Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation in Public Service Delivery in Bangladesh: Prospects and Obstacles

Abstract

This article explores the implications for the principles of Digital Era Governance (DEG) and the proposed third wave of digital transformation in Bangladesh as a result of the nation's digital transformation over the past decade and the growing application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in public services. It is a qualitative descriptive study that features a PRISMA systematic literature review of 2010–2026 peer-reviewed and selected contextual studies, thematically coding evidence across five service domains (health, education, land, finance, and e‑governance) for reintegration, needs‑based holism, digitization changes, and algorithmic augmentation/accountability. The review identifies strong but uneven progress on digitization; selective advances in needs-based holism; and only incipient reintegration, with AI deployments remaining a set of fragmented pilots plagued by digital divides, infrastructural gaps, inadequate data protection and cyber security regimes, skills shortages, institutional fragmentation, politicized regulation, and reliance on foreign technologies. The article adds to DEG by highlighting the legal‑political safeguards, intermediary actors, and technology sovereignty as aspects of third‑wave governance in the Global South. In practical terms, it suggests that inclusive public value through AI in Bangladesh can only be realized through co‑sequenced investments in rural connectivity, data and identity infrastructure, capacities of civil‑service and local intermediary organizations, rights‑respecting data‑AI governance frameworks and an independent algorithmic accountability mechanism, and provides a grounded roadmap for policymakers and a transferable framework for other lower‑middle‑income nations.