How public sector organizations can govern AI at scale
Databricks introduces Unity Gateway to help public sector organizations govern AI use, addressing compliance, cost control, and data residency challenges that previously stalled adoption.
Public sector teams often stall AI adoption due to unresolved governance questions about cost, compliance, and data residency. Unity Gateway provides centralized answers to these questions, enabling agencies to control model access, set spending limits, and track requests without bypassing governance requirements. By integrating with existing data governance frameworks, Unity Gateway allows organizations to manage AI tools such as coding agents and large language models under unified policies, ensuring accountability across all AI interactions.
Unity Gateway enables organizations to select the most suitable AI models for specific missions while maintaining control over data, users, and budgets. Administrators can restrict access to authorized personnel, such as limiting investigations units to taxpayer records, and enforce spending caps by user, team, or use case. Every AI request is logged and attributable, providing governance teams with a clear view of activity across models, agents, and tools, which was previously fragmented or unavailable.
For agencies with strict data residency requirements, Unity Gateway ensures AI requests are processed within designated geographies, offering documented compliance for regulators. Databricks manages data residency for hosted foundation models by geography, allowing account admins to enforce regional processing. This feature addresses concerns raised by health services or national agencies handling sensitive data, where regulators demand proof of data location.
The platform reduces AI costs through Smart Routing, which directs tasks to more cost-effective models without compromising quality. Agencies modernizing legacy systems on fixed budgets benefit from this optimization, as routine coding tasks are routed to lower-cost models. Unity Gateway eliminates the need for separate AI governance solutions, integrating directly into Databricks to streamline adoption and reduce implementation complexity for public sector organizations.