AI in the Public Sector

BCG’s AI Maturity Matrix helps policymakers analyze their economy’s place in the evolving global AI landscape by examining two critical dimensions: AI readiness and AI exposure. By understanding the factors that shape an economy’s AI progress, leaders can harness the technology to boost GDP, economic resilience, and competitiveness—as well as shape how humanity uses this powerfully disruptive technology.

The matrix provides a broad view of global adoption. The vast majority of economies are embracing AI, but there is a small, influential group of AI pioneers that take their place at the forefront. No matter where economies are in their AI journey, they can greatly enhance their AI capabilities. Evaluating the many variables that shape AI in the public sector will help government leaders guide their countries forward.

Explore the AI Maturity Matrix

The dashboard helps you easily view AI engagement and explore factors like sector deployment, exposure, investment, regulation, and readiness for disruption. You can review engagement for economies around the world; we’ve also added analysis of US states for a closer look at how economies of various sizes and resources are responding to AI.

How Is AI Affecting Economies?

AI is now a proven economic force. Investment is rising, and the economic gains are materializing. The question facing countries around the world is no longer whether AI will affect their economy, but how. It is also important for policymakers to understand which economies are positioned to capture AI’s value. Nearly every country has a published AI strategy, and most economies are improving in their AI readiness. For any economy, the key differentiator that emerges is the scale and speed at which it can implement that strategy.

Our research shows how AI is impacting economies and highlights these key developments:

• AI exposure is concentrated in knowledge work, but a shift toward disruption of the physical economy is already underway.
• National economic policy is dictated by business leaders’ workforce strategy—whether they choose between workforce augmentation (redesigning roles to enable people to collaborate with AI) and workforce substitution (enabling AI alone to carry out tasks previously performed by people).
• Individual economies’ exposure—or the automation of tasks and the redesign of jobs—in key sectors is measurable at the task level.
• For economies with lower exposure to AI, there is still room for sector spillover. As AI is deployed at scale in an anchor industry, AI capabilities increase in the engineering, logistics, and other service firms that support the anchor sector.