Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of how policy professionals research and communicate, and the Max Bell School of Public Policy wants to make sure its community is ready.聽This spring, the school launched an internal AI policy workshop series to help staff聽and students build practical skills and to think critically about how these tools fit into the work of policy practitioners.聽
The series was organized by Neil Bouwer, Professor of Practice at Max Bell, and Anna Jahn and Aengus Bridgman聽from聽the Centre for Media, Technology, and Democracy. Together,聽they聽brought Max Bell personnel across the roles into the same room聽for聽open, hands-on conversations about what聽AI聽can聽and聽can鈥檛聽do, and what it means for the聽future of policy work.聽The聽workshops build on one another, starting with the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and progressing to聽applied and skill-building sessions.聽
During the introductory workshop, Bridgman encouraged the room to set aside bigger debates about job displacement and automation for the day, and instead asked a simple question: how can we get these tools to聽actually work聽for us?聽
From there, he walked participants through the difference between chatbots and AI agents. A chatbot, he explained, is like a browser tab where you copy, paste, and go back and forth.聽The聽agent is quite different. It聽operates聽within your system聽and can access聽your聽files聽to聽carry out tasks on your behalf. To show what that looks like in practice, Bridgman聽demonstrated聽how a command-line tool paired with a large language model could pull and analyze unemployment data from Statistics Canada in聽under a minute鈥攕omething聽that聽would normally take an analyst with technical聽expertise聽much longer.聽
鈥淲e are moving very quickly from a world where decisions and thinking about things聽were聽sort of聽the聽start of a project, and then the building and implementing was the very costly part,鈥� Bridgman explained. 鈥淭his is being reversed.聽The really costly part of that process聽is no longer the implementation.聽It鈥檚聽the meeting.聽It's聽the聽conversation.聽It鈥檚聽the visioning.鈥澛�
One聽idea that came from the session was thinking about AI agents like interns:聽they鈥檙e聽clear聽in their direction and have聽good reference materials to work with. Bridgman stressed that responsibility for the final product always sits with the user, noting that 鈥渢he intern is never responsible for the work. You are responsible. The manager always has their name on it.鈥澛�
That message resonated with MPP student Adam McKay. He said the workshops changed how he thinks about AI in the workplace. 鈥淚 think what I鈥檝e mainly started to think differently about is the notion that AI is going to replace everybody鈥檚 jobs,鈥� he reflected. 鈥淲hat鈥檚聽more聽likely is聽that聽there鈥檚聽going to be a shift聽by employers to prioritizing hiring employees that understand how to use AI and know how to聽leverage聽its efficiency.鈥澛�
McKay further highlighted the potential for mid-level and senior employees to use agents that might typically fall to junior staff, freeing up more time and energy for the problem-solving side of policy work.聽
Participants also raised important questions about data privacy, how to verify AI-generated content, and the risk of hallucinations, where AI produces information that sounds right but聽isn鈥檛. Bridgman was upfront about the聽limitations but聽noted that providing strong context and documentation significantly reduces these risks. He also encouraged participants to use the tools themselves as a check,聽noting that one agent can be used to fact-check another's output.聽
The introductory workshop wrapped up with聽hands-on聽exercise.聽Participants used Gemini, Google鈥檚 AI model, to tackle real tasks from their own work, whether that meant drafting a policy brief, exploring a dataset, or testing how the tools handle specialized queries.聽聽
MacKay describes the series as 鈥渁 fantastic entry into being able to understand AI at a little bit of a deeper level, and to really start to get you on the path to gaining the skills to be able to聽leverage it in your career.鈥澛�
With more sessions to come, the Max Bell School鈥檚 AI policy workshop series continues to build knowledge and confidence across the team.聽It鈥檚聽one more example of how the school is preparing its community not just to understand the policy challenges of today, but to work with the tools that are shaping how those challenges will be addressed.聽
