445,000 public officers to benefit from AI at Work 2.0 by the Ministry of Digital and Google Cloud

• Govt to adopt gen AI to better serve the rakyat under 5-year AI plan
• 1st interaction of “AI at Work” unveiled as a pilot programme in Dec 2024

The Ministry of Digital and Google Cloud have announced the launch of “AI at Work 2.0,” a joint initiative to equip public officers with Google Workspace’s latest generative AI capabilities, empowering them to transform public service delivery.

The first iteration of this initiative, “AI at Work,” was unveiled as a pilot programme at the launch of Malaysia’s National AI Office (NAIO) in December 2024. Following its success, the enhanced and expanded AI at Work 2.0 now provides the Government of Malaysia with an upgraded Google Workspace with Gemini suite, accessible to up to 445,000 public officers.

Delivering officiating remarks on the significance of this initiative, Gobind Singh Deo, minister of digital, said: “The ability of public and private sector organisations which touch the lives of virtually all Malaysians to improve service delivery using next-generation technologies will play a crucial role in establishing Malaysia as a digitally driven, high-income economy.”

“Through AI at Work 2.0 by NAIO and Google Cloud, the government is taking the lead in harnessing generative AI, with the right guardrails in place, to better serve the rakyat under our five-year AI technology action plan. We are swiftly progressing beyond the pilot, which reinforced our belief that AI can uplift workforce productivity and efficiency,” he added.

“In the coming months, we look forward to highlighting the tangible value generated by our public-private AI partnerships, as we drive further AI adoption momentum across government agencies and the broader business ecosystem,” Gobind said.

Meanwhile, Fabian Bigar, secretary-general of the Ministry of Digital, stated: “We are accelerating our efforts to ensure all government employees have access to generative AI assistants. Many government employees are already on Google Workspace through integration between MyGovUC and Google Workspace.”

“We appreciate Google Cloud’s commitment to going a step further by providing its expanded set of generative AI tools and delivering bespoke training to help our government employees maximise their benefits. This partnership will help streamline routine tasks across agencies, departments, and functions, freeing employees to focus on more complex and strategic work, ultimately enhancing public service delivery and citizen engagement,” he added.

Key benefits of Google Workspace with Gemini for public officers:

• Contextually relevant content generation and enhanced meetings: Gemini in Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet, and Chat assists public officers in summarising, analysing, and drafting content based on their emails and documents—without leaving the app. This enhances document, slide, and spreadsheet creation, enables AI-powered meeting note-taking, improves audio and video quality, and helps late joiners catch up on discussions.
• More engaging internal and public communications: Google Vids, a generative AI-powered video creation app integrated with Drive and Photos, enables government agencies to produce explainer videos, communicate updates in a more personalised way, and scale employee training. It helps officers without video production expertise structure narratives, use a built-in teleprompter, and finalise videos with an intuitive, scene-based editor.
• Creative support and automation of repetitive tasks:The Gemini Advanced app on work laptops or mobile devices assists public officers with complex tasks like coding, data extraction, and analysis. Officers can also create “Gems”—customised AI assistants—for specialised tasks such as analysing citizen feedback for sentiment trends.
• Synthesis and insight extraction from multiple sources: NotebookLM Plus, a generative AI-powered research assistant, allows public officers to interact with up to 250 trusted sources, including legislative and policy documents, to gain grounded insights for faster decision-making. Users can upload documents, web pages, or multimedia content into a shared notebook and generate briefing documents, FAQs, and AI-powered summaries.

AI at Work 2.0 will provide dedicated training and consultation to help public officers maximise the potential of Google Workspace with Gemini. Hands-on workshops will focus on writing effective prompts and identifying where AI tools deliver the most value.

Google Workspace with Gemini is one of the first generative AI productivity solutions to attain a comprehensive set of safety, privacy, and security certifications, including SOC 1/2/3, ISO 27001/17/18, and ISO 42001. It automatically applies Google Workspace’s enterprise-grade data security and privacy controls, ensuring that Gemini retrieves only relevant data that the user has permission to access.

Rahul Sharma, managing director, public sector, Asia Pacific, Google Cloud, said: “The Ministry of Digital and NAIO are applying a comprehensive approach to enhance workforce proficiency and productivity, from deploying employee agents through Google Workspace with Gemini to appointing and training generative AI champions to help accelerate adoption across agencies, to implementing before-and-after measurement to quantify value.”

“Our partnership is positioning the Government of Malaysia as a leader in reimagining how work gets done and serving as a blueprint for governments and enterprises in the region looking to drive measurable value from AI adoption at scale. We look forward to continuing to advance Malaysia’s national AI agenda through AI at Work 2.0 and other joint initiatives,” he added.

The AI at Work pilot was conducted with 270 public officers from various government agencies, including Jabatan Digital Negara. These officers leveraged Google Workspace’s generative AI capabilities to complete day-to-day tasks more efficiently, such as drafting policy papers and written communications. User feedback and usage analytics revealed that 97% of participants saved an average of 3.25 hours per week, with 91% stating that generative AI had enhanced their work quality.

AI at Work 2.0 builds upon Google’s ongoing commitment to Malaysia, which includes a US$2 billion (RM8.8 billion) investment in a new Google data centre and Google Cloud region, as well as AI upskilling initiatives like Gemini Academy and the Google AI Essentials course, offered via the Gemilang training programme.