Government Cautious of AI, SMEs More Willing to Experiment: ServiceGen’s Dr. Ian Oppermann

Large government agencies are still baulking at scaling up AI projects due to risk-averse attitudes to these technologies, according to ServiceGen Co-Founder, Dr Ian Oppermann.

Oppermann, who works with government and private enterprises to improve digital service delivery, says the ‘big end of town’ is cautious about AI due to “some pretty bad examples of AI being scaled up.”

“A pilot takes place with a small group of people all willing to do it [and] getting great results. It’s often automation or an augmentation [of capabilities] …when you begin to walk through the risks and broader considerations involved in scaling up an organisation, [people] very often lose the appetite quite quickly.”

In contrast, SMEs are more willing to ‘jump in and try new things’ using AI to scale their organisations and ensure they are nimble and fast enough to stay competitive.

Scaling AI becomes difficult when a capability – often…