Public sector

Government agencies are asked to do more with less every year. Budgets are flat, staff are stretched, legacy systems are expensive to maintain, and constituent expectations keep rising. Meanwhile, the administrative workload — processing applications, managing correspondence, reconciling data across departments, generating reports — grows faster than headcount ever will.

AI can help. But government AI has to meet a higher bar than the private sector. Transparency, auditability, data security, and public accountability aren’t features to add later — they’re the foundation. The public has a right to understand how automated systems affect the services they depend on, and agency staff have a right to tools they can trust.

Borah works with state and local government agencies, municipalities, and public institutions to find the specific places where AI reduces administrative burden, improves operational clarity, and gives public servants time back for the work that genuinely requires their judgment and experience. We understand the procurement, compliance, and security frameworks that public sector work demands — including CJIS, FedRAMP, and CMMC requirements — and we design for them from day one.

Security, compliance, and governance first

Public sector AI starts with governance. Before we build anything, we help agencies establish clear policies around how AI interacts with public data, who’s accountable for AI-assisted decisions, how systems are monitored, and how the public’s interests are protected.

For agencies handling criminal justice data, we build to CJIS compliance standards. For federal work or defense-adjacent organizations, we design for FedRAMP and CMMC requirements. Every system includes appropriate access controls, audit logging, and documentation — because public sector AI has to hold up under scrutiny, not just in production.

This also means deploying AI on private, on-premise infrastructure when the data demands it. Agency data stays on agency systems. Nothing is transmitted to third-party cloud providers. Nothing is used to train external models. Full control, full auditability, and significantly lower long-term operating costs than cloud-based alternatives.

Environmentally conscious, local AI infrastructure

Cloud AI runs on massive data centers that consume enormous amounts of electricity and water — resources that Idaho communities understand the value of. A local AI deployment is purpose-built for your agency’s workload: it runs what you need, nothing more, on infrastructure in your own facility. No contribution to the data center sprawl. No water-intensive cooling systems running around the clock for processing that has nothing to do with your mission. Government agencies have an opportunity to adopt AI responsibly — not just in how it’s governed, but in how it’s powered.

Reducing the administrative backlog

The most immediate value AI brings to government is time. Application processing, permit review, correspondence management, data entry across legacy systems, report generation — these tasks follow patterns that AI handles efficiently, and they consume hours that your staff could spend on the cases and decisions that actually need a person.

We look at where your team is losing the most time to repetitive administrative work, and we build targeted solutions for those specific bottlenecks. Not a platform rollout. Not a department-wide transformation. A focused starting point that proves the value and builds the case for what comes next.

What happens to your people

This is the question that doesn’t get asked enough in government AI conversations — and it’s the one your staff is thinking about whether they say it or not. When an agency adopts AI, what happens to the people who’ve been doing that work?

At Borah, every engagement includes a workforce impact assessment. We don’t build AI that eliminates positions. We build AI that eliminates the tedious, repetitive parts of positions — so the people in those roles can focus on the work that actually requires their experience, their judgment, and their ability to serve the public directly. A permit reviewer who spends less time on data entry has more time for the complex cases that need careful attention. A constituent services team that isn’t buried in routine inquiries has more capacity for the people who need real help.

Government employees chose public service for a reason. AI should make that work more fulfilling, not less secure.

Connecting legacy systems

Most agencies operate with data spread across departments, legacy databases, and systems that were never designed to work together. Getting a complete picture of a program, a constituent, or an operational trend means someone pulling data from multiple places and assembling it by hand.

We build integrations that connect your existing systems so your data flows where it needs to go — without replacing what you have. Better data integration means better decisions about resource allocation, service delivery, and program performance, with less manual effort to get there.

Bilingual constituent and staff communication

Many government agencies serve communities where English isn’t the primary language — and the gap between what the agency produces and what constituents can actually understand creates real barriers to service. Forms, notices, status updates, and real-time communication often need to reach people in multiple languages faster than traditional translation processes allow.

We build translation tools that work within your existing systems, delivering information in the languages your constituents and staff actually use. Better communication means better service, fewer errors, and a more equitable experience for everyone the agency serves.

What this looks like in practice

Every agency’s challenges are different, but the patterns we see tend to be familiar:

• Staff spending hours on data entry and document processing that could be largely automated
• Constituent inquiries overwhelming call centers when many questions could be answered through self-service
• Reports and analysis requiring manual assembly from multiple systems
• Compliance documentation consuming time that could be spent on mission-critical work
• Leadership wanting to modernize but uncertain about risk, cost, or where to start
• Staff concerned about what AI means for their roles and their future
• Sustainability goals that conflict with cloud-dependent technology solutions
• Sensitive data — criminal justice records, personal information, benefit data — that can’t go to the cloud

If your agency is dealing with any of these, we should talk. We’ll start with what’s actually consuming the most staff time and build a practical path forward — one that meets your security requirements, your compliance obligations, and your budget reality.

Get in touch to start with an AI readiness assessment. No pitch — just an honest conversation about where AI could make the biggest difference for your team and the people you serve.