Tag: BNOW
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India — data first, chatbot second
“Let’s do something with AI. It’ll surely turn out great.”That’s roughly how I imagine some of the planning happening in administrations worldwide. But how can it be done better? For that, today we look at India. Because before Delhi rolls out AI everywhere, it first makes its data AI-ready. That means: first, all data gets…
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Bremen — too late, or just in time?
Running late?Bremen adopts an AI strategy for administration. Why only now? Shouldn’t a strategy for digital government have been adopted ten years ago already? Yes — but. Because Bremen actually adopted a strategy exactly ten years ago that was already about digitising administration. But back then, nobody had heard of ChatGPT and co. AI has…
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To build or to buy? Is that really the question?
Build or buy?Anyone asking that is already off track. Because the real answer is more complicated. Ever since administrations around the globe started digitising, the same question keeps coming up: have software built, or buy an already finished solution. Sounds like a simple decision. But reality, as always, is more complicated. A recent piece from…
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The UK makes AI transparent
Trust through transparency:The UK example Many citizens are sceptical about the use of AI in government. At the same time, studies show that acceptance rises when users can see transparently where, when and why AI is being used. The UK is now drawing conclusions from that, and publicly showing where the state uses algorithms. On…
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Hong Kong hits the turbo button
90 percent faster?Hong Kong means business. What happens when you don’t just test AI, but really integrate it? It’s the question of our time. And Hong Kong now delivers the answer. In total, 30 pilot phases are running there across 13 authorities, including ten especially large flagship projects. AI is being used, among other things,…
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Digitisation? Do it yourself!
Officials digitising themselves…A dream? Singapore! Just imagine: employees of a German municipality being expected to develop the software solutions they need for their work and their authority themselves. Wild, right? But only in Germany. Because Singapore is betting on exactly that. In a new initiative, 22,000 civil servants are being enabled to develop simple and…
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Germany’s most digital society? Lives in Saarland!
You can’t always be first — but you should definitely try.Our winner of hearts this week: Saarland. Saarland and digitisation are two words you don’t often use in the same sentence. When we talk about digitising the German states, the names Hamburg and Bavaria usually come up. But even though Saarland is overall only mid-table…
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Municipalities❤️Startups
There are couples where everyone always knew they belonged together.And then there are couples like this one… In an unusual pilot project, the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation brought municipalities and start-ups together, to rethink processes in administration from scratch using the founders’ digital expertise. The first results are now in, and…
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One office… for everything?
Up to 160 administrative services. Countless websites and platforms. Ever more new accounts. It’s madness! And that’s exactly why it should soon come to an end. What interactions do businesses actually have with the state? The UK looked into it, and the result is as shocking as expected: businesses use up to 160 different services.…
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Only 14% of all authorities reach the highest digitisation level
The highest level of digitisation stays a distant dream for most German authorities. In the current study “Digitising public administration 2026”, the authors find: only 14% of authorities in Germany reach maturity level 4 for their online services — the gold standard of digital government. In other words: only every seventh authority delivers genuine end-to-end…
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German businesses give digital government a grade of D-minus
How do German businesses view digitising government?Could be better… Germany is digitising. There’s no doubt about that anymore. And once again, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce surveyed German businesses on where things currently stand — and got two different answers. Businesses consistently rate their own digitisation well. But they still don’t rate the state’s.…
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Is the ChatGPT killer coming from Europe soon?
