By PYMNTS | October 20, 2026
After introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) agent for workers in the private sector, Google is shifting its focus to public employees.
The tech giant on Tuesday (Oct. 20) announced the preview of its Gemini agent for government services, following the recent launch of Gemini at Work.
“Every industry runs on knowledge a general model does not have,” Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud’s CEO, wrote in a blog post announcing the new service. “Government work runs on statute, regulation, and agency guidance, across siloed legacy systems, under strict requirements for data sovereignty, compliance, and confidentiality. Too often that leaves civil servants on data entry and manual document review instead of the services citizens depend on.”
Designed for federal, state, and local agencies, the new agent is centered around five different components, including skills for government work, referring to “reusable instructions and context,” written by domain experts to teach Gemini to complete specific tasks.
It also features secure connectors to agency systems and access to partner agents, which include “pre-built agents” from public sector software providers that government agencies can begin using right away.
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“They handle tasks like FOIA discovery and batch redaction under the same central governance, with a person approving each consequential step,” the blog post said.
Google announced the universal Gemini agent Oct. 8, saying that the tool would be joined by industry-specific agents for financial services, legal, government, healthcare and retail.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has chronicled how quickly companies have embraced AI agents. In late 2025, only 7% of the executives surveyed were using or piloting agents, with 67% saying they wouldn’t grant agents any access to company systems.
By 2026, 89% of executives were using agents in at least one part of the business, while just 2% would deny them any access.
“Here’s the fine print. Most companies have let agents in the door but haven’t let them do much yet,” PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote in a column Tuesday.
The research shows that 78% of companies would allow agents to read company systems but not act on them. Another 18% would permit agents to carry out tasks with a human’s approval, with only 2% of companies saying they would let agents handle routine work on their own.
“In other words, the agents can look up the flights, but they can’t book them. That’s the gap. It’s also both the opportunity and the roadmap,” Webster added.