We’ve crunched the data and published our analysis of what’s top of mind with public servants. 11% of respondents held executive positions; 63% worked in a Federal or National government, 26% worked in technology; 48% had a Masters’ degree or higher; and 37% came from Canada’s National Capital Region. We also looked at how many FWD50 conferences each respondent had attended.
We used some new approaches to analysis this year, including sparklines to see the change in policy priorities over the years we’ve been running the survey:
Ensuring digital rights had been a consistently high priority that dropped in 2024, while enforcing laws and providing a space for free speech were both consistently low priority but are higher this year. Large Language Models that power AI chatbots were below average in 2023’s survey, but after a year they’re now above average.
We also analyzed how important various technologies were:
Blockchain and the Internet of Things scored poorly, as did chatbots and conversational UX scored relatively poorly, even though AI and Data Science—the technology that powers those—rated of high importance.
One of the most controversial conversations in recent months was about whether government workers need to be digitally literate, and would have to pass a formal certification of some sort. We analyzed this across many platforms, and in the study we also compared how executives and non-executives felt about this. Executives were less likely to support a digital competency check.
There’s lots more in the report, including what obstacles prevent governments from delivering technology at the pace denizens expect; how additional funding should be spent; and an AI analysis of what structural changes and policies we should consider.
Whether you want to understand the zeitgeist of digital government, or need inspiration for your talk proposal, you can check out the whole report here.