Foreword 3

Acknowledgements 4

Executive summary 10

1 Digital governments at a turning point 13

1.1. Digital government in a fast-changing world 14

1.2. Measuring progress to turn digital maturity into government performance 14

1.3. The state of digital government: real progress made, more still needed 18

1.4. Key challenges to moving from policy design to implementation and use 20

1.5. Realising the full potential of digital government 23

1.6. Setting up the Digital Government Outlook 27

Annex 1.A. OECD Digital Government Index scores 28

Annex 1.B. OECD Open, Useful and Re-usable Data (OURdata) Index scores 30

References 34

2 Strengthening digital public infrastructure and data governance 37

2.1. Introduction 38

2.2. Rollout of digital public infrastructure has accelerated across OECD countries 39

2.3. Governance of digital identity is not yet leading to wider uptake 42

2.4. Data governance continues to see a gap between strong strategies and weaker delivery 44

2.5. Interoperability of data and digital infrastructure is expanding but is still unevenly embedded 53

2.6. Resilience and sustainability: Cloud technologies and open-source software 58

Annex 2.A. Additional tables with country data 63

References 69

3 Governing digital investment and capabilities to deliver at scale 73

3.1. Introduction 75

3.2. Governing digital investment: progress in planning, gaps in delivery 75

3.3. Building digital talent and skills: Awareness is growing, but action lags 88

3.4. Building in-house or buying in: Finding the right balance 95

Annex 3.A. Additional tables with country data 97

References 101

4 Adopting and governing AI in government 107

4.1. Introduction 108

4.2. Government AI maturity has improved in most OECD countries 109

4.3. AI use in government has grown but remains limited in some policy areas 110

4.4. Enablers for AI adoption in government are maturing but delivery capabilities remain uneven 112

4.5. Guardrails are expanding but enforceable controls remain limited 120

4.6. Engagement around strategies is strong but sustained, user and cross-border involvement remain limited 128

Annex 4.A. Additional tables with country data 131

References 140

Notes 145

5 Building human-centred and proactive government services in the digital age 147

5.1. Introduction 149

5.2. Service standards are widespread, but applying them consistently remains a challenge 150

5.3. User engagement in service design shows promise but needs to be more systemic 155

5.4. Reliable services need joined-up delivery across channels, infrastructure and data sharing 157

5.5. Proactive services: Reducing burdens by anticipating needs 161

5.6. Stronger feedback loops are needed to drive continuous improvement 167

Annex 5.A. Additional tables with country data 171

References 179