SAP Americas’ Jared Coyle on AI’s role in smarter government

State and local governments are increasingly turning to AI and automation to streamline operations and deliver faster, more personalized services to their constituents, says Jared Coyle, Chief AI Officer for SAP Americas. Coyle highlights how automation helped one regional government handle nearly 800,000 citizen inquiries during the pandemic — reducing manual responses from 100% to just 17%. He describes this as the “real magic of AI”: improving efficiency while enhancing the citizen experience. Looking ahead, Coyle foresees rapid evolution in automation’s role, from simplifying back-office tasks to enabling interagency collaboration and predictive decision-making. Within five years, he says, governments could see “grounded automation” that aligns with federal policy and supports complex scenarios like grant management, recruitment, and disaster response.