Government must deliver
People experience government through whether its institutions and services actually work. Delivery capacity is not secondary to policy. It determines whether policy becomes real.
A field-level agenda for government that works
Government needs to work. AI gives us an opening
A generational technology shift is changing what small, capable teams can build and how quickly they can learn. The opportunity is not to bolt AI onto government as it exists. It is to use this moment to build the lasting capacity government needs to deliver.
The basic argument
The technology changed. The obligation did not.
AI creates an opening
AI changes the economics of building software, analyzing information, and redesigning work. It gives government and its partners new room to move.
Digital is the opening, not the destination
Better digital delivery should create pressure and proof for deeper reform: a stronger public workforce, right-sized procedure, purpose-fit infrastructure, and incentives organized around outcomes.
See Recoding America’s full strategyThe working agenda
Five priorities for the field
These are choices about where the field should concentrate effort, authority, talent, and money. They are a starting position, not a catalog of every useful activity.
- 01
Build government’s capacity to deliver
Build permanent multidisciplinary teams, modern talent systems, and leaders with the authority to own outcomes and continuously improve services.
4 efforts underway · 5 organizations NiskanenNAPAWork for AmericaThe People Lab +1 - 02
Use AI to redesign work and right-size procedure
Remove inherited process, reporting, approval, and compliance burdens as services, roles, and controls are redesigned, instead of using new tools to accelerate old routines.
- 03
Build shared public digital infrastructure
Invest in reusable components, standards, data infrastructure, and institutions that solve recurring problems across government.
- 04
Align funding, procurement, and oversight with delivery
Fund capable teams, learning, measurable outcomes, and responsible iteration rather than static plans and prescribed solutions.
- 05
Turn implementation knowledge into field capacity
Make practical experience, evidence, decisions, and reusable artifacts easier to find, trust, adapt, and improve.
What could happen next
A strategy should make the next move visible.
Opportunities are specific pieces of work that could advance the Agenda if they attract the right owner, partners, talent, or funding.
Committed is a stage an opportunity reaches when someone takes responsibility for moving it forward. Until then, these are possible bets being shaped in public, not promises.
Scoping
Explore all opportunities Open-source kernel for state unemployment insurance
Explore a shared, modular service layer that states could adopt around unemployment insurance, reducing repeated procurement and making it easier to improve the claimant experience without replacing every underlying system at once.
ExploringStartup accelerator for public-sector infrastructure
Explore an accelerator for teams building foundational products and services that public agencies repeatedly need, pairing patient support with government design partners and help navigating the public market.
ExploringBuild hands-on AI capacity inside congressional committees
Explore whether congressional committees could pair embedded technical practitioners with serious model access and wraparound support to expand committee capacity and give staff firsthand experience of what AI makes possible.
For people working in this field
This is a point of view to build on and argue with.
The public agenda will stay clean and coherent. Behind it, the Workbench will show what is in development, where input is useful, and what happened to the ideas people contributed.
You will be able to
- Challenge the diagnosis
- Share evidence and implementation experience
- Improve or propose an action
- Lead, fund, or support an opportunity
Contributions will inform editorial decisions. Recoding America will retain final responsibility for what appears in the Agenda.
Workbench opening with the public draft