Majority of applicants say they’d use AI agent to navigate public benefits processes

After years of delays and blown deadlines, driver’s licenses and identification cards as of May 7 will be required to be REAL ID compliant, creating potential long lines and backlogged applications for state Departments of Motor Vehicles, which issue the cards.

While traditionally held back by legacy technology and outdated processes, some DMVs are embracing new technology to try and speed up some of their numerous functions. That includes California, which has leaned on artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to speed up the time needed to apply for a REAL ID from 35 minutes to just seven minutes.

As residents navigate various complex processes with state and local government agencies, including benefits and unemployment insurance, there is evidence that many would be willing to use AI to do so. A survey released this week by Salesforce found that 87% of respondents in the U.S. said they would use an AI agent to help them navigate what can sometimes be difficult processes.

Those agents, which use what is known as agentic AI, can handle routine inquiries, help with straightforward cases and applications and even suggest other benefits or programs that an applicant might be eligible for. That then frees up employees to focus on more complex tasks and applications that still require the human touch. Agentic AI can make the process of applying for benefits and other government programs much less daunting.

Vast majorities are also willing to be automatically enrolled in government programs they qualify for and use pre-filled forms for government services. The data is based on a survey of 1,000 Americans.

“One of the things is understanding the different personas that are interacting with the process,” Nadia Hansen, a global digital transformation executive at Salesforce, told Route Fifty in an interview this week at the company’s Agentforce World Tour event in Washington, D.C. “You have a different way of handling whether it's a resident, whether it's a visitor, whether it's your internal employees. Sometimes government processes are the same for everybody. That's where the gap comes into play, because you're not really addressing or personalizing the journey for the right persona.”

The sometimes-complex processes that applicants for government programs face can be daunting, too. According to the survey data, 38% said it is unclear what assistance or programs are available to them, while 31% said the application process is confusing or hard to navigate. Twenty-eight percent said they do not know where to start.

That confusion and personal intimidation has a steep cost. The White House estimated in 2023 that $140 billion in benefits go unclaimed each year due to complex or outdated processes. For too long, governments have only looked to find single solutions for individual problems or processes, rather than look at the wider picture and how that impacts their programs, Hansen said.

“I'm [as government] going to go find an economic development solution or a grant solution or a licensing permitting solution,” she said. “Before you know it, you have 400 different systems that are not cobbled together, so your data remains in a silo.”

While it may be tempting to rely heavily on AI for benefits programs and other government-run efforts that have been mired in years of delays and hindered by legacy technology, experts have warned that the technology should not be entirely trusted to make life-or-death decisions. Using agentic AI as part of an “omnichannel approach to services,” Hansen said, is key, especially as different generations and different people have different comfort levels when it comes to interacting with technology.

“You have these five different generations, they all want to be served differently,” she said. “When you have the same method that you are using for all these different generations, it does not work. The traditionalists and baby boomers, usually they're just more comfortable walking into a brick-and-mortar building. Great. Let's have the brick and mortar building and have live people there to assist. But then with the newer generations, they don't ever want to interact with anybody.”

Reminding users of the safety and security features with AI agents can help make them more comfortable interacting with one, too.

“Someone uploading sensitive personal information, you can build in empathy,” said Paul Tatum, Salesforce’s executive vice president of global public sector, during a briefing for reporters. “[You can say] ‘You're about to enter into a portion of a conversation that has sensitive personal financial information, please approach that with caution.’ Remind them of the security measures that are being taken by the institution to protect this data, and if they are not comfortable, offer to vector to a human agent.”

Agentic AI also is not intended to replace government employees, but instead to enhance their work and let them focus on other tasks, Salesforce officials said.

“Fundamentally, we do not anticipate or envision that digital labor replaces human labor,” Tatum said. “We do think there will be a blended workforce… The next generation of leaders will be working with dual human and digital labor and we need to think organizationally that way.”