South Korea’s public digital services, typified by e-government, are rated among the global top tier, but the picture changes when it comes to usability. Compared with private-sector services, public digital services have been seen as not intuitive and lacking usability.

Against this backdrop, the government is actively pushing a public-sector AX strategy under the leadership of the National AI Strategy Committee, aiming to improve services for the public by using AI. It plans to introduce an AI-based civil-complaint handling system to remove barriers between ministries and drive innovation across administrative services. Attention is on whether this will lead to perceptible changes in the user experience (UX) of public services.

AI evolves e-government

First, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to draw up by the third quarter this year a plan to build an AI-based integrated civil-complaint platform. The ministry’s “AI integrated civil-complaint platform” has AI analyse the needs of complainants, present tailored solutions and automatically link relevant systems. This would allow people to handle everything from filing to processing at one place without having to move between multiple agencies.

Earlier, the ministry launched in March a “one-stop administrative service task force” to support people in handling all needed civil complaints in a single visit. The administration plans to first link major civil-complaint services such as Government24 and the National Petition Center, and later expand to systems across all ministries. The task force will be run as a pan-government cooperation body involving relevant ministries and local governments, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the National Tax Service.

It will also pursue improvements to offline, on-site systems. It plans to introduce a “complaint manager” system dedicated to handling complex civil complaints to support integrated management of the full process from receipt to completion. Complaint managers will be piloted in 22 cities, counties and districts nationwide. Each region plans to place 2 to 5 staff by field, such as construction and development, business support, environment and welfare, to provide services tailored to local characteristics.

Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung (윤호중) said, “AI technology will be a catalyst for redesigning administrative services for the people.” He added, “Centred on the one-stop administrative service task force being launched this time, we will do our best to save people’s valuable time and effort through redesigning civil-complaint services using AI.”

The ministry is also pursuing AI Government24, the Benefits Notifier, the AI People’s Secretary and mobile IDs as “AI service innovation tasks,” including the AI integrated civil-complaint platform.

Accordingly, it is building “AI Government24,” moving away from an existing list-style menu structure to provide services based on AI understanding people’s intent. According to the ministry, AI Government24 centres on “intelligent search” and “context-specific guidance.” Even without knowing administrative terms or procedures, people can ask questions in everyday language and AI will guide them through relevant procedures and required documents and link to application pages. To do so, the ministry is linking services from 325 organisations including central ministries, local governments and public institutions, and is working to open APIs and standardised data so that large language models (LLMs) can learn and use public services effectively. AI Government24 is set to officially launch in the fourth quarter after pilot services.

Success hinges on inter-ministry cooperation, spotlight on control tower capabilities

The ministry will also strengthen the “Benefits Notifier” service, which informs people first so they do not have to search for government benefits one by one. It will expand the range covered by the Benefits Notifier to about 7,500 types by 2026.

It is also speeding up the “AI People’s Secretary” project, which applies private companies’ advanced AI technology to administrative services. The ministry signed business agreements with Naver and Kakao in October last year, laying the groundwork for using public services through AI agents in private apps. It will also expand “mobile IDs” to enable safe use of AI-based digital services.

For AI-based public services to take root, cooperation between departments is essential, but it may not be easy because of bureaucracy. The action plan released by the National AI Strategy Committee spans multiple ministries and also requires legal and institutional adjustments. If ministries’ positions differ in this process, executing the plan may not be easy.

The government is focusing on encouraging cooperation among ministries under the leadership of the National AI Strategy Committee and continuously checking progress.

Vice Chair Lim Moon-young (임문영) said many items in the action plan “set time limits and, within that, force the ministries specifically mentioned to cooperate with one another.” He said cooperation among ministries is key to policy success in an AI era in which everything is connected.

He then said that after the breakthrough in AI came in 2012 with deep learning, South Korea did not make pre-emptive investments to prepare, leaving it with significant technological debt. He stressed the need to replace outdated systems and infrastructure and to overhaul laws and institutions. He also called for accelerating core technology development, securing AI semiconductors and data centres, regulatory innovation and industry support, as well as pushing education system reform for an AI-based society along with training AI talent.