Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

In Argentina, the Red de Innovación Local (RIL) experimented with its AI-powered platform, PortalRIL, to shift from fragmented work plans to an inquiry-driven planning process anchored in a “Question Tree.” By surfacing patterns, trade-offs, and synergies across teams, AI helped compress months of coordination into weeks of shared clarity. The result suggests that AI’s real promise is to expand strategic horizons and accelerate collective insight, freeing public servants to focus on judgment, identity, and long-term public value.

A new paper introducing the UbuntuGuard benchmark questions whether strong results on English-language safety tests consistently translate into responsible use. Built from policies developed by 155 African domain experts across ten languages and six countries, UbuntuGuard's framework assesses whether AI tools comply with the norms that shape services in non-Western contexts. The findings suggest that institutions, wherever they operate, need the capacity to define their own standards before using these tools to improve public-sector outcomes.

Max Stier argues that rebuilding trust in government begins inside agencies by recognizing and elevating the everyday excellence of career civil servants. Drawing on the Partnership for Public Service and federal workforce data, he argues that internal culture, not just external messaging, shapes public confidence. The post explains how AI can cut paperwork, reduce bias, recognize good work in real time, and tailor praise, helping leaders boost morale, reward strong performance, and better serve the public.