KUALA LUMPUR — Some 445,000 public officers will soon have access to Google Workspace’s Gemini suite, scaling up artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across the civil service.
This was announced by Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo after launching AI at Work 2.0, an initiative aimed at equipping Malaysia’s public officers with Google Workspace’s latest generative AI (gen AI) capabilities to enhance public service delivery.
The first phase of the program, introduced in December 2024 alongside the launch of Malaysia’s National AI Office (NAIO), was a pilot to test AI integration in government workflows.
“Through AI at Work 2.0 by NAIO and Google Cloud, the government is taking the lead in harnessing gen AI, with the right guardrails built in, to better serve the rakyat under our five-year AI technology action plan,” said Gobind after jointly launching the initiative with Google Cloud earlier today.
AI at Work 2.0 will train public officers to maximise Google Workspace with Gemini through hands-on workshops on effective prompts and high-impact use cases.
AI at Work was conducted with 270 public officers from various government agencies.
Feedback and usage data from the pilot showed that 97% of them saved an average of 3.25 hours per week, according to Google Cloud Asia Pacific managing director of public sector business, Rahul Sharma.
“91% of them also reported that generative and agentic AI has helped enhance the quality of their work,” he said. — February 5, 2025