Thailand accelerates AI government with law and data reform

Legal reform, integrated government data, and stronger AI literacy across the civil service are essential if Thailand is to accelerate artificial intelligence-driven public services, Deputy Prime Minister Pakorn Nilprapunt has argued.

Pakorn delivered a special address entitled “A New Path for Thailand’s Public Sector in the AI-Driven Era” at the AI for Public Sector: AI-Driven Government Services seminar on Thursday (August 6).

He linked digital transformation to the broader goals of improving public administration and strengthening public trust, describing trust in government as one of the most important principles of governing the country.

“Without trust in government or confidence in the public sector, public administration becomes difficult and slow, affecting the country’s overall development,” he warned.

Pakorn identified four principal elements of public trust:

• Reliability, meaning that government policies and actions must be dependable and consistent rather than changing repeatedly.
• Responsiveness, with public services and government action delivered promptly and in line with changing circumstances.
• Openness, requiring disclosure and transparency to help prevent corruption.
• The quality of the law.

“In a democracy, law is fundamental, and the government must act under the rule of law. Laws must be clear, modern, accessible and easy to understand, and they must be reviewed regularly,” he said.

Law reform crucial to digital government

Pakorn argued that outdated legislation is a major obstacle to modern government. Laws may reflect the circumstances in which they were drafted, but social conditions, technology and public needs continue to change.

When legislation is not updated, new problems may fall outside existing legal frameworks and cannot be resolved simply through repeated interpretation, he noted.

“The most important task is therefore to improve the law and keep it relevant to changing circumstances. That is the basis of the government’s legal policy,” he added.

A stronger legal framework is also needed to support the broader ecosystem for electronic public services. Pakorn pointed to the contrast between the fast and efficient online services offered by private companies and the slower experience often associated with government agencies.

The challenge, he explained, is not merely to put individual services online, but to establish the laws, standards, connected systems and data infrastructure needed for digital government to function across the public sector.

Building the digital government ecosystem

Pakorn noted that Thailand has already introduced legal frameworks for electronic meetings and electronic government operations, including government-to-government services.

Work is also under way to update electronic transactions legislation covering business-to-business activities, ensuring that the country’s legal infrastructure keeps pace with technological development.

The latest step involves connecting data held by government agencies. Under government policy, public-sector information must eventually be stored in machine-readable formats so that computers can process it directly.

This requires agencies to clean up and reorganise their databases, particularly information stored as scanned images or in formats that automated systems cannot use effectively.

Machine-readable data is only the foundation, Pakorn stressed. The longer-term goal is to develop “computable services” capable of processing information and delivering public services more automatically and efficiently.

He estimated that reaching this stage could take another one to two years, because agencies must manage both legacy data and newly generated information.

The government will try to achieve the target during its current term, although progress will depend on how quickly agencies adopt AI and convert their information into usable formats.

“As technology continues to advance, every government agency must consider how to improve public administration at the central, provincial and local levels, making it more efficient, faster and more straightforward,” he said.

AI literacy remains a weak point

Although the government has a clear policy to expand the use of artificial intelligence, Pakorn warned that many officials still do not fully understand how the technology works.

AI adoption also varies widely among agencies, particularly among middle-ranking and senior officials who have the authority to determine policy.

Pakorn cautioned younger civil servants against treating generative AI as a substitute for their own knowledge and judgement.

The technology should be used as a tool to make work faster, more accurate and more efficient. Officials must nevertheless assess the information it produces and remain responsible for their decisions, he noted.

Used properly, AI could improve public services while reducing some personnel-related expenditure. It could also support the creation of new jobs, businesses and technology industries within Thailand.

AI can support a new economy

Pakorn argued that AI-driven government should not be viewed solely as an administrative reform. It also offers an opportunity to generate new economic activity and develop new industries for younger generations.

To build an AI-driven ecosystem in Thailand, the country must first establish clearer and more widely accessible public knowledge about AI, he explained.

The second priority is data. The government is working to connect information held by different state agencies so that it can be searched and analysed accurately, producing more relevant results and more targeted services for the public.

Pakorn expects future governments to bring together the data collected by state agencies and analyse it using AI and agentic AI to determine the country’s policy direction.

He argued that government decisions should not rely solely on populist policies, which he claimed have already caused considerable damage to the country.

Thailand has faced this problem because it lacks sufficient data and evidence-based analysis, resulting in inconsistent policy-making, he added.

“I believe that bringing this technology into government operations will transform public policy-making and the delivery of public services. It will ultimately help improve people’s quality of life,” he concluded.

Agentic chatbot links services across five state agencies

The seminar also featured the launch of the AI Agentic Chatbot, a joint initiative by the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) and the Digital Government Development Agency (DGA).

The pilot project connects government data and services through a single platform, making it easier and faster for people to obtain information from multiple agencies. It also aims to address the problem of siloed public-sector data.

Using agentic AI, the system can “think, plan and connect” information across agencies on behalf of users. It is powered by Pathumma, a large language model developed in Thailand, while Pathumma Connect links the chatbot systems of five pilot agencies: the Department of Lands, the Revenue Department, the Department of Provincial Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Rights and Liberties Protection Department.

When an inquiry involves more than one agency, the system retrieves information from all relevant bodies and produces a single, comprehensive response with citations to reliable sources. The platform provides one-stop access to government information and marks a practical step towards AI-driven public services in Thailand.