Design for Agents: How do organisations support the non-human user [City location TBC]

​[City location TBC]

​To date, service delivery across government and other sectors has largely assumed a person is filling in the form, lodging the submission, or raising the request. AI agents change that.

A user of a service can now give an agent standing authority to lodge, pay, or contest on their behalf. A malign influence can spawn agents to make submissions, steer conversation, or erode service capacity. How does an organisation know an agent acts for the person it claims to represent? And does verifying that agent create barriers that shut out real people?

This is a working session built around Agentic Surfaces, a free, public catalogue of 76 policy and design patterns for agent-ready services, and around the people who will face these decisions in real delivery.

In this session, we will

• ​consider the role you give AI agents in your work today, and how you expect it to change;

• ​work through use cases where a user’s agent, or an organisation’s own agent, would touch a service you know;

• ​share research findings and explore nine territories of policy and design challenges;

• ​identify what is missing, what does not transfer across contexts, and what you would need to use the library in real delivery.

​The aim is to test the research against practice, and to shape it based on real experiences.

​Facilitator

Dan Woods is conducting research on how public services may interact with AI agents in the future. His background is technology policy in the Australian Public Service and for Australia's most awarded strategic design consultancies. He now works independently on design and technology policy for public services.

​AI CoLab events are intentionally open and collaborative. With participants' agreement, contributions may be captured to improve the library and share what is learned. The library is published under an open licence. We capture photos, audio, and AI-generated transcripts so we can remix key insights for the AI CoLab Alliance community. This is always done in line with the Charter’s values; transparent, ethical innovation and knowledge sharing to accelerate collective learning (see join.aicolab.org). By participating in an AI CoLab event, you agree to your contributions being captured and shared in accordance with this policy.