The agentic era: Architecting the blueprint for mission impact across the public sector

This is a new era — the agentic era – and the question is no longer, “what’s possible?” but rather, “what creates impact?” Today, organizations across industries around the world are swiftly moving from AI exploration and pilots to real-world use cases that drive impact, at scale. They are doing this with _agents_. In order to fully meet this moment, and seize the opportunities in this agentic era, we need leadership. To that end, I was honored to share the stage at Google Cloud Next with visionary leaders from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S Department of Transportation (DOT) and the City of Los Angeles who shared how they are disrupting the status quo and driving lasting impact for their organizations and the people they serve. Let’s take a closer look at their stories.

**The U.S. Department of Transportation: Strengthening the safety and reliability of our nation’s transportation systems**

Pavan Pidugu, the Chief Digital and Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), is empowering staff with cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools as the first-cabinet level federal agency to fully transition their workforce away from legacy providers to Google Workspace with Gemini. “Twenty-two days. That’s what it took for us to create a production environment with Google Workspace,” Pavan asserted. In less than six months, the agency migrated more than one billion emails. This transition to Workspace has enabled staff to work smarter and faster, ultimately strengthening the safety and reliability of our nation’s transportation systems.

**The U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Accelerating cures and meaningful treatments that benefit everyone**

Jeremy Walsh, the Chief AI Officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is leveraging agentic AI to accelerate the delivery of life-saving cures, achieving a 80% AI adoption rate across its 18,000-person workforce. “By using AI agents to move the agency toward a real-time regulatory environment, the FDA is compressing decades-old workflows,” underscored Jeremy. While the traditional drug development process can take ten years, the agency now uses AI to analyze candidate data against vast historical datasets in minutes – shrinking 60-day filing reviews down to a matter of hours. This mission to halve the overall time to market for new drugs directly translates into saving more lives.

**The City of Los Angeles: Building the technological foundation to serve residents and visitors**

Ted Ross, the Chief Information Officer for the City of Los Angeles, is facing a massive logistical challenge: preparing for the 2026 World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. With 15 million visitors expected for the Olympics alone, the city is scaling AI across its 45 departments and 27,500 employees. “The world is going to be looking at Los Angeles, and the reality is you need force multipliers,” Ted articulated. “You need tools like AI, which don’t replace our workforce, but amplify their ability to deliver world-class customer service and the essential functions to run events of this scale.” The City of Los Angeles is embedding Gemini directly into the tools employees use every day to deliver faster, more accessible services for visitors, as well as the city’s four million residents who speak more than 224 languages.

**Your blueprint for agentic transformation**

These leaders are creating the blueprint for agentic transformation by leveraging AI and agents as a force multiplier to empower their workforce, unlock new levels of productivity, and transform how services are delivered. As evident from these leaders, moving from exploration and pilots to full-scale adoption requires a thoughtful and strategic approach, centered on three critical pillars:

1. Empower leaders and teams to disrupt the status quo: Transformation requires a cultural shift where leaders and teams are empowered to disrupt the status quo, take calculated risks, and move with speed. As demonstrated by Pavan Pidugu of the DOT, the goal is to ignite a spirit where teams can harness technology to create results in days, not years.
2. Scale for lasting impact: Moving from AI pilots to agency-wide adoption requires bold leadership. Jeremy Walsh shared how the FDA is empowering its workforce – from reviewers to scientists – with AI and agents to protect public health and accelerate life-saving treatments. As Walsh articulated, agents act as force multipliers, moving the agency beyond document-heavy processes to a state where they can analyze all available data simultaneously. This approach allows the FDA to compress review timelines and solve mission-critical challenges at scale.
3. Prioritize human-centered adoption: Transformation is fundamentally a “people project” that succeeds by solving immediate employee pain points within existing tools. Ted Ross from the City of Los Angeles shared that by embedding AI into daily workflows, leaders can turn skeptics into champions through small wins that create organizational momentum. This approach raises the collective digital IQ, and ensures that the city can upskill their workforce while delivering faster, more accessible services for residents and visitors alike.

**Your mission partner**

We are so proud that Google Public Sector is the partner that organizations turn to as they move from AI pilots to total agentic transformation. We believe that bold leadership, coupled with our integrated stack built on a foundation of security, openness and scale, is what makes this kind of transformation possible. We invite you to register to attend our Gemini for Government webinar on June 11 where we’ll dive deeper into the blueprint for transformation and mission impact in the agentic era.

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