EuropAI is coming. Here’s what Europe’s answer to ChatGPT means for Germany, businesses and administrations. Europe no longer wants to just watch when it comes to artificial intelligence. Great! And one of the most important projects for greater independence launched on 1 July 2026: EuropAI. What is it?An EU-owned generative AI, meant to do everything…
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AI as a risk? Just how dangerous the technology of the moment really is
AI could spiral out of control before we’re able to control it.Sci-fi? No. A warning from the United Nations. Anyone who enjoys reading novels set in the 41st millennium, or watching 90s action films, knows: if we don’t control AI, it could seize power at some point. For a long time that sounded very far…
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1,000,000,000 people use AI every week
“AI adoption has accelerated broadly, and unevenly, across countries and sectors.” That’s one of the core findings from the very first Independent International Scientific Panel on AI at the United Nations. AI is here, and keeps spreading further: more than a billion people already use AI every week. But the spread is very uneven globally.…
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Two women. Both self-employed. Their paths there could not have been more different…
What does digitisation actually mean in everyday life? Let’s look at an example. Sahra and Ana both want to become self-employed, as sole traders. What do they have to do for that? What hurdles await them? And how hard is the path? 🇩🇪 GermanySahra first has to do a lot of research. Because depending on…
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The most digital state
Why is Hamburg Germany’s most digital state? And what can other states learn from it? The Bitkom state index 2026 puts Hamburg in first place again — overall. Hamburg is no longer Germany’s most digital administration, that’s Hesse now. Still, Hamburg does a lot right. What can other states learn from that? 1. Digital infrastructure.Hamburg…
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This is what digital winners look like
And the winner is… Hesse.Why no other German state runs such digital administration. Hesse is Germany’s most digital administration in 2026. And while Hamburg remains Germany’s most digital state overall (including its economy), Hesse has fought its way to the top spot specifically in administration. Reason enough for us to get to the bottom of…
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Even in 2026, government mostly uses AI in the back office. Time to change that.
Even in 2026, government mostly uses AI in the back office.Time to change that. When we talk about AI in government, a lot of people immediately think of automated decisions, digital assistants, or the fully automated AI state. (Argentina, for example, wants to allow companies with 0% human employees in future.) But what does the…
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We have to get faster!
Europe doesn’t have a knowledge problem.Europe has an implementation problem!In the past, the vision was often missing. We now have more than enough of those. It feels like a new ambitious plan gets published and applauded almost every week. There’s just one problem: the goals have long been formulated, the technologies are known — but…
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How transparent is the use of AI?
There’s more and more AI — but far too little control. AI has arrived in everyday administrative life. According to the OECD, it’s now used in at least one area of government in 35 of 36 OECD states. Great! But there’s a catch: only 14 of 36 countries even require a mandatory risk analysis before…
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Imagine you move house and don’t have to do anything.
Vision? Denmark! Denmark wants to lead the way (again). Having already decided to abolish all official letters and rolling out zero-input government step by step, the new plan goes even further: government without human action. This so-called no-touch government follows a radical principle: it happens without anyone having to do anything. Automatically, often invisibly, proactively…
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30% less processing time for digital government?
You don’t need AI for that — you need good design! That’s not a bold claim, it’s freshly proven reality. Canada tried it out and radically reworked its administration around a single aspect: user-friendliness. Forms were cut down, texts simplified, and processes redesigned to follow the logic of the people using them. The result isn’t…
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Europe is currently building the largest digital identity infrastructure in its history.
And remarkably few people are talking about it. By the end of 2026, every EU member state must offer its citizens a so-called EU Digital Identity Wallet. We’ve already reported on this here before. The idea sounds unspectacular at first — a digital wallet on your smartphone. But the impact could be enormous. That’s because…
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Most people aren’t afraid of AI.
They’re afraid of losing control. Acceptance is one of the biggest challenges in digitising government. Because even the best software is useless if people don’t use it. In Australia, researchers looked into how citizens react to the use of AI in public services. The result is surprising. Acceptance of AI rises significantly when three simple…
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Imagine we founded Germany all over again. Completely from scratch.
What would government look like then? There’d be a single portal for all services provided by the state. It would access data on its own, apply for benefits automatically, and only ever ask citizens, associations, companies and other organisations to confirm things. For registration, every person would have exactly one digital ID, assigned automatically on…
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Spotting problems before they happen?
No crystal ball required. Just AI! Singapore is currently running an interesting experiment in government: can AI help identify problems that nobody has spotted yet? It sounds a bit like Minority Report. But unlike the film, this isn’t about crime — it’s about social problems. And about finding solutions BEFORE the consequences escalate. The basis…
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Imagine you never had to fill out a form again. Science fiction? No.
No tax return. No child benefit application. No re-registration. No pension paperwork. In fact, this could well be the next stage of digital government in Germany: bureaucracy without forms. And Estonia is already showing how it’s done. Imagine Germany in the year 2035: a child is born — and the system automatically recognises the birth.…