. By establishing clear rules, ethical principles, and accountability mechanisms at the national level, Lesotho created a dedicated institutional framework for responsible AI adoption.
The approach demonstrates that sustainable impact does not come from rushing into experimentation. It comes from setting policies and frameworks that guide AI development and use – ensuring benefits while safeguarding society from risks.
Shaping the Future of AI in Government
The OECD’s survey of AI use cases is inspiring – governments everywhere are experimenting with new ways to deliver value to citizens. But the real foundation for long-term impact lies elsewhere: building governance frameworks that make AI adoption transparent, accountable, and sustainable and investing into digital skills improvement.
The next frontier of digital government is not about multiplying pilots. It is about creating policies that set clear rules and boundaries for AI – ensuring it delivers benefits while safeguarding society from harm.
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