BOSTON, July 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Citizens are increasingly ready for governments to embrace artificial intelligence. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of citizens now use AI at least weekly. At the same time, satisfaction with government digital services has fallen by 13 percentage points over the past decade, creating an opportunity for governments to use AI to improve how citizens interact with public services.
These are among the findings of the latest publication from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Citizens Are Open to Public AI Services. Governments Must Seize the Opportunity, released today. This eighth biennial Digital Government Citizen Survey Report is based on BCG's largest survey to date, capturing the views of citizens across 44 countries that represent 88% of OECD countries and approximately 70% of the world's population.
"Governments have a rare window to reshape how citizens experience public services," said Miguel Carrasco, a BCG managing director and senior partner and coauthor of the report. "People are increasingly open to AI. But they will judge success by whether services become simpler, faster, and easier to access."
Citizens Want AI to Do More Than Answer Questions
Citizens are increasingly comfortable with AI doing more than providing information—they want it to help deliver better public services. The survey finds growing support for AI to handle routine tasks, personalize services, and improve the citizen experience. As familiarity with AI grows, so does confidence: people with expert AI knowledge are almost seven times more likely to believe that its benefits outweigh its risks than those with no experience using the technology.
Attitudes toward AI are moving in different directions by region. In the Americas, the share of citizens who believe that AI's benefits outweigh its risks rose 5 percentage points over the past two years, although this is tempered by falling optimism among younger citizens. In the Middle East and Africa, the share fell 9 percentage points, but the region remains the most AI-comfortable in the survey overall. Sentiment in Asia-Pacific and Europe held broadly steady.
While citizens increasingly support AI in government, they are not calling for fully autonomous public services. Nearly two-thirds of respondents want human oversight for AI-enabled services, particularly when decisions become more complex or consequential.
Citizens' appetite for AI-driven public services also varies sharply by region. In the Middle East and Africa, nearly eight in ten respondents (78%) say that they are comfortable with direct AI involvement in service delivery, the highest of any region surveyed. Europe is the most cautious, as more than a third of citizens there prefer human-led services, with AI playing a supporting role only.
