Raising the bar: Why government should care about Drupal AI
Human-in-the-loop, always: AI should amplify human expertise, not replace it. From content authoring to accessibility checks, Drupal AI keeps public servants in control, with oversight, intervention, and judgment at every step. Public infrastructure requires public values. Drupal AI is being built from the ground up to serve governments, not just in functionality, but in how it thinks about power, trust, and accountability. It’s a framework designed for public institutions, with key features to match: The opportunity? To shape it yourself, through collaboration, scrutiny, and participation in open initiatives like Drupal AI.
AI designed for Public Sector values
Governments still need to do the internal work: crafting AI policies, setting boundaries, designing safeguards, and ensuring cultural and legal alignment. That work is essential, and Drupal AI is designed to support it. No vendor lock-in, ever: Governments shouldn’t be boxed in by proprietary tools or commercial interests. With Drupal AI, agencies maintain full data sovereignty, choosing their AI models, controlling where data is processed, and integrating securely with their existing sovereign and secure infrastructure. No black boxes. No forced SaaS. All open source. But the moment to act is now. The alternative? Allowing vendors, foreign regulators, or commercial priorities to dictate the AI direction for your jurisdiction. This isn’t innovation theatre, it’s real, tangible benefit for digital government delivery:
Built with, not just for, Government
This is digital transformation in the open. This is digital transformation with integrity. Governments everywhere are still navigating what AI means for them. And rightly so. Questions around ethics, security, privacy, bias, and public trust can’t be brushed aside, they must be answered thoughtfully, and within robust regulatory frameworks, policies, and guidelines. Unlike most proprietary AI products, Drupal AI isn’t shaped behind closed doors. It’s built through open collaboration, and governments can have a seat at the table.
Concrete outcomes, not just AI hype
Salsa Digital is proud to represent this voice.
As an active contributor to Drupal AI, Salsa brings to the table deep experience working within whole-of-government platforms and across digital service standards. We’re helping ensure that the AI capabilities emerging in Drupal are shaped by public values, public needs, and public infrastructure principles.
- Faster delivery: AI-powered workflows streamline content creation, automate translations, and speed up accessibility tasks, freeing public servants to focus on creating even higher-value services to citizens.
- Lower cost, higher scale: Leverage advanced AI without being locked into costly proprietary stacks or expensive build-from-scratch projects
- Transparent governance: With public roadmaps, public funding models, and clear decision-making processes, agencies can trust, and verify, how the initiative is run.
Audit-first by design: Every AI-generated output is tracked, reviewable, and reversible. This isn’t just a technical feature, it’s a civic one. In a world where FOI requests, regulatory audits, and public scrutiny matter, auditability builds trust and reinforces democratic oversight.
What Governments can do next
The initiative invites agencies and public sector partners to be part of the process: helping define what ethical, safe, and effective AI looks like in practice. Early adopters gain influence over the roadmap and help co-create compliance models that reflect real-world needs. The invitation? We naturally are encouraging governments to join the table. Be part of defining what responsible, open, and future-proof AI looks like for government, on your terms. The Drupal AI Initiative opens a door, but it doesn’t walk through it for you. Drupal’s new AI Initiative is different. It’s open-source, transparent by design, and built to be shaped by, not just sold to, government. Not new by the way, just building on Drupal’s existing open source “government-compliant” foundations. Drupal AI will provide a framework that lets government agencies stay in control of their own rules and data, while also giving them practical tools to safely try out, apply, and refine how they use AI over time. At the same time, public sector digital teams are facing pressure to move faster and deliver better services. Embracing AI represents the opportunity for public sector to achieve this. But most AI solutions on the market are black boxes, vendor-locked, opaque, and near-impossible to audit. Until then, you can be sure we’ll be doing our darnest to represent government in every way possible.
