The Automatic State and Its Discontents

“50–60% of positions in our department are basically replaceable with AI. Even now.” So said a senior official from a major European city’s public administration—receiving general agreement from counterparts during a closed-door meeting. 

Indeed, AI’s long-anticipated job-market bloodbath casts its darkest shadow over Europe’s public sector—a bureaucracy ripe for pruning by the invisible hand of machine learning.

Clerical positions—particularly within administrative and financial departments—are increasingly vulnerable to automation. Tasks such as data entry, invoice processing, budget tracking, and compliance reporting are well within the capabilities of AI systems. Tasks once demanding entire teams now fall to algorithms in milliseconds.

And European public administrations are already specialising AI. Helsinki has incorporated Microsoft Copilot, Dublin uses AI for tourism, Spain’s Catalonia to simplify legal texts, and Bulgaria touts its open-source model, BgGPT. Evidence that public sector use of AI consists mainly of machine learning suggests reliance on predictive analytics for tasks like resource allocation, error detection, and the like. 

But with efficiency comes baggage. Algorithms are never neutral. They are developed by companies with the ability to process large amounts of data, and then re-trained by clients. There is a great deal of evidence that AI models often absorb the biases in their training data.

Automated? Litigated!

But AI both endangers jobs and creates new employment opportunities. The European public sector has long outsourced its brainpower. From policy to procurement, consultants have become the continent’s unofficial civil service. 

Europe’s consultancy sector is vast—USD 126 billion in 2024 and growing steadily. Brussels, leans heavily on external advice for everything from evaluations to technical assistance. According to the European Court of Auditors: “The Commission makes extensive use of external consultants, committing almost €1 billion…each year between 2017 and 2020.” The European AI market is likewise forecasted to grow by nearly 35% in 2024 and maintain a growth rate exceeding 23% through 2030.

And the two are related: the consultancy sector in Europe is likely to grow on the back of AI, meeting demand from business and the public sector for efficiency and compliance with regulations. This presents an opportunity for the public sector to create jobs to replace the old.

As AI begins to absorb clerical workloads, it could free up resources that allow governments to cultivate in-house expertise traditionally outsourced to consultants. By investing in upskilling initiatives, public administrations can help current employees transition into more strategic roles—such as data analysis, AI systems oversight, or advanced financial modeling. 

This would not only reduce long-term consultancy costs but also enhance institutional capacity by embedding critical knowledge within the public workforce itself. For every batch of clerical jobs lost to an algorithm, a higher-skilled one emerges: auditing, interpreting, and challenging AIs. If the public sector is to be automated, it will also need to be explained—and litigated. 

However, large-scale reskilling programs require significant political will. Resistance to change, budget constraints, and uneven labour market conditions across EU regions could hamper progress. It seems likelier, then, that this sort of work will end up being done by more competitive private sector firms able to pay higher salaries. The public sector might find itself training “bias-proofers” only to have these head-hunted by large consultancies.

Consultancy Arms Race

Some will build systems, others will pick them apart. 

We will see consultants specialising in the auditing of AI systems for embedded biases and procedural flaws—for example in high-stakes areas like welfare eligibility, housing allocation, or law enforcement deployment of resources. 

In cases where individuals or advocacy groups believe they’ve been harmed by AI-driven decisions, consultants could be hired to investigate and build evidence for legal challenges against public authorities. This positions consultants not just as implementers of AI systems, but as expert watchdogs and potential enablers of accountability through litigation.

A consultancy arms race is already underway: on one side, firms helping public administrations build fair and accountable AI; on the other, specialists assisting citizens and advocacy groups in exposing algorithmic bias, or “bias-proofing.” 

Rise of the “Automatic State”

So while AI threatens to displace thousands of lower-skilled jobs, it generates a surge in demand for higher-skilled roles—particularly in oversight, analysis, and system design. And this presents a windfall opportunity for the consultancy sector. 

With automation in the public sector comes a corresponding demand for scrutiny as a balancing agent: the market for specialised consultants and law firms is poised to expand.

Statement

AI is set to automate public sector processes, putting clerical jobs at risk while creating demand for high-skilled roles in oversight and system design. A shift that will fuel new offerings from the consultancy sector to meet demand for challenging AI decision-making on grounds of bias. Without major investment in upskilling, public administrations may lose not only jobs, but core capabilities—outsourcing critical oversight to private firms.