How AI in government cuts queues, enables 24/7 support, and strengthens disaster planning without getting stuck in procurement?

Artificial intelligence is no longer a “someday” tool. In this episode of Intelligence Optimised, host Todd Crowley sits down with Curtis West to unpack how AI in government can lift service delivery across councils and small national governments alike. We cover where machine learning fits (forecasting, anomaly detection, asset planning) and where AI agents change the game - moving beyond basic chatbots to actions that help residents complete payments, renew permits, or lodge applications.

The discussion starts with first principles: ML for optimisation and decisions from data; generative tools and agents for natural, human-centred interaction. From there, we go straight to use cases: 
✔️Licensing and permit renewals to cut queues; 
✔️24/7 citizen support that answers and acts; 
✔️Predictive maintenance using IoT and vision (even pothole detection on garbage trucks); 
✔️Disaster logistics that model options in seconds rather than weeks. Brisbane City Council provides the scale reference;
✔️Mauritius and Sri Lanka show how smaller Indo-Pacific nations can leapfrog through agile moves and targeted investment.

We also deal with the hard bits that stall projects - procurement cycles that lag fast-moving tech, and data silos that starve models. The remedy is a measured pathway: run small, measurable pilots; communicate results; and build from there. Curtis’ Eliminate - Support - Extend model helps leaders stage the work: eliminate manual, error-prone tasks; support staff with decision tools; then extend capability with new services like 24/7 assistance.

If you lead a state or local agency, or run service delivery in a council, this episode gives you a clear starting point: pick high-volume, low-complexity pain points, design a pilot with hard metrics, and address procurement and data issues up front. The national-interest payoff is real - faster services, better resilience, and citizens who see government work for them across Australia, New Zealand and the wider Indo-Pacific.

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