Convivial for GovCMS - AI Edition, it is a natural starting place for agencies wanting to get up and running with safe AI within a secure government-backed environment. This article reviews the landscape and outlines an approach government agencies can take to experimenting with AI services on their GovCMS site.
Users and agencies are demanding more
For a long time, Morpht has focused on delivering for GovCMS SaaS. The platform offers many benefits for government agencies looking for a solid set of base features along with security and scalability. When assessing price and convenience, GovCMS is hard to beat for agencies with requirements that match the capabilities of the platform. For the last 10 years, the capabilities of the platform were enough for many sites. However, the tide is turning, and government agencies have the need for and the interest in more capable sites which are able to use artificial intelligence (AI) to provide better user experiences.
GovAI: Expanding the capabilities of Government
In response to the explosion of interest in AI and the expectation of users for more conversational interfaces, the Australian Government has responded with the development of the GovAI whole-of-government service.
GovAI is a whole-of-government service designed to uplift AI capability, enable efficient ways of working, and enhance productivity across all APS agencies. Services include learning resources, an AI app catalogue, peer-to-peer collaboration tools and a secure sandbox environment for testing and experimentation. GovAI enables responsible and ethical AI use, all within a secure, trusted APS environment.
GovAI can be used for internal public sector projects. These would include chatbots and other tools that can operate across sensitive private data within the bounds of the Australian Government. However, its services can also be used for public-facing websites, making it a natural candidate for delivering AI services to the Australian public in future website builds. This is just the beginning of what promises to be a burgeoning ecosystem of smart tools for Australian websites.
The range of services offered by GovAI is quite extensive - fronting services offered by Azure and AWS. This means that there is a wide range of LLMs and supporting services such as vector databases that are available for use. Integrating into these services should be quite straightforward as the consuming service will be using standard APIs and so the new services should plug in quite readily.
GovAI and GovCMS: A natural match
GovCMS and GovAI are a match made in heaven for public-facing websites. GovCMS handles the content, and GovAI is able to bring extra capabilities to that content via features such as semantic search, content augmentation and validation. GovAI offers the data sovereignty that was previously missing from other AI solutions that required data to be sent outside of secure, authorised environments.
Unfortunately, at this point in time there is no easy path to implement GovAI into GovCMS SaaS. This is because extra modules would need to be included in the GovCMS codebase to make this happen. Natural candidates for such functionality would be AI modules developed by the Drupal community within the Drupal AI Initiative. The initiative has developed a suite of modules opening the way for integration into various backends with a rich system of assistants, agents, tools, context, automations and widgets rounding out the capabilities. It is now possible to wire together a sophisticated solution that makes use of LLMs, vector databases and logic to drive semantic search and chatbot solutions. It is also possible to do this using GovAI services.
The natural solution here is to build on GovCMS PaaS, the platform for sites demanding custom features that extend beyond the capabilities of GovCMS SaaS. The PaaS alternative allows for the installation of a wider range of modules and the development of custom code to address specific problems. For agencies looking for custom AI solutions, integrated tightly with their content, the use of GovCMS PaaS offers a viable path forward.
Drupal AI
Drupal is the open source CMS platform that provides the foundation of the GovCMS application layer. Drupal offers a highly secure, scalable, and open-source content management system tailored for public sector needs. Australian government agencies benefit from a centralised codebase that ensures strict compliance with federal security, privacy, and accessibility standards (such as WCAG 2.1) right out of the box.
The Drupal community has actively been developing the AI capabilities of Drupal over the last year. The Drupal AI initiative has attracted funding and development from a range of Drupal suppliers. Morpht is proud to have been counted amongst the AI partners who are helping to build this ecosystem. The initiative is focusing on several areas, including semantic search and content automations that help editors better manage content. These extended capabilities can be installed into a Drupal site hosted on GovCMS PaaS.
Introducing Convivial for GovCMS - AI Edition
Given all of the above developments, the implementation of a GovCMS starter site with AI capabilities is a natural next step. Morpht has taken the Convivial for GovCMS foundation and delivered an “AI Edition” that ships with high-value AI tools for users and editors. The tools have been targeted at delivering on a small but important set of features designed to leverage the value within the content.
