Although not a new challenge, another wave of government backlogs caused by manual processes, limited budgets and a reduced workforce is hitting the news. While immigration backlogs and delays in processing tax forms have characterized past years, it’s now reported that delays in passport application processing may extend beyond four months — and are likely to worsen during the busy summer months ahead.
The ongoing passport woes can be attributed to two factors: a record amount of applications, as travelers let loose following years of quarantine, and a department that has yet to restaff positions that were eliminated early in the pandemic. This isn’t particularly unique — in fact, many government agencies are currently in the process of undergoing modernization initiatives to reduce costs, improve citizen responses times and overall public perception.
We’re all familiar with the rapid advances in AI technology, like ChatGPT, with daily news stories discussing how it will impact the future. But what may be less clear is the underlying solution, natural language processing (NLP), which gives computers the ability to understand text and words similar to a human being. It’s incredibly complex and really interesting — but while NLP’s ability to wow consumers may grab headlines, breakthroughs in public sector back-office processes are no less important.
Let’s take a look at just how impactful intelligent automation powered by Machine Learning and NLP can be in the public sector, and how other agencies and departments can take advantage to improve their ability to serve constituents.
Intelligent Document Processing
Most of us have encountered NLP in some capacity, whether it’s using an online chatbot or actually having a full-blown conversation with generative AI. However, an operation that’s becoming widespread in the public sector is intelligent document processing (IDP), which leverages NLP to process human-readable documents. Government agencies have a ton of documents and data to process, and relying on humans to do this painstaking work can drain resources — so why not let IDP help with the workload?
Take the current passport debacle. The U.S. State Department is struggling to backfill positions and get through heavy demand. However, an IDP solution that leverages NLP to classify text and images could help process these documents in a matter of seconds and can even communicate directly with individuals that may have minor errors on their application, such as a missing signature. The beauty of this technology isn’t just in its ability to improve department efficiency and save taxpayer dollars on time-consuming manual processes, but it also reduces citizen response times. For many, having a valid passport is vital for day-to-day life, from traveling for business to visiting family members abroad.
IDP’s Impact at a Government Level
While there are several factors that impact public perception of government agencies, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to drive immediate improvement everywhere. However, an impactful starting point to building back trust is to address turnaround times that better meet increasing public needs.
Departments that automate data-heavy processes with IDP set themselves up for success in a variety of ways, including:
● Breaking Down Backlogs: To digitize records and keep up with rapidly changing demand, agencies need intelligent technology that can read diverse documents, classify them, extract relevant information and translate it into structured data types for further processing and analysis. IDP can help automate these complex document processes by turning input into actionable data with minimal human intervention.
● Expediting Inputs to Outcomes: From dealing with assistance applications and permitting requests to time-sensitive claims or invoices, IDP can ready and transcribe documents quickly and accurately. This helps to improve throughput without sacrificing accuracy and manage claims much faster.
● Reducing Risk: Agencies leveraging automation for document processing expect a high degree of accuracy to ensure processes run smoothly and without errors. The strongest IDP solutions operate at over 99% accuracy, and can be deployed on-premise in private cloud or physical servers to ensure complete control over data.
In the long run, agencies that choose to continue with patchwork legacy systems to support document processing are at greater risk of worsening challenges, as the amount of data continues to grow, and citizens seek to return to pre-pandemic levels of travel and innovation.
However, for those who embark on a digital transformation journey leveraging the power of AI to work smarter, the possibilities are endless. Further, as tech continues to progress, they’ll be set up to reap its rewards firsthand.
The author, Chris Ranalli is Chief Revenue Officer at Hyperscience.
