GCP – Google Cloud Unveils New Offerings at its Global Public Sector Summit

At our Google Cloud Public Sector Summit, December 8-9, we are shining a light on the incredible ways that government and education have been using Google Cloud. Organizations have been innovating to improve the services that they bring to their communities locally and globally, even amidst the challenges of a pandemic. It’s hard to comprehend the change we’ve experienced in 2020 and its impact on the way we live and work. I’ll offer a short list:

• Work is no longer a place – At maximum telework, more than 80% of Federal employees were teleworking – and an estimated 48% of workers will continue to work remotely post-COVID
• Time is more precious than ever – one in four working parents is also a primary caregiver right now
• Human connection is crucial – one in three workers feels disconnected from company culture and colleagues

Today, I’m pleased to share the new offerings we’re making available to help people and organizations  adjust to these tremendous shifts.

Google Workspace for Government

Today we are announcing Google Workspace for Government, an offering that brings the best of Google Cloud’s collaboration and communication tools to the government with pricing that meets the needs of the public sector. Whether it’s powering social care visits, employment support, or virtual courts, Google Workspace helps governments meet the unique challenges they face as they work to provide better services in an increasingly virtual world. 

• Pricing. The public sector is leading the way in managing the impact of the pandemic, and is doing this while also adjusting to tighter budgets. Google Workspace for Government offering provides options at price points that meet the specific needs and constraints of government customers.
• Flexibility. Governments can choose the offering that provides the services they need for the people that need them, using Google Workspace as the full suite, or using just the services they want to complement their existing tools. Google Workspace offers interoperability so that tools like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Calendar can work with other services that you may use.

• Compliance. We designed Google Workspace to meet stringent privacy and security standards. With Google Workspace for Government we are able to help organizations find the best package to meet their needs, including tools to supportcompliance with requirements such as data location, portability, archiving users, and more.

Services to help people seeking employment and benefits

COVID-19 has had a deep impact and historically high volumes of unemployment claims persist as we continue to navigate the pandemic. The associated economic fallout has placed a huge burden on state workforce agencies and their efforts to connect people with employment. Many agencies rely on partially automated, yet largely paper-based systems, powered by legacy technology that is, in some cases, decades old. In addition, these agencies conducted much of their business in person. Our team has built three employment support solutions that are now widely available.

Virtual Career Center. As part of the “Back to Work Rhode Island” initiative, the state of Rhode Island was the first ever to deploy a Virtual Career Center powered by Google Cloud. We can now equip other regions with the same tools. To help get folks back to work, we created a Virtual Career Center solution that brings together multiple tools to help modernize the job-seeking experience:

• Data collection across agency systems and other data sources powers Advanced Analytics with dashboards and visualizations for better decision making
• The Cloud Talent Solution leverages Google’s search and machine learning capabilities to help with job searching and career matching
• Virtual agents via text or phone automate handling of many constituents inquiries, giving job seekers faster service and around the clock access, and giving specialists more time to work with those who need it most
• Google Workspace powers video conferencing and collaboration tools to provide digital alternatives to in-person meetings, including scheduling for virtual interviews and job fairs

Employment support agents. When the COVID-19 virus spread, governments across the country suddenly faced an unprecedented surge in unemployment benefits claims. For the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES), which administers the state’s unemployment benefits, this led to a deluge of phone calls and web inquiries from residents. Realizing the urgency of the problem, Illinois mobilized a cross-functional response team to deploy Contact Center AI. Contact Center AI uses artificial intelligence to enable rich conversational experiences between virtual agents and customers through chat and over the phone. IDES’s newly deployed virtual contact center agents provided immediate help: phone virtual agents consistently process an average of 40,000 constituent phone calls per day. And the web chatbot interacts with upwards of 100,000 constituents a day.

Payments solutions. Governments around the world have distributed billions of dollars to aid citizens impacted by the pandemic. But the rapid creation and implementation of new programs and changes to existing programs made conditions right for some improper payments and fraud, too. Legacy systems could simply not keep pace, slowing aid to those most in need due to a higher number of improper payment flags. To address this we created an improper payment and fraud solution to help agencies identify and prioritize improper payments, before funds are distributed thwarting both honest mistakes and fraud, and ensuring aid gets to the constituents in need.  Additionally, the scalable and rapid to deploy environment helps agencies manage huge caseloads and the backlog of claims regions continue to face. 

See you at the Summit

I invite you to join us at theGoogle Public Sector Summit on December 8-9. If you can’t join us live, don’t worry. Sessions will be available on demand. We have over 50 sessions including about the topics above:

• Google Workspace session
• COVID-19 Recovery: Getting Rhode Islanders Back to Work
• Limit Fraud, Maximize Benefits: Identify, Manage, and Thwart Improper Payments. 

If you want to talk to our team about any of our solutions including Google Workspace for Government you can contact your Google Cloud representative or complete our contact form to get in touch.