DOGE and psychobilly Cadillacs will make next year a rollercoaster

When you have the world’s richest man, who has used automation and AI to upend the electric vehicle, commercial space and social media industries, set his sights on government, it’s safe to say public sector 2025 will move in new and unexpected directions. The combination of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and AI is set to fuel more change in government than we’ve seen in decades. The impact is likely to resonate throughout the globe. Here's an overview of the trends I predict will most impact the public sector in 2025. Generative AI will play a key role in modernizing legacy applications and reducing government’s technical debt DOGE sent out a Dec. 9 tweet on X referencing a 2023 Government Accountability Office report: “The Federal government spends 80% of its annual $100 billion IT budget on maintaining outdated systems. Not only are older systems more expensive to maintain, but they are also more vulnerable to hackers.” This is an indication that the low simmer of public sector technical debt is poised to elevate to a full boil next year. With the right focus and wise deployment of GenAI tools, governments around the world will take a huge bite out of its technical debt next year. Think of the traditional process of modernizing legacy government applications as hoisting a massive ship out of the ocean and methodically chipping away at the barnacles with a single chisel. If you wanted to go faster, you had to hire more scrapers. With GenAI being trained to generate translated code from, say, COBOL to a more modern programming language, you can effectively aim a power washer at the barnacles and blast most of them off the ship’s hull. Then the chiselers can deal with the ones left behind. Outsiders will take a swing at government reform The last time a true outsider made a serious impact around how the U.S. government operates was the Grace Commission, created by President Reagan in 1982 and led by retired chemical company CEO Peter Grace. The signa