The digital revolution is reshaping every industry, and the public sector is no exception. Citizens expect seamless, efficient, and personalized experiences, and government agencies strive to meet these demands. However, the path to digital transformation is paved with complex challenges, particularly in the realm of integration.
The 2025 MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report provides a comprehensive, global view of the AI, integration, automation, and API landscape, offering invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities organizations face today. This report captures insights from interviews with 1,050 IT leaders across the globe, 137 representing the public sector. Respondents are all IT leaders with managerial positions or above in an IT department. All respondents work at an enterprise organization with at least 1,000 employees.
While the full report paints a broad picture, we recognize that each industry has unique needs. Let’s dig deeper into public sector data and identify key actions for government leaders to accelerate their digital journeys, and ultimately create better experiences for employees and the people they serve.
Benefits and challenges of integration
Public sector respondents clearly articulated the significant benefits from successful integration. Their top benefits highlighted were:
- Incorporating data-derived insights into user-facing applications (66%)
- Reusing data sources across different user-facing applications (66%)
- Moving data from source systems into the data warehouse (60%)
- Correlating data in the warehouse to derive insights (69%)
These benefits indicate a clear desire to leverage data for improved citizen services and operational efficiency. The ability to make data-driven decisions and provide personalized experiences is paramount.
That said, the scale of the challenge is significant. Public sector organizations revealed an average of 1,215 applications – considerably higher than the overall average of 897 apps. Yet, like the global average, only about 30% of these applications are integrated. This application sprawl creates significant obstacles to achieving the benefits listed above.
Recommendations:
- Prioritize application rationalization: Conduct a thorough assessment of your application portfolio. Identify redundant applications, opportunities for consolidation, and systems ripe for modernization.
- Embrace an API-led approach: Focus on exposing data and functionality through well-defined APIs. This approach promotes reusability and simplifies integration efforts.
- Establish a comprehensive integration strategy: Connect your data and make it accessible and secure across the entire organization.
The project delivery gap: Demand vs. reality
The pressure to deliver new digital services is immense. A staggering 90% of public sector respondents reported increased project demand, exceeding the all-industry average of 86%. However, a concerning 42% of public sector projects were not delivered on time last year, significantly higher than the overall average of 29%. This delivery gap highlights the critical rift between customer demand and delivery capacity.
Recommendations:
- Improve project planning and resource allocation: Implement robust project management methodologies and allocate adequate resources to integration projects.
- Adopt agile and DevOps practices: Embrace iterative development and automation to accelerate delivery cycles and improve responsiveness to changing requirements.
Data silos and system interdependencies
Data silos remain a persistent challenge, with 93% of public sector respondents citing them as a business obstacle (compared to 90% across all industries). These silos trap data and hinder the ability to gain a holistic view of citizen needs and deliver truly integrated services.
Furthermore, 88% of public sector respondents indicated that their IT infrastructure makes their systems overly dependent on one another, a significantly higher percentage than the overall average of 74%. This tight coupling creates fragility and makes it difficult to adapt to new requirements.
Recommendations:
- Establish a data governance framework: Implement clear policies and processes for data management to ensure data quality, consistency, and accessibility.
- Embrace microservices and decoupled architectures: Break down monolithic systems into smaller, independent microservices to reduce dependencies and improve agility.
Opportunities and integration hurdles
Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a transformative opportunity for the public sector, and adoption is high. Ninety-eight percent of public sector respondents are either using autonomous agents today or plan to use them within the next two years, slightly ahead of the all-industry average of 97%.
Public Sector respondents are also leading the way with the usage or planned usage of large numbers of AI Models. Thirty-four percent will (or expect to use) 21 or more models, which will balloon to 67% by 2028.
However, integrating AI into existing systems is a massive challenge. A striking 91% of public sector organizations report that data integration is one of the biggest obstacles they face when integrating AI, higher than the all-industry average of 80%.
Additionally, 96% of public sector respondents face challenges leveraging AI for system integrations – a significantly higher proportion than the all-industry average of 81%.
Recommendations:
- Prioritize data quality for AI: Ensure your data is clean, consistent, and well-structured to maximize the effectiveness of AI algorithms.
- Invest in integration platforms that support AI: Seek out integration solutions that provide pre-built connectors and tools for integrating with AI services and platforms.
- Incorporate autonomous agents: Implementing AI agents like Agentforce allows employees to focus on mission-critical tasks rather than tracking down and manually integrating data and systems.
Digital interactions and the citizen experience
The shift to digital channels is undeniable. Public sector respondents reported that 78% of their interactions are digital, surpassing the all-industry average of 71%, underscoring the importance of providing seamless and integrated digital public sector experiences.
However, several factors are hindering the delivery of these experiences. Security and governance challenges (45% vs. 41% for all respondents) and outdated IT infrastructure (47% vs. 37%) were cited as significant impediments, with public sector responses significantly higher than the overall averages.
Recommendations:
- Modernize Legacy Systems: Prioritize the modernization of legacy systems to improve performance, security, and integration capabilities.
- Implement Robust Security and Governance Controls: Adopt a zero-trust security model and implement strong data governance policies to protect citizen data and ensure compliance.
Improving API strategy and management
While a quarter of public sector respondents reported that leadership mandates all projects follow an enterprise-wide strategy – a proportion that mirrored the overall report – it’s troubling that almost a third (31%) report that their leadership communicates an upfront strategy, yet this strategy is only implemented in parts of the business.
A significant area of concern is API management. A staggering 95% of public sector respondents believe that API management within their organization could be improved, compared to 87% of all respondents, indicating a need for better tools, processes, and governance around API development, deployment, and security.
Recommendations:
- Develop a comprehensive API strategy: Define clear guidelines for API design, development, and management to ensure consistency and reusability.
- Invest in API management tools: Implement a robust API management platform to secure, manage, and monitor APIs effectively.
- Foster an API-first culture: Encouraging an API-First culture helps teams to expose data for sharing by default, facilitating data sharing.
Are you unlocking your data’s full potential?
The 2025 MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report and this public sector deep dive highlight the opportunities and challenges facing government agencies in their digital transformation journeys. While the public sector is embracing digital technologies, significant hurdles remain in the areas of integration, data silos, project delivery, and AI adoption.
The key takeaway is that integration is not just an IT issue; it’s a strategic imperative. By addressing these challenges head-on, government agencies can unlock the full potential of their data, improve citizen services, and build a more agile and resilient future.
We encourage you to dive into the 2025 MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report yourself and learn more about how peers are approaching integration, automation, and API management in the era of AI and digital agents. It’s time to build a more connected and efficient public sector.
