Unlocking Tomorrow:

A playbook that explores the power of agentic AI for the Public Sector

PwC Insight Experience / Survey Template Hero
  • Insight
  • 4 minute read
  • September 15, 2025

Agentic AI is helping public sector organisations work smarter, deliver faster services and unlock new value. This playbook outlines how to build the right foundations and deploy AI agents to drive meaningful outcomes for citizens, educators and defence organisations.

Agentic AI has the potential to deliver significant benefits across almost every industry, with the public sector among the greatest beneficiaries. By integrating agentic AI into public services, governments can not only enhance responsiveness and citizen satisfaction but also stimulate economic growth through automation, increased productivity, and data-driven decision-making.

Already, AI agents are improving the value and delivery of services while helping organisations anticipate future needs. When well-designed, these systems enable continual improvement. With the right infrastructure and governance, agentic AI can empower organisations to act as dynamic agents of change and help support broader economic growth objectives.

How agentic AI can help the public sector transform

Explore the future of public sector transformation with agentic AI. Created with leading experts from PwC and Microsoft, this guide walks through the essential steps to move from digital maturity to intelligent automation, helping public institutions deliver faster, smarter and more responsive services.

Understanding agentic AI

Artificial intelligence is set to revolutionise our lives and work. Past technological breakthroughs from the personal computer to the internet brought big changes, but AI promises to supercharge individual and business capabilities in exponentially greater ways—especially with the potential of agentic AI.

Understand how agentic AI can drive business value for public sector organisations with intelligent automation. By streamlining operations, accelerating workflows, and integrating processes, they enhance decision-making, improve efficiency, and free human capacity for strategic work. Secure, compliant, and scalable across departments, these agents help public sector organisations unlock new value and transform the delivery of services.

Showcasing the benefits for government, education and defence organisations

Public sector organisations face constant pressure to deliver more and better services with fewer resources, and to make the most of every bit of funding they receive. For many public sector organisations and governments, using AI to achieve these goals is seen as a clear priority.

Gain insight into how agentic AI will deliver benefits to stakeholders of all kinds, from employees to citizens and businesses to entire communities, including local, cross-regional and global—and in every context, from government to education to defence.

Building a solid, responsible foundation for agentic AI

Before they can reap the benefits of agentic AI, public sector organisations must be sure to build on a solid foundation that supports their responsibility of care for constituents.

Unpack the critical building blocks—from ensuring that their IT infrastructure is fit for task, including modern cloud systems and robust cybersecurity, to prioritising data privacy and security issues and fully addressing ethical concerns to build public trust. Understand how to manage the resulting change in organisations and make sure that their people are well-equipped to take full advantage of the new possibilities provided by these tools, ensuring agentic AI is deployed responsibly and delivers lasting impact.

Moving towards implementation and driving business value: a strategic roadmap

Successfully deploying agentic AI in the public sector requires a structured, value-driven approach. PwC’s agentic AI Value Chain provides a comprehensive framework that guides organisations through three critical stages—strategy and discovery, design and deploy, and scale and collaborate.

Discover how public sector organisations can assess AI readiness, diagnose current maturity levels, and prioritise high-impact use cases to embed AI agents into core operations. Delve into how AI initiatives can be aligned with mission objectives by evaluating the data landscape, regulatory environment, and internal capabilities, while addressing ethical issues to build trust from the start.

Public sector enterprises are exploring new frontiers and are on the way to creating organisations designed around intelligence on demand, where humans and AI agents work together seamlessly. This journey generally involves three stages: first with AI as an assistant, then as a digital colleague, and finally with humans setting the objectives and providing oversight while agents carry out complex processes. This journey is not only technological but structural, reshaping how governments raise the quality of citizen services while reducing cost, create new ways of learning and working in education, and strengthen national security through enhanced cybersecurity and defence. PwC’s industry knowledge and Microsoft’s technology can help public institutions throughout this process, so they can respond to today’s challenges while preparing for tomorrow’s opportunities.

Mauro Xavier,EMEA Microsoft Alliance Leader, Partner, PwC Spain

The importance of partnerships

For organisations wanting to successfully develop secure AI solutions, it is imperative to bring in a strong technology partner with the right capabilities, industry knowledge and functional expertise. It is equally essential to tap into proven industry expertise and knowledge to overcome barriers to implementation.

Learn how PwC’s strategic collaboration with Microsoft helps organisations take full advantage of AI agents as critical assets to support innovation, increase efficiency, automate workflows, and transform operations and citizen services. By leveraging scalable AI solutions and responsible AI practices—including robust security, effective data management, and transparency—these ecosystems deliver measurable outcomes and empower public sector organisations to stay at the forefront of technological innovation while serving communities efficiently.

Are you ready to shape the future of the public sector?

Download the playbook to explore expert insights, real-world applications and a clear strategy for scaling agentic AI to help your organisation lead the next wave of public sector transformation.

Authors

Didier​ Ongena, VP, Global Government Leader, Worldwide Public Sector, Microsoft

LinkedIn

Angus MacGregor-Millar, GM, Worldwide Defence & Intelligence, Microsoft

LinkedIn

Ana Rita​ Pereira, EMEA Public Sector Verticals Leader, Microsoft

LinkedIn

Yasmine​ Rifai, Senior Strategic Account Technology Leader in PS, Microsoft

LinkedIn

Mauro Xavier, Partner, EMEA Microsoft Alliance Leader, PwC Spain

LinkedIn

Agnieszka Gajewska, Global Government and Public Services Leader, Partner, PwC Poland

LinkedIn

Frederik​ Blachetta, Global Public Sector Data & AI Leader, Partner, PwC German

LinkedIn

Steven​ De Bruyn, Defence Leader Belgium, Partner, PwC Belgium

LinkedIn

Caitroina McCusker, Partner, PwC UK

LinkedIn

Follow us