One of the most important modernization efforts federal agencies can invest in today is building mission-ready contact centers. Today, contact centers sit at the front lines of service delivery connecting citizens to their government to navigate application processes for essential benefits, access information in formats that make sense to them, and interact with agencies in myriad ways for routine interactions or during critical moments.
As our world grows more complicated, these critical moments are more frequent and consequential. One agency that feels the very real impact of this changing world is the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Service (CJIS). CJIS is responsible for providing technology services and tools to three key stakeholder groups – citizens, state and local law enforcement and intelligence agency partners both domestically and internationally.
From triaging tips from the FBI tipline to conducting background checks, firearm purchase authorizations, and roadside inquiries from police departments, CJIS is tasked with millions of inquiries against its databases each day. Moreover, most of the inquiries must be completed accurately within seconds of being received. And inevitably, in matters of law enforcement, a fair percentage of these inquiries can carry life-or-death consequences. With such an impactful mission, Tim Ferguson, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice and Information Service, has prioritized investment in contact center modernization as part of the CJIS 2030 strategy, which focuses on transforming how data and services are provided to not only intelligence partners and law enforcement but to citizens as well.
While many elements of CJIS 2030 are familiar to federal modernization strategies, such as moving to the cloud to facilitate data interoperability and accessibility, what Ferguson and his team have planned and how they are approaching transformation is visionary. For example, for law enforcement, CJIS 2030 prioritizes a single sign-on environment to support law enforcement underpinned by a sophisticated data mesh that allows data to live where it is and be applied where it is needed. For citizens, the FBI has already deployed a text-to-web system for reporting tips that eliminates the need to call the FBI and attempt to navigate the phone system, which is routinely overwhelmed. Whether it is in effect today or planned for release in the next four years, CJIS’s vision and strategy are firmly grounded in stakeholder and customer centricity.
What makes these significant changes possible is not only the cloud, which facilitates data movement and usage with a single source of truth, but also automations powered by AI. For Evan Davis, Executive Managing Director for Federal Growth at Maximus, the use of automations has enabled CJIS to deliver a high-value, quick win. “You can’t boil the ocean when it comes to CX,” Davis shared during a conversation with Ferguson and Gov CIO Media and Research’s Silvia Oakton. “You have to find the right tool for the right problem … and connect CX goals to the mission.”
When CJIS automated certain parts of the firearm purchase authorization process, 94 percent of adjudications were completed within 15 minutes, with only 6 percent sent to humans for additional review. Similarly, for the FBI’s tipline, all calls are now transcribed and automatically delivered to the examiner in the correct format for handoff to law enforcement. Tips are also triaged by AI to identify the most urgent or significant ones. In both instances, even this very simple use of AI with strong human-in-the-loop oversight yields significant time savings. After all, as Ferguson noted, “the FBI must be efficient with what they have,” and automation supports both budgetary and personnel constraints that federal agencies typically face.
In many ways, the discussion about why it’s essential for agencies to modernize contact centers and strategies to deliver success is just the beginning. Ferguson and Davis also shared their thoughts and insights on how to secure data, including sensitive data that contains PII and PHI, and the importance of a governance board to ensure use cases are mission-aligned and that shadow AI doesn’t permeate agency networks and introduce security vulnerabilities.
To learn more about security, governance, and how CJIS is transforming and modernizing agency technology and processes without disrupting teams and mission-critical workflows, watch the video below.
If you’ve only got a limited amount of time or want more information on a particular area, check out the timestamped conversations to help you learn more quickly.
- 5:09 to 7:20 – Maintaining continuity of operations during transformation
- 14:55 to 19:35 – Putting data to work to deliver Predictive decision-making
- 24:34 to 27:32 – Managing risk and security in a data-forward environment