AI needs digital public infrastructure to work for citizens, World Economic Forum says
According to the World Economic Forum, coordinated government action will be essential to scale these technologies and build long-term public sector capacity.
The World Economic Forum says AI will only improve public services at scale if governments build on strong digital public infrastructure rather than fragmented systems and isolated pilot projects.
In a new analysis, the WEF points to digital identity, payments, and data exchange as the core layers that already support service delivery in many countries.
It argues that AI can make those systems more responsive by speeding up tasks such as identity verification, record retrieval, and payment processing.
But the Forum also warns that combining AI with digital public infrastructure will not work without clear safeguards. Interoperability, trust, and consent-based data use are presented as essential to making AI systems effective across public institutions while protecting users.
The wider message is that AI in government is no longer just a question of adoption. For countries hoping to scale public-sector AI, the bigger challenge is whether the underlying digital infrastructure is strong enough to support it.
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