Government services enter the AI era

The modernisation of digital government service has reached an inflection point. While the focus on delivering convenient, accessible, and reliable services continues, performance has plateaued. At the same time, the rise of AI assistants and agents is reshaping how citizens access public information, exposing a potential blind spot and testing the next phase of digital adoption, inclusion and trust.  

Despite efforts to provide self-service options and personalised experiences, citizens still face gaps in accessing effective, relevant content^[1]. This risks eroding public trust in the government’s ability, especially as artificial intelligence creates new ways for people to find and interpret information. 

Steady results mask a growing performance gap risk

Adobe’s Digital Government Index (DGI) assesses effectiveness across three interconnected foundational digital maturity dimensions: Customer Experience, Site Performance and Digital Self-Service. It assigns a score out of 100 to each, then averages the results to produce a single index. 

To capture what makes services accessible, usable and convenient for all citizens, the report also evaluates two key digital enablers. Personalisation capability measures how well agencies deliver relevant, user-centred experiences, while the new AI readiness assessment reveals how easily websites can be found, trusted, and accessed by both people and AI-assisted search tools. 

The latest DGI reveals that Australia’s national score has reversed the decline seen last year. After rising more sharply in earlier years, with double-digit increases across two dimensions and the overall score, more recent years have shown only modest movement. 

Individual agency results vary, ranging from 60.4 to 78.0 in this evaluation. Examining the strategies of top performers and those with substantial year-over-year improvement reveals why some are moving ahead faster than others.

Digital maturity levelling 

Five of the eight states and territories improved their DGI score in 2025. NSW retained its leading position for the third year running, but the margin is narrowing, with only four percentage points separating the top five. This indicates that digital maturity is levelling across Australia as governments implement both policy and practical initiatives to enhance the citizen experience. 

“Our Digital Strategy rollout has just entered its second year, and I’m proud of the strong progress we’re making which is reflected in NSW’s ranking in Adobe’s Digital Government Index. We continue to focus on making our digital services inclusive and easy to use, because improving access means we are enabling everyone in NSW to reach their full potential,” said The Hon. Jihad Dib, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, NSW Government.

A new blind spot emerges

Governments globally have embraced AI as a powerful ally in modern service delivery, streamlining processes and personalising interactions to meet citizens where they are. But as these technologies become the gateway to information, another question has surfaced: what happens when AI becomes the primary search tool?

To address the shift, the DGI looks at AI readiness, measuring how well public sector digital experiences are understood by, and surfaced through, AI-driven systems. The data shows uneven performance. While many government sites provide high-quality, accessible information, they risk being invisible to AI-driven search, potentially disconnecting citizens from the services designed to support them. 

The findings reinforce a crucial message: digital service delivery is not a one-time achievement. It demands ongoing investment into improvements that encourage usage, generate operational efficiencies and unlock the capacity to modernise further. 

Agencies that combine strong digital foundations with forward-looking optimisation for AI-led discovery will be the ones that maintain public confidence, remain easy to find and continue delivering impact in a world where intelligence shapes every interaction.

Read the full report here

[1] [1] State of Citizen Experience in the Public Sector in an AI-Driven World: A strategic guide to modernizing citizen services and digital governance, Adobe, 2025.