Pakistani Developer Launches AI Search Tool for Government Services

A Pakistani developer has launched an independent AI-powered search platform designed to make government information easier to find, allowing users to ask questions about passports, CNICs, taxes, jobs, education and social programmes through a conversational interface.

The project, called Ask Pakistan, was created by Pakistani developer Raheel Siddiqui and is available through PakistanGov.online.

Instead of forcing users to identify the right department and navigate multiple government websites, the service allows them to ask questions in English, Urdu or Roman Urdu.

Examples could include:

• How do I renew my CNIC?
• What is the passport renewal fee?
• How do I register as a taxpayer?
• Where can I apply for a government job?
• How can I check information about BISP?
• What documents are required for a particular government service?

Siddiqui says the system searches official government material and provides links to the underlying sources rather than relying entirely on an AI model’s general knowledge.

However, despite headlines describing the project as a tool for “all government services,” its current capabilities are considerably more limited.

Ask Pakistan is not an official government platform, cannot access citizens’ private records and cannot complete official transactions on their behalf.

What Is Ask Pakistan?

Ask Pakistan is essentially an AI-assisted layer placed over publicly available government information.

The idea is simple.

Instead of knowing whether information is located on NADRA, FBR, HEC, FPSC, PTA, a provincial portal or another government website, users can describe what they need in ordinary language.

The platform then attempts to identify relevant information from official sources and present it in a simpler form.

According to Siddiqui, the initial system searches more than 5,000 indexed pages across more than 50 official websites.

Other reports say its broader government-source directory currently lists around 212 federal, provincial and regulatory websites.

Those two figures are not necessarily contradictory.

The 212 figure appears to describe the wider directory of identified government sources, while Siddiqui’s own launch description says the searchable index currently covers more than 50 official sites.

Which Government Organisations Are Covered?

Ask Pakistan says its sources include information published by major institutions such as:

• NADRA
• Federal Board of Revenue
• Directorate General of Immigration and Passports
• Benazir Income Support Programme
• Higher Education Commission
• Federal Public Service Commission
• Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
• Election Commission of Pakistan

The wider source directory also includes provincial governments, police departments, courts, utilities and regulatory bodies.

That creates a broader search layer across government information that would otherwise be scattered across dozens of separate portