In government, the era of “please hold” may soon be over
How AI and automation are helping agencies reduce friction across service delivery
Government agencies are being asked to do what feels impossible: deliver faster, more responsive services while operating with tighter budgets, leaner teams and often volatile and unpredictable policy demands.
This pressure is not theoretical. This shows up everywhere: backlogged calls, paper-heavy processing, slower decisions and preventable fraud.
According to the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, SNAP trafficking was estimated at 1.6% of benefits, or about $1.27 billion annually, in the 2015–2017 study period. At the same time, contact centers are getting squeezed from the other side: 57% of customer care leaders expect call volumes to increase over the next year, according to McKinsey.
Some agencies, however, have discovered that reducing friction does not mean reducing service. It starts with two hard truths: the path forward is making operations smarter, so agencies can protect residents and beneficiaries while strengthening trust at scale.
Related: For public servants, the year ahead may feel uncertain. Here’s why it shouldn’t.
Expectations have changed
People interact with banks, retailers and healthcare providers in real time, from their devices, with clear status updates and immediate confirmation. When government services can’t match that pace, frustration grows quickly. Residents and taxpayers don’t see the internal complexity. They only feel the friction.
For years, agencies have done extraordinary work keeping critical programs running through a combination of dedicated staff, institutional knowledge and workaround-heavy processes. But as systems age and program requirements evolve, those workarounds become harder to sustain. Manual effort expands. Exceptions grow. One small issue turns into thousands of downstream tasks.
This is also where risk lives. When staff time is consumed by repetitive steps and manual reconciliation, it becomes more difficult to maintain consistent decisions and deliver timely services answers to the people who need them. Backlogs are not just operational problems. They are trust problems. When a member cannot get a clear answer, or a provider is waiting on a payment update, confidence erodes.
Related: Your call is important to us: How AI is quietly reshaping government help lines
The shift: Automation as a service strategy
Automation is often treated as a technology upgrade. In reality, it is a service strategy.
The simplest way to describe the value is this: automation reduces the number of times people have to touch the same work. That includes staff, providers and members. It reduces duplicate data collection. It removes unnecessary routing. It handles repeatable tasks consistently. And it creates cleaner handoffs between systems and teams.
This matters because so much of agency workload is predictable. Document intake, data validation, status checks, correspondence generation and triage can be streamlined when designed intentionally. When those steps run with fewer manual interruptions, time for more service to members is the reward. Not through staff working harder, but through the system creating less friction in the first place.
The result is not only faster processing. It is a smoother experience across channels. Members receive clearer actionable information. Staff spend less time searching and more time helping and resolving. Providers deal with fewer exceptions and fewer avoidable delays.
In practice, agencies reduce friction by automating the steps that create delays and confusion: intake, validation routing and status updates. When those moments run consistently in the background, staff spend less time chasing work and more time resolving it. Members get faster answers. Providers get fewer exceptions. And payments move with less disruption.
AI in government is getting real
The most visible proof point is government payments, where fraud and disruption show up fast. In a GenAI pilot with Microsoft that is now live, Conduent significantly increased fraud detection capacity for its largest open-loop payment card programs, allowing a small team to monitor tens of thousands of accounts for suspicious activity with improved accuracy. We’re now working to scale similar AI methods across Medicaid and EBT programs, including SNAP, to help detect identity theft, account takeover and improper usage at approved retailers.
That same push is improving the beneficiary experience, too, by giving contact center agents instant access to accurate, program-specific information and reducing call handling time.
Applying AI and automation in government payments
At Conduent, we’re applying AI and automation in ways to help government agencies and their teams strengthen how they support residents.
With some clients, we’re integrating three AI-driven capabilities directly into call center operations. Conversational AI helps identify a caller’s intent and quickly direct them to the right resource, reducing transfers, agent opt-outs and wait times. In addition, our Automated QA uses AI to evaluate every interaction—not just a small sample—giving supervisors real-time visibility into performance, coaching opportunities and process adherence. Together, these capabilities boost efficiency, lower costs and create more consistent, positive experiences for the residents we serve.
Related: In government healthcare, AI is the tool, not the point
Doing more, without compromising trust
Automation and AI are reshaping government services because they address the problem agencies live with every day: too much work, not enough time and no room for instability.
When implemented with a member-first mindset, these capabilities help agencies reduce burden, accelerate decisions and strengthen trust across the HHS ecosystem. That is what doing more with less should mean.
Conduent works with state agencies to modernize Medicaid, human services, and government payments, with a focus on outcomes, stability, and real-world execution.
To learn how person-centered intelligence, automation, and AI can support your modernization goals, connect with our team and explore what is possible. Learn more now at https://www.conduent.com/government-solutions/.