Quebec is “taking action” on artificial intelligence (AI), according to a senior official at the Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs (MCN). Chatbot initiatives are underway in the public administration, but the public will have to wait before they can directly use them to navigate government services, he cautions.
As of last June, at least 434 AI projects had been declared by 156 public bodies, says MCN’s Assistant Deputy Minister of Partnerships and Artificial Intelligence, Jonathan Kelly.
The initiatives are of all kinds and sizes. They include, among other things, tools for automation, image processing, as well as for planning, prediction and decision support.
“The Quebec government is currently taking action on artificial intelligence,” Kelly stated in an interview.
The implementation of chatbots or conversational assistants is also among the projects.
Kelly gives the following use case example: a civil servant in a call center can use conversational AI to find answers to citizens’ questions more quickly.
“The idea is to reduce call waiting times (…) to provide better service to citizens,” says the assistant deputy minister.
Once these systems are well “tested” within the state apparatus, Quebec could consider making them directly accessible to the population.
“We are still in the testing phase of these tools. I don’t have a timeline to announce today because we are still in the internal phase.”
“When we judge that the technologies are sufficiently mature, there will certainly be a desire to make them available to citizens to simplify the service,” says Kelly.
He specifies that it will be up to each public body or ministry to determine the appropriate time to distribute these agents to the population.
The Canadian Press revealed last month that Quebec had finally ruled out launching a first version of a chatbot powered by generative AI on the “Quebec.ca” website, which brings together the various government services.
An experiment conducted in 2024 showed that “the error rate was too high” and that “the technologies were not mature enough” to be made available to citizens, says Kelly.
He explains that the State has decided to prioritize deployment “internally to accelerate the work of civil servants, make their lives easier” as well as to improve these tools and “make them more mature”.
This also allows for data cleaning, classification and structuring to improve the efficiency of AI agents, explains Kelly.
From experimentation to large-scale deployment
In addition to the chatbot, two other AI and automation initiatives in the public service have been abandoned by Quebec.
In 2024, the Ministry of National Education (MNE) tested prototypes designed to reduce the processing time for public servants’ insurance forms and the billing process. These pilot projects were unsuccessful due to “significant challenges,” according to an internal NNE document obtained and reported in July by The Canadian Press.
Following the publication of this report, the MCN requested an interview to send the following message: “Quebec is not giving up on artificial intelligence” after the abandonment of these initiatives.
“We were in the early stages, particularly with generative artificial intelligence at the time,” explains Kelly. “Since then, we’ve moved from an experimental approach to one where we want to build the necessary conditions to use AI on a large scale, but to do so safely, efficiently, and above all, trustworthyly.”
Last December, the MCN adopted a framework on the use of generative AI by public bodies. It encompasses, among other things, data protection, staff training, and criteria to consider when choosing use cases for this technology, in addition to control measures.
Agreements with Cohere and Mistral
The Quebec government announced in June that it had partnered with the Canadian company Cohere and the French company Mistral to explore opportunities to integrate AI into the public service and improve the efficiency of the state.
Kelly rejects the idea that these agreements encroach on the MCN’s jurisdiction or reflect a lack of expertise within the department.
“Systematically reinventing the wheel is time-consuming and expensive. (…) Having the supplier’s perspective sometimes allows us to avoid certain pitfalls in deployment and save time.
“We have experts in-house, but by working with others and seeking out the best, we believe that it allows us to move faster, save costs and also move forward more safely,” he argues.
There are no financial implications attached to the agreements with Mistral and Cohere. Currently, Quebec is exchanging information with the two companies to inform its strategy, the deputy minister indicated.
Collaborating with these firms does not give any supplier an “unfair advantage.” Public bodies and government departments are free to acquire AI solutions from other companies, Kelly points out.
The deputy minister argues that the government is working with other Quebec organizations in the AI field, such as Mila, IVADO and Obvia – the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technology.
Kelly mentions that the department’s objective with AI is not to reduce the number of employees in the civil service.
“At MCN, we work on the efficiency of state employees and providing better services to citizens,” he concluded.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
