Incentives for Civil Servants Who Excel at Using AI to Be Expanded

[Financial News] Incentives for civil servants who achieve administrative innovation by using artificial intelligence (AI) will be expanded, including special performance bonuses and support for training and learning. AI experts will receive additional points in performance reviews for the advanced science and technology talent track under the early promotion system for Grade 5 officials. The AI transformation (AX) category will also be expanded in evaluations of government innovation by ministries. The measures are intended to support civil servants through personnel and evaluation systems so they can directly use AI to develop administrative services.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) reported the measures, titled “Measures to Promote and Expand Civil Servants’ Direct Development Using AI,” at a Cabinet meeting on the 8th.
Since July 3, MOIS has operated the AI Government Lab, allowing civil servants in charge of specific duties to use AI coding tools, open data, and public APIs (application programming interfaces) to directly create prototypes that improve work efficiency and address inconveniences faced by the public. As of the 3rd, 2,073 civil servants were participating in the AI Government Lab, with 770 registered projects. Of these, 376 had been made public for use by other civil servants.
However, a survey of 244 AI Government Lab participants found that “insufficient development environments and subscription fees” (68%), “difficulty applying security guidelines” (59%), and “difficulty linking data” (40%) were cited as the main obstacles to using AI.
MOIS will provide incentives to civil servants with AI capabilities and organizations that promote a culture of AI use. It will also offer AI leadership training for civil servants at the director-general and division-chief levels. In November, it plans to hold the 2026 Public AI Transformation Challenge to identify outstanding cases.
In the second half of this year, MOIS plans to establish guidelines for civil servants’ direct development using AI and the management of resulting outputs. It will also establish safety standards for checking software vulnerabilities and protecting personal information. The number of simultaneous users allowed in the AI Government Lab will increase from the current level of around 200 to 6,000 next year. The goal is to train 20,000 specialists by 2030 who can directly develop AI and apply it in the field.
Yun Ho-jung, minister of MOIS, said, "Civil servants will be able to experiment with ideas quickly and freely. When those ideas are applied to actual work and public services, organizations will take responsibility for security, quality, and operations, while validated results will be made available for all institutions to use together."

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