Home Affairs opens internal "conversation" on adopting three types of AI

Home Affairs considers itself to be closer to the start of its adoption of AI, with the present focus on framing a department-wide “conversation” about the technology after earlier behind-the-scenes preparatory work.

Speaking at the ServiceNow Federal Forum in Canberra, CIO and first assistant secretary of digital delivery services Matt Hay said Home Affairs had an interest in three forms of AI: assisted, embedded and agentic.

“We’re trying to position conversations in the context of the notion of assisted AI, Copilot being an obvious example there,” Hay said.

Embedded AI is more related to AI capabilities built into existing platforms, such as ServiceNow, which Home Affairs uses for SecOps and other security-oriented use cases.

“ServiceNow is a really good example [of embedded AI]. We’re a ServiceNow user, it comes with AI capability. How do we want to unlock that?” Hay said.

Lastly, the department is looking at agentic AI although it was not clear what the specific use cases for this might be.

“We’re trying to frame conversations and a strategy and approach across those three [AI] domains,” Hay said.

“We're very much, I think, right now at the start in the assisted space and what we can do from [a] productivity [perspective], and we've also organisationally looked at it from an operating model perspective,” he said.

The department laid foundations for a more coordinated internal conversation on data and AI earlier this year when it restructured, bringing “data and AI capabilities in the organisation much closer into a technology group”.

“Now we're thinking about how we operationalise that,” Hay said.

“I think one of the things that we're really thinking about is how do we create some sort of incubator where we can look at really deliberate use cases, start slow and steady to prove value and then how do we then get them into broader use. 

“That's where we're at at the moment.”

Broader prioritisation focus

Hay said that more broadly in the technology space at Home Affairs, one of the main challenges is around “prioritisation” of activities and even resourcing applied to the various platforms and applications under its purview.

“Home Affairs is a very diverse portfolio, with lots of challenges,” Hay said.

“I think right now our biggest challenge is prioritisation. Demand, particularly for IT-enabled change, always exceeds our ability to resource that and fund it, so how do we prioritise effectively across different domains, which are really important to the country. 

“You've got trade and cargo, you've got national security, you've got securing our borders through travel movements. We've got to think about investments in technology as well and AI.

“So I think prioritisation is the real key.”

Hay said that the focus on prioritisation was not just about what new work to undertake, but also how to manage existing assets and systems.

“In the current environment, we're even starting to think about prioritisation in a run and operate space,” he said.

“We've got a very diverse application and platform suite. 

“In the current environment, I think the conversation we're having right now is [that] not every platform, not every application serves the same purpose and therefore has the same value, so from a day-to-day basis, how do we allocate resources and money across that application and platform portfolio? 

“That's not just a money and technology thing. It's a cultural and change management challenge as well.”