Raising Government Productivity with AI: Insights from Gartner’s 2025 Report

by Steven Mauss, CEO and President at Knowledge Relay, Inc

The U.S. public sector faces unprecedented pressure with growing demands for transparency, efficiency, and service—often amid tighter budgets and skilled labor shortages.

The April 2025 Gartner research article, The Impact of Generative AI on Productivity Outcomes in Government, reveals that with the increased rollout of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has put government productivity on an upward trajectory. However, realizing the full benefits of AI means overcoming challenges in the public sector around culture, integration, and legacy processes.

At Knowledge Relay, we offer a model portfolio based on our success in the Energy industry that aligns tightly with Gartner’s roadmap for sustainable government productivity.

Productivity Gains Are Real, but Culture and Rollout Remain Obstacles

Gartner’s latest research highlights two critical drivers for maximizing AI’s productivity impact for the U.S. government:

• Expanding AI Rollouts — Agencies that broaden AI deployment beyond isolated pilot projects see far greater organizational impact.
• Improved Productivity Culture — Teams that embrace productivity, and have a culture open to new tools, capture the largest gains.

But lingering obstacles exist: “Despite strong potential for productivity gains from GenAI, a number of barriers remain in the way of realizing further productivity gains,” writes Gartner author, Todd Kimbriel. Such barriers foremost include siloed data, legacy systems, and the need for skilled personnel.

How Knowledge Relay’s Solutions Address Gartner’s Findings

At Knowledge Relay, we are a proven strategic partner to the U.S. government with 40 years of domain experience managing complex data sets for advanced analytics. Our Solution-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach is especially relevant for agencies—such as the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Defense—seeking the benefits of advanced analytics without the burden of building or maintaining bespoke systems.

Knowledge Relay has supported the DOE’s Hanford Site Mission Support Alliance (MSA), Hanford Site Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), Idaho National Labs, and the Y-12 National Security Complex to improve data reporting and analytics, as well as custom data services. Here are three key ways Knowledge Relay’s SaaS addresses the key obstacles Gartner presents for AI in the public sector . . .

1. Integrating Siloed Data
Specific to the Gartner findings, one requirement of successfully deploying AI to raise productivity is the integration of diverse, siloed data. Here, KR Data Scheduler enables fully automated, scheduled data migration and integration—steps crucial for government agencies reliant on disparate legacy systems. With more than 400 pre-built data connectors, even the most complex data extraction, transformation, loading (ETL) jobs can be automated and orchestrated by Knowledge Relay. Further KR Data Scheduler can feed AI models with accurate, timely, and comprehensive data inputs—a critical prerequisite for AI’s effectiveness.

2. AI for Legacy Project Controls and Cost Controls
Government projects—especially infrastructure, compliance, and IT, such as found in the Energy industry—are often characterized by complex schedules, risk, and ballooning costs. Managing this complexity, Knowledge Relay’s SaaS is deeply embedded in Project Controls, providing:

• Automated Budgets and Cost Controls — AI can refine KR Earned Value for the Enterprise, forecast versus actual projections, model what-if scenarios, and detect anomalies to preempt cost overruns.
• Predictive Scheduling — AI-driven critical path analysis and constraint-based planning can minimize unplanned outages and project delays.
• Scenario Analysis — The KR What-If Analyzer visualizes complex predictive scenarios and helps government agencies to model budget, allocation, resource, and risks before decisions are made.
• Real-Time Dashboards — Agency leadership can gain immediate insight into operational bottlenecks, workforce allocation, and compliance status with Knowledge Relay’s SaaS.
• Resource Management — Agencies can automate and optimize resource allocation (from workforce scheduling to inventory and resource leveling) which is crucial during restricted budgets or labor shortages.

These capabilities translate Gartner’s recommendations into actionable benefits: “Government CIOs can use these insights on recent productivity boosts and GenAI rollouts to benchmark their own efforts and identify areas for continued investment.”

3. Facilitating Cultural Transformation
Gartner’s paper emphasizes that “an improved organizational culture around productivity is likely to expand GenAI-related productivity gains.” Here, Knowledge Relay’s approach supports transformation in three immediate ways:

• Quick Wins — Knowledge Relay’s automated integration, analytics, and what-if modeling provide rapid productivity wins . . . even for agencies with small IT teams or budgets!
• Best-in-Class Analytics — KR Dashboards and KR Reports are not just technical tools but outsourced paths for rapid organizational learning and a strong data-driven culture.
• Solution-as-a-Service — Our model empowers government agencies to focus on outcomes, not infrastructure, and our low costs are a relief for government teams’ already stretched budgets.

Knowledge Relay’s credentials are rooted in the U.S. Energy industry and readily mapped to the larger public sector. We deliver analytics for 75% of US nuclear power companies and multiple DOE sites, proof of our reliability and unmatched support (that is never off-shored or outsourced):

“Knowledge Relay provides the best support in the industry,” claims a long-time client. “One call and we have their top people immediately solving the problem.”

The U.S. government is looking to AI not only to boost productivity, but to improve outcomes for citizens. Gartner’s recent findings note that rollout and culture are key to maximizing AI’s ultimate value for agencies.

Knowledge Relay’s SaaS and AI solutions are tightly aligned with Gartner’s vision and can be a ready partner to government agencies needing to integrate siloed data, improve Project Controls and cost controls, and speed a cultural transformation to AI . . . even with tight budgets and smaller teams.