The Digital Agency has added an artificial intelligence agent function capable of autonomously performing two or more tasks simultaneously to its Gennai generative AI platform, which is available to about 180,000 government employees. The agent can perform a series of tasks based only on a single direction, including preparing and summarizing meeting minutes and sharing them within departments.

The agency said it is the first time in the world that a government body has prepared an environment enabling the use of an AI agent at this scale. Gennai features about 40 applications, including for tasks such as chatting with colleagues, preparing documents and meeting minutes, translating and summarizing documents, searching for past parliamentary statements, researching laws and regulations, and transcribing audio files.

Previously, users had to enter separate prompts for each task.

By simply uploading audio from a meeting, for instance, users can have the AI agent automatically prepare and translate meeting minutes without entering a prompt. The platform is also equipped with an app enabling government staff to share their knowledge and expertise. For example, veteran staff members can record their know-how on drawing up cabinet ministers’ answers to questions asked in parliamentary debates, such as by incorporating a particular lawmaker’s tendency to focus on data.

Such information will be available to staff of all government agencies and ministries through the Gennai Library system to be launched in the future. “Many government tasks are complex and highly specialized, and require a large amount of documents,” digital transformation minister Toshiharu Furukawa said at a news conference on Tuesday last week.

“We need an environment in which AI agents can be utilized to save labor and improve the quality of work.”