South Tangerang Trains Civil Servants in AI to Accelerate Public Services
The South Tangerang municipal government (Pemkot Tangsel) has launched a capacity-building programme for civil servants (ASN) in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The move is part of an acceleration of bureaucratic reform and an effort to cut the chain of conventional administration deemed inefficient. To achieve this target, Pemkot Tangsel held an intensive workshop entitled “AI Empowerment for Government: Breaking the Limits, Accelerating Today’s ASN Performance with Artificial Intelligence” in Ciputat, Tangsel. The agenda was attended by dozens of representatives from all regional apparatus organisations (OPD), sub-districts, urban wards, and community health centres (puskesmas), featuring national information technology expert Prof. Onno W. Purbo.
South Tangerang Mayor Benyamin Davnie, represented by Head of the Communication and Informatics Agency (Diskominfo) TB Asep Nurdin, asserted that AI adoption in the government sector is no longer a future option but an urgent necessity. The bureaucracy is required to make a cultural shift in work practices to respond to the public’s increasingly high expectations. In its implementation, Pemkot Tangsel is targeting the optimisation of artificial intelligence technology in several tactical daily public service functions.
“In terms of complaint services, we are directing the integration of Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based AI so that the citizen complaint system can be active 24 hours a day. Residents will not need to wait for working hours to get certainty on licensing procedures or clarity on infrastructure repair reports,” said Asep on Tuesday (16/6/2026). Beyond complaint services, AI-based predictive analytics technology will also be embedded in the health sector at the puskesmas level to map potential endemic disease outbreaks early. Meanwhile, for regional planning, Machine Learning algorithms will be used to process the city’s macro Big Data so that social assistance distribution is more objective and accurately targeted.
The urgency of AI utilisation in the public sector aligns with global research from the McKinsey Global Institute, which notes that automation implementation in government has the potential to increase administrative work productivity by 30 to 40 per cent. AI is considered capable of reducing the time spent on routine tasks such as drafting, summarising, and analysing regulatory document texts rapidly from desk to desk. Despite offering high efficiency, Diskominfo Tangsel continues to emphasise the principle of caution. Mitigation measures are being prepared to anticipate AI’s inherent weaknesses, which are prone to data bias and information hallucination.
“The function of ASN as analysts will not be replaced but rather strengthened. AI acts as a smart assistant, but the final decision and data validation remain in the hands of civil servants with integrity,” Asep stressed. Through outcome-based training orientation, every participating ASN is not merely chasing attendance but is required to produce tangible work products in the form of draft regulations or computerised sectoral data analysis. With this adaptive bureaucratic posture, Tangsel is optimistic about becoming a pioneer of Smart Governance at the national level.