If you’ve even glanced at the headlines on popular government news sites at anytime in the last year, you know that federal agencies are beset by problems created by legacy IT.  Archaic siloed systems, giant servers, antiquated programming languages, and cybersecurity tools from the dawn of the Internet are creating challenges for federal CIOs that are not only breaking the budget, but are also compromising the mission for many agencies.

So, our interest was piqued by CSRA’s Emerging Technology Day.  The event brought together several companies whose solutions are built on next-generation technology and will help solve not only some of today’s mission-critical challenges, but will also help federal agencies become agile and avoid re-creating the legacy IT conundrum.

While there was a diverse range of technologies from Artificial Intelligence-driven service assistants to secure sign-in solutions, what these next-generation solutions all have in common is the ability to help agencies deliver on the mission more effectively.  Let’s take a look at some of the tech we think government IT leaders should be investigating as we head into federal buying season.

Showcasing Artificial Intelligence

AI-driven solutions are among the most exciting offerings coming to market this year. AI is helping IT workers in many fields work smarter and deliver better results—and nowhere does this seem to be more on point than in the field of support services.

Unlike solutions in place now that can do basic things, such as field a call to the right department, AI-based support solutions like the one presented by Neva co-founder, Dan Turchen, can help tackle more complex tasks in a more human way.  Neva provides a cloud-based artificial intelligence agent for automating IT help desk support, reducing the need for agent intervention. Using artificial intelligence and natural language processing to create a more intuitive virtual assistant that can handle more complex problems reduces mean time to resolution, thereby reducing costs and increasing satisfaction.

Similarly, AI can streamline processes to make mundane but necessary tasks like filling out forms less onerous.  A presentation by Be Informed demonstrated how an intelligent agent can directly interpret and execute business rules, enabling government agencies to capture digital processes to become more efficient and agile. Specifically, the Be Informed intelligent agent enables a streamlined customer journey and ensures that it is compliant with agency rules and then can process case work using just a single portal.

With so many citizen-facing services—from immigration and benefit applications to tax returns—there are any number of agencies that could leverage a platform that shields its citizen-users from complexity while introducing agile workflow on the back end.

In our next Tech to Watch feature for FY18 we’ll take a look at emerging technology solutions that extend the benefits of the cloud for federal agencies.  If you can’t wait until then, you can find out more about these next-generation solutions here.