We have focused on four main areas for now:
Semantic search:
Semantic search provides content retrieval based on the subject and intent of the query, rather than just keywords. It is based on the core ideas underpinning the question, rather than the words used to express it. Semantic search can be used in a conversational-based approach, returning an answer as well as citations. The responses can be crafted so that they only use content from the source website, reducing the chances of hallucinations. Users can always validate the response by checking the citations.
Morpht has extended the core Drupal AI functionality with some extra UI improvements
- Responses can include structured HTML for better presentation
- Citations are listed for easy reference
- Action buttons within the response can launch further question and answer responses.
- Action buttons in the content can launch a chat session.
Media library automations
One of the often neglected parts of a site build is providing solid alt text for images. Editors will often fill in the alt text field with little thought to what is actually being displayed. This is an area where AI Automators can help
The AI Automators opens up the possibility to fill in a field using previous context. It can happen directly, via cron, via batch and can be automatic or via an editor's decision by using Field Widget Actions.
In the AI Edition, the Alt text field has been wired up to fetch an alt text description for the image - helping the editor find the right words.
Content automations: Intro and Description
In a similar way to Alt text, the Intro and Description fields have also been wired up to fetch AI-generated summaries. The full content of the node is sent across to an LLM, which is then able to extract summary information for the fields.
AI Guardrails
Drupal AI also ships with Guardrails functionality where content can be sanitised and cleaned before being sent to an LLM. Such functionality helps keep private information away from the LLM. We have written about this recently on the Morpht blog. Such functionality is non-negotiable where user privacy is paramount.
Considerations for agencies
Within the government, there are a number of tensions around the use of AI. Resolving them can be difficult:
- Risk vs reward: There is a growing appetite for the use of AI within government agencies as the power and benefits of the technology become clearer. Content can be taken to a new level through the power of embeddings and LLMs. However, the opportunity stands in stark contrast to concerns around safety and security risks.
- Procurement: Industry has enjoyed an easier onboarding process with AI, being much faster to adopt its capabilities. The government has been more cautious, needing to assess the risks and plan a path forward. GovAI is now opening up pathways for the use of AI within agencies and also for external-facing features. The procurement problem now looks like it has a solution.
- Application development: GovAI provides the foundation for building services; however, there is no turnkey solution for end applications. Agencies have been left with a technically difficult road ahead developing their own solutions on the services. The Drupal AI initiative has provided a set of tools that can be used on GovCMS PaaS, along with GovAI. This opens the path to easier application development where there are prebuilt components.
There are ongoing challenges that should not be understated:
- Early days: It is still early days for GovAI with a relatively small number of examples running in the wild. Agencies wanting to use AI services will be pioneering solutions. This is expected to change rapidly though as more implementations are delivered.
- GovCMS PaaS: GovCMS PaaS is a big step up from GovCMS SaaS in terms of complexity, cost and security settings. GovCMS PaaS requires the application to receive an IRAP certification. It is also more costly from hosting and maintenance perspectives. This is probably the biggest hurdle facing agencies wishing to get up and running with services such as semantic search and AI chatbots.
We are heartened to see that the GovCMS team have recently reached out to the community for feedback on contributing to AI Search within GovCMS SaaS. So it sounds like things are progressing behind the scenes.
Next steps
Right now, the Convivial for GovCMS - AI Edition, starter site is available as a demonstration of the capabilities of the above AI features running in Convivial for GovCMS. Any GovCMS SaaS website could be extended in a similar way to support semantic search and AI chatbots if it is able to step up to the PaaS environment and procure a GovAI subscription.
For agencies that are interested in how it all works and whether it could be a good fit, we are here to show you behind the scenes on how it has been set up and how it could be incorporated into your site.
Conclusion
The landscape for Australian government agencies looking to leverage AI is rapidly clearing. Confidence is growing, and with established procurement frameworks now in place, the barrier to entry is lower than ever. By building on GovCMS PaaS, agencies can harness the power of LLMs and semantic search without sacrificing the rigorous security compliance required in the public sector.
Convivial for GovCMS - AI Edition provides a practical, low-risk entry point to this ecosystem. At Morpht, we’ve focused on delivering immediate value through better user experiences and automated editor tools.
Ready to see what's possible? Visit our demo site to explore these capabilities in action, or get in touch to discuss how we can tailor this approach for your agency.
