Long viewed as digital laggards, government agencies are emerging as pioneers of the agentic era. A new IDC study of U.S. federal, state, and local government leaders and decision makers reveals that 82% of government organizations surveyed have already adopted AI agents, and leaders anticipate a fundamental transformation — driven by AI — in how the public sector operates.
Agencies are moving to leverage agentic AI — autonomous digital workers that can reason and take action — to drive productivity and efficiency at scale, and 60% of government leaders believe they are significantly or somewhat ahead of the private sector in agentic AI adoption. These leaders see AI agents as a catalyst for a more responsive, mission-driven government; furthermore, 83% of those surveyed say AI agents are the key to transforming their organizational structure.
“Government leaders no longer see AI as a back-office experiment. They see it as a critical pillar of national competitiveness and service delivery. In today’s landscape, integrating agentic AI is now mission critical.” – Paul Tatum, EVP, Public Sector Solutions, Salesforce
The Agentic Era Will be More Transformational than the Internet
Government leaders see this shift as a generational milestone. A majority (56%) of those surveyed believe agentic AI will have a more profound impact on government than the rise of the internet:
