Speakers at the AccelerateGOV closing session

Speakers at the AccelerateGOV closing session (l-r): Dominic Rochon; Raj Thuppal; Karen Myers; and Siobhan Benita,

AccelerateGOV is a leading government conference focused on bringing together public service leaders with an interest in digital transformation, and the 2025 conference explored how governments around the world are working to achieve true digital transformation – and how to build the workforce of the future to deliver digital public service.

The recordings from across the conference, held on 9 December, are now available on the AccelerateGOV website.

Roundtables at AccelerateGOV explored key topics with colleagues from across government and the public service. The roundtables provided an opportunity for leaders to exchange their views and experiences and hear from peers tackling similar issues related to:

These roundtables were held under the Chatham House Rule, and these summaries cover the key points discussed at each session.

Advancing sovereign AI across the Government of Canada

The Government of Canada has prioritised the development of powerful computing resources in Canada to drive innovation and efficiency, create new opportunities and ensure Canadian competitiveness in the global AI race.

The government has also developed plans to support Canadian AI industries and researchers, and this roundtable discussion, supported by knowledge partners Dell, NVIDIA and Cohere, examined how government can ensure that Canada has the right computing resources to drive AI transformation.

Participants discussed barriers to AI integration in the Canadian government, and emphasised the need to improve data access, tackle legacy mindsets, and create shared platforms.

Key points included the importance of quality data, the challenge of scaling AI pilots, and the necessity of digital upskilling.

The conversation also touched on the importance of sovereignty, with concerns about data control and the potential risks of relying on foreign tech giants. The need for strategic data protection and efficient use of resources was underscored, along with the necessity of collaboration and innovation to drive AI progress.

Balancing sovereign solutions with infrastructure requirements

A central theme of the roundtable was the tension between the need for rapid AI adoption and the structural requirements of sovereign infrastructure.

Participants in the session identified several critical barriers and considerations, including that data is often fragmented across different systems, hindering effective use of AI models. There were calls by attendees for shared platforms that span across departments to prevent individual agencies from building redundant infrastructure.

Other speakers addressed the need for legacy systems and mindsets to be reviewed. The “legacy mindset” of the public service and the technical constraints of thousands of disconnected systems were cited as major speed bumps, including in areas such as security and risk management, where there is a need to understand the specific risks related to AI technologies.

The conversation also touched on how to define sovereignty in use of technology.  Discussion emerged regarding whether digital sovereignty means complete agency over data and decision-making or the necessity of owning the entire technology stack. Some argued that turning sovereignty “knobs” to the maximum might lead to Canada falling behind, while dialling them to zero risks foreign interference.

Benchmarking sovereignty and internal capacity

The discussion moved beyond theoretical definitions to how the government can practically measure and scale its sovereign capabilities. The steps would include scaling from pilots to production, but concerns were raised about the difficulties of moving from successful pilots to real, deployable solutions.

There was also discussion about how government can engage with industry to understand and build sovereign capabilities.

The roundtable underscored that building sovereign AI requires a fundamental shift in how the government interacts with the private sector. Speakers discussed the potential for active industry partnerships to shape future human-AI processes, with public servants keen for industry to “meet us halfway” with more flexible models that acknowledge the rising viability of open-source alternatives.

In closing, the roundtable participants agreed that while the term “AI” remains ambiguous, the path forward requires continuous collaboration, the dismantling of data silos, and a cultural shift toward empowering leaders to experiment and fail safely.

  • The ‘Advancing sovereign AI across the Government of Canada’ roundtable was hosted on 9 December at the AccelerateGOV conference.

Exploring the potential of AIOps in government transformation

A roundtable at the AccelerateGOV conference, hosted by Global Government Forum and knowledge partner Kyndryl set out to explore how public sector organisations could use AIOps to drive operational efficiencies and simplify complexity.  

Kyndryl, the world’s largest provider of IT infrastructure services, works to deploy and leverage Artificial Intelligence in IT Operations (AIOps) extensively to enable full stack IT visibility and generate actionable insights for proactive remediation. The session kicked off by asking the participants to share what they believed to be the biggest barrier to IT enterprise observability – lack of strategy, lack of tools, or lack of skilled resources – and the responses were very insightful. 

The recurring sentiment expressed across the roundtable was that it’s not any one thing. The discussion highlighted a number of contributing factors that impede our ability to “see something, do something” – including the need for integrated technology roadmaps, alignment between business and IT teams, process optimisation and organisational change management. These all facilitate new ways of working and measurable outcomes.

It also prompted a broader conversation about other applications of AI in the workplace. Organisations across the Government of Canada are at different stages of the AI adoption journey. Early adopters are focused on experimentation and personal productivity use cases, while pacesetters are embedding AI into customer-facing products and services like virtual agents and claims processing. 

One internal-facing use case surfaced in the roundtable was about the classification of legacy documents using AI, for the purposes of future AI use. The sheer volume of artifacts to process makes it a great fit for AI, if it can be trusted to auto-classify correctly. The conversation also touched on data governance concerns, and understanding the drivers of shadow AI. Over time, AI will transform the way government services are delivered to constituents, but can the pace be accelerated?

What emerged from the session was the siloed nature of innovation, even within organisations at the same company. Everyone is working on common problems – like document handling – but within their own teams or departments. Because the roundtable provided a forum for sharing lived experience, participants were able to connect with peers solving similar challenges. Collaboration – both within organisations and across the public sector – is the key to moving isolated initiatives to scalable, sustainable solutions.

  • The ‘Enabling enterprise observability: Exploring the potential of AIOps in government transformation’ roundtable was hosted on 9 December at the AccelerateGOV conference.

Developing Canadian talent solutions for Canadian public service skills needs

The Government of Canada’s 2025 Budget sets out plans for the consolidation of the public service, with a target set to cut about 40,000 officials from the federal government workforce.

Undertaking such headcount reductions in a way that maintains – or even improves – service delivery requires careful planning of the skills needs of departments. And plans to reduce the headcount comes at a time of government transformation – meaning plans need to be developed in a way that ensures the public service has the skills it needs to drive digital transformation and build capabilities for the future.

A roundtable discussion, supported by knowledge partner VidCruiter, explored how government departments and agencies can ensure that they have the skills they need – both now and in the future.

Attendees discussed how the Canadian public service can maintain productivity while managing the headcount reduction.

Among the concerns highlighted by attendees is the risk of a loss of “know-how” from departing staff which can hinder innovation and lower productivity in operational environments.

Artificial intelligence was identified as both a solution and a risk to this problem. While it can automate junior roles, concerns were raised around “skills erosion”, where the human ability to govern and oversee AI systems is lost as workforce reductions are made.

Filling skills gaps during a downturn

The roundtable also covered how government departments and agencies can get the skills they need at the time of retrenchment. The discussion highlighted that the challenge is often not a lack of candidates, but a mismatch between specialised technical needs. Departments face significant hurdles in recruiting for niche roles like enterprise architects and metadata specialists, often resulting in “poaching” from other departments.

Participants suggested a number of ways to address this problem, which include:

  • Specific efforts to the hiring of students to combat an ageing demographic and ensure a pipeline of “digital-first” talent.
  • Implementing competency-based hiring and moving away from rigid job classifications toward competency-based assessments. This would help allow staff to move into roles for which they have the skills but perhaps not the traditional background.
  • Updating or developing standardised job descriptions for IT and data roles to streamline the hiring process.

Developing cross-government collaboration and staff reassignment plans

Attendees discussed the impact of siloed data and inventories across government. Many departments maintain their own separate skills databases, making it difficult to share talent across the public service.

Participants called for stronger central mechanisms to facilitate those leaving jobs in departments an opportunity to find new roles elsewhere as part of ideas for new centralised recruitment processes and development of surge capacity.

The ‘Developing Canadian talent solutions for Canadian public service skills needs’ roundtable was hosted on 9 December at the AccelerateGOV conference.

Thanks to everyone who attended AccelerateGOV – and find out more and register your interest to attend AccelerateGOV 2026 here.



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