- Direction:
- GovTech
Building the Agentic State: How Ukraine is Moving Beyond Digital Government
- Authors
- Valeriya Ionan
- Publication date and time:
- Reading time:
- 3 min
The transition from digital governance to the “Agentic state” is no longer theoretical. In Ukraine, it is already a functioning program.
In a new column for Friends of Europe, Valeriya Ionan unpacks the blueprint for this operational shift, drawing on a recent conversation with Oleksandr Bornyakov, Acting Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, on the FORWARD podcast.
While other nations debate the future of artificial intelligence, Ukraine is actively building its practical foundation. The next phase of digital service delivery, Diia AI, is designed to eliminate bureaucratic navigation entirely, replacing it with outcome-driven conversational interfaces. Ukraine has already launched its first AI-driven service, allowing citizens to receive a tax income report simply by requesting it through a prompt.
Action Over Theory: The Ukrainian Approach to AI
Ukraine’s strategy is built on a clear principle: build the proof of concept first, and formalize the strategy only after it delivers real value to citizens.
Before we go full AI, let’s take the technologies we have from partners and try to build something that customers will consider useful
Key pillars of Ukraine's transition include:
• Technological Sovereignty via Open Partnerships: Ukraine is developing Siaivo, a custom Ukrainian-language LLM, and establishing an "AI factory" to provide sovereign computing capacity in partnership with global leaders like NVIDIA and HP. Bornyakov argues that true technological sovereignty comes from securing access through open partnerships, as history shows closed ecosystems inevitably lose.
• A Frictionless Investment Climate: Scaling Diia City and the newly introduced Diia City Invest to provide a globally recognized legal and financial framework that speaks the language of global venture capital.
Speaking on the philosophy behind attracting foreign capital, Bornyakov emphasized radical transparency:
If you want real investment, you must create the conditions where it is so undoubtedly clear that I can create a company in 15 minutes, nobody can come, everything is plain and simple.
A Cash-Positive Future
The long-term vision for Ukraine's digital transformation is self-sufficiency. By creating business-friendly paid services and moving towards private co-investment models, the state is building a durable, revenue-generating ecosystem that goes beyond traditional grant-based cooperation.
Ukraine’s digital state has been shaped by continuous reinvention under immense pressure. Now, that same capacity is serving as the foundation for the most ambitious digital government model in the world.
Read the full analysis of Ukraine's agentic state model: https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/critical-thinking-building-the-agentic-state-ukraines-model-in-practice/
