126 EYEBROW to overcome the myriad of challenges they face, says Ion. “These agencies are under immense pressure to maintain financial stability so local and national economies continue to thrive, despite converging geopolitical, societal and environmental crises,” she says. “Many organisations are dealing with challenges caused by budget cuts, the ageing workforce, skills shortages and other factors, so they’re trying to decrease costs, increase operational efficiencies and achieve more with fewer resources. They can achieve all of this with AI tools.” Solutions such as Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance, for example, use generative AI to automate many of the routine, time-consuming administrative tasks employees typically carry out manually. “AI can automate processes for tasks such as data consolidation and analysis, revenue and tax collection, or procurement and grant management,” says Ion. “This saves time and also removes the administrative burden from employees, freeing them up to focus on highervalue tasks.” Organisations can also use solutions like Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to develop AI agents or virtual assistants, which can quickly extract key information from multiple structured and unstructured data sources to equip employees with the detailed insights they need to complete tasks more efficiently. “An AI agent could help an employee to analyse a company’s financial data alongside public finance policies and legislation to expedite the auditing process and ensure compliance,” suggests Ion. “Meanwhile, AI agents in contact centres can automatically summarise insights from conversations, determine citizen sentiment and recommend the best actions for employees to take in real time, enabling them to hyper-personalise interactions and increase first contact resolution rates.” Public finance agencies can also build selfservice portals for citizens, who can interact with AI agents to get quick answers to basic queries or assistance with completing processes such as paying for permits or submitting tax declaration forms. FEATURE AI tools are helping the UK Government's Rural Payments Agency to rapidly distribute agrienvironment payments to thousands of farmers, landowners and others every year Photo: iStock/coldsnowstorm
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