Alexis Bonnell, head of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and deployment at OpenAI for Government, said Tuesday that the next phase of AI adoption in government will be driven by what she called a “built by user” approach.
Speaking on July 14 at MeriTalk’s Shift Happens event in Washington, D.C., Bonnell said the “built by user” approach gives employees the ability to create AI solutions tailored to their own work and expertise.
“I think about AI as an ability for me to have a relationship with knowledge at speed and scale,” Bonnell said.
Drawing on her experience as chief information officer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Bonnell recalled inheriting a list from employees of 186 requests for different technology solutions.
After introducing a basic generative AI tool and training users to work with it, that list shrank to just 36 requests because employees were able to build solutions around the information most relevant to their own jobs.
“For the first time, people were actually able to craft a relationship with knowledge on their terms, in their way,” Bonnell said. “They didn’t have to wait for me to look at requirements, and I think this is why built by user is so important.”
Rather than viewing AI as simply another enterprise technology, Bonnell said agencies should see it as an extension of employees’ expertise.
“There is a reason you are in the seat you’re in,” she told the event attendees, many of whom were government employees. “Thinking about AI as a way to add and to unleash the total potential of you is a much more successful way for not only leaders, but for each of us to understand how AI should be and exist in our space.”
Bonnell also urged federal agencies to focus first on helping employees organize and interact with their own knowledge before racing to deploy autonomous AI agents.
“A lot of times, I think we skipped RAG [retrieval-augmented generation] and got really in love with agents,” she said.
RAG, she explained, is the ability for an employee to provide their “knowledge universe” to AI, optimizing the output of a large language model.
Additionally, Bonnell challenged leaders to look beyond top-down AI strategies, because many of the most impactful innovations emerge from employees closest to the work.
“I will tell you that almost every amazing solution that I’ve seen has come from the place that the organizational leadership least expect,” Bonnell said, pointing to examples including finance and procurement employees who redesigned their own workflows with AI.
Ultimately, Bonnell said AI should be viewed as a tool that amplifies – not replaces – the knowledge and judgment public servants already bring to their jobs.
“I want us to recognize that, especially in this amazing place we are in, especially in the service of government, every public servant should be coming to work every day intentional and accountable and responsible,” she said. “AI doesn’t change that. It’s a different way for them to exercise their knowledge and expertise.”
“Most importantly, you can do this,” Bonnell concluded. “I can’t wait to see what version 2.0 of each of you looks like when you’re empowered by knowledge at speed and scale.”