Building a generative AI assistant for government organizations with Amazon Q

In a previous post, we explored the fundamental building blocks of creating a generative AI conversational experience on Amazon Web Services (AWS). We discussed how combining a user interface, a large language model (LLM), model access methods, and a knowledge base creates the foundation for an AI assistant. We also examined various AWS services such as Amazon SageMaker JumpStart, Amazon Bedrock, and Amazon Kendra, highlighting how Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) enhances AI responses with contextual information.

Building on these foundations, this post showcases how Amazon Q Business can be a game-changer for government organizations in the conversational AI landscape. Although our previous discussion focused on the technical components and architecture choices, in this post we explore how Amazon Q Business can improve productivity and streamline implementation while potentially reducing costs.

Amazon Q Business

Amazon Q Business is a generative AI-powered assistant that delivers quick, accurate, and relevant answers to your business questions, securely, and privately. It connects to over 40 popular enterprise applications such as SharePoint, Confluence, and Slack, while respecting existing access control based on user permissions. Amazon Q index enables you to bring your enterprise data into a single index store that is governed and managed with high security and privacy.

Figure 1: Amazon Q Business RAG architecture

You can embed the Amazon Q Business user experience in your application, customizing the design to match your corporate branding. The generated responses can include data from other applications.

Figure 2: Build your own user experience

You can also execute actions using out-of-the-box or custom plugins. You can choose over 50 action integrations spanning popular business applications and platforms. Examples include scheduling meetings in Outlook, updating Asana projects, or creating Jira tickets—all without leaving the Amazon Q Business interface. Although we continue to build our library of actions, we also provide you with the ability to build custom actions that meet your business needs.

As of this writing, Amazon Q Business is available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Sydney) AWS Regions. The service quotas can be found in the AWS Documentation. Amazon Q Business pricing is based on a subscription model per user per month, and index usage.

Government use cases

Government organizations are facing a digital transformation focused on citizen-centric service delivery—creating responsive, personalized, and accessible citizen services, thereby improving overall satisfaction and trust. These services must include a responsible data and AI governance strategy.

AWS core infrastructure is built to satisfy the security requirements for the military, the intelligence community, and other highly sensitive organizations. As a managed RAG, Amazon Q Business supports responses grounded in official documentation, provides source citations for accountability, maintains accuracy when dealing with complex regulations, and helps manage large volumes of institutional knowledge. It can meet various compliance standards, such as HIPAA, PCI, and ISO 42001. Furthermore, it is a regional service, which means that user data is stored in the region where the Amazon Q Business app is created.

You are always in control of your data. Amazon Q Business uses pre-trained LLMs for inference, and it manages model selection. You can restrict responses to enterprise content only, or open responses to the general knowledge of the LLM. The service does not use user data for service improvement or for improving any of the underlying LLMs. All prompts and responses are isolated per user. Your data is always encrypted in transit with a minimum of TLS1.2 and AES-256, and can be encrypted at rest using AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) managed data encryption keys.

For accessing Amazon Q Business, you can use the identity provider of your choice. It integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Identity Center for management, auditability, and control, and with AWS CloudTrail to record actions taken by a user, role, or AWS service. You can configure guardrails, define special topics, and specify blocked words or phrases that should not appear in responses.

The following list outlines 10 government use cases where Amazon Q can deliver value. This list is not exhaustive.

1. Public records management: Search through historical government records and find specific information across multiple databases, connecting related documents across departments while respecting user permissions. Example: retrieve and summarize information from multiple data sources to provide insights to a ministry.
2. Citizen services: Provide accurate responses based on current government guidelines and answer frequently asked questions with citations to official sources. Example: census data analysis, a chatbot so citizens can ask questions about historical census data.
3. Policy and legislation: Retrieve relevant sections from vast legislative documents and answer questions about specific regulations and policies. Example: summarize complex legal documents for different audiences.
4. Law enforcement and justice: Assist with case file organization and analysis, help with document processing, support compliance monitoring, and cross-reference regulatory requirements. Example: summarize sensitive court records.
5. Emergency response: Access relevant protocols and procedures, find historical incident reports for reference, and connect related emergency response with source documents. Example: a chatbot available to citizens to guide them in the event of an earthquake.
6. Procurement: Access vendor documentation and contracts, retrieve specific procurement guidelines from multiple data sources, and find historical purchase information. Example: analyze past requests for proposals and draft a new one for the acquisition of IT equipment for a government agency.
7. Grant management: Find relevant funding opportunities, check eligibility requirements against documented criteria, and assist with proposal writing using past successful cases. Example: loan applications for agriculture institutions.
8. Urban planning and infrastructure: Analyze infrastructure reports and maintenance records, supporting permit processing and helping evaluate environmental impact assessments. Example: take demographic data trends, traffic patterns, environmental reports, and community surveys for the creation of a new neighborhood development plan.
9. Transportation: Analyze traffic patterns and transportation data, support transit system operations, and help manage fleet maintenance records. Example: question and answer chatbot for pipeline repair and maintenance manuals.
10. Workforce development: Create training materials from existing documentation, generate a description for a role opening, help new employees find relevant resources, and summarize internal survey data to understand employee satisfaction. Example: assist candidates on their interview process by simulating questions and answers.

Amazon Q apps

Amazon Q Business enables all employees to automate repetitive tasks by creating a generative AI-powered app that can be shared with others in the organization, without the need of AI or technical skills. You can convert conversations into a lightweight app, or create one from the app builder using a prompt. You can publish applications to a company library, and they can inherit security and governance controls.

The following example demonstrates using an Amazon Q Business app to search AWS resources regarding a given industry use case. The app input is the use case, and the output is AWS partner solutions, AWS solutions, and AWS blogs.

Figure 3: Amazon Q app example “public AWS resources search”

You can edit each card with the desired outcome. In this case, the prompt to retrieve AWS Blogs gives the instruction to search from public knowledge, but you could restrict to company knowledge only, and specify sources if needed.

Figure 4: Output card of Amazon Q app

Conclusion

In this post, we explored how Amazon Q Business is transforming government organizations through secure, AI-powered assistance across various use cases—from public records management to workforce development. Its robust security features, compliance standards, and data privacy controls make it an ideal solution for government entities undergoing digital transformation. Ready to experience these capabilities firsthand? You can try the AWS Workshop Innovate on enterprise data with generative AI and Amazon Q Business application.