Governing with agentic AI: when machines act on government’s behalf

Governments shape the daily lives of people in ways few other organisations do. They provide access to benefits, licences, emergency services and justice. People expect these services to be fast, simple and responsive. Nearly all OECD governments have adopted AI to help meet these expectations, and the OECD’s 2025 Governing with AI report set out the current state of play across core government functions. But a new shift is under way. AI systems are moving from tools that answer questions and support decisions to systems that act to pursue goals with higher levels of autonomy. Agentic AI raises new questions about how governments can maintain standards of safe, secure and trustworthy AI while machines act on their behalf.

To help answer these questions, a new Working Group on Agentic AI in Government, has been established at the OECD under the Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials (E-Leaders) with a goal to seek to understand what governing with agentic AI should look like in practice, building on the OECD’s existing work on the agentic AI landscape.

We come to this work from governments in different parts of the world, each of us already grappling with these questions in our own systems. Our administrative traditions, legal frameworks and technical capacities are not the same, and we do not expect agentic AI to unfold identically in each of our countries. We do share one view, however. Agentic AI could bring real value to how governments serve their people, but capabilities are developing faster than the governance arrangements needed to ensure AI systems remain safe, secure and trustworthy. That shared challenge, more than any formal mandate, is why we chose to think this through together rather than separately.

The potential for agentic AI in government