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DSWD testing Gemini AI to speed cash-grant payouts, agency official says
Summary
An agency official described a pilot using the Gemini AI tool to extract student attendance from school records, aiming to shorten cash-grant disbursements from about six months to under a month and free social workers from administrative tasks.
An agency official outlined a pilot program to use the Gemini artificial-intelligence tool to read and structure student attendance records from thousands of schools, with the stated goal of shortening the Department of Social Welfare and Development's cash-grant disbursement cycle from about six months to under a month.
The official said DSWD relies on Google Workspace to connect central and regional offices and that, during disasters, the department shifts into a matrix response where fast, coherent information flows are critical. "Google Workspace becomes even more critical," the official said, and the department is testing how AI can accelerate routine verification and administrative steps that now slow aid distribution.
Under the pilot, Gemini is being used to extract attendance information from report cards and class records so that eligibility checks tied to school attendance can be completed faster. The official described the attendance verification requirement as a major step in the cash-grant release process and said that automating extraction and structuring of that data could directly improve the timeliness of payments for millions of households.
The speaker also said the tool has enabled staff to take on new tasks: employees who previously did not perform data analysis can now ask Gemini to summarize data sets, draft insights or outline dashboards. The official framed the use of AI as a way to free social workers from general information queries and administrative follow-ups so they can focus on providing "personalized, highly specialized support to vulnerable individuals and families."
The department framed its AI selection around principles of dignity, scale and mission alignment and emphasized that the goal is to scale systems without overwhelming the workforce by automating routine tasks such as sorting information, drafting standard reports and validating documents. No formal policy vote or regulatory change was announced during the presentation; the remarks described a testing and experimentation phase for the tools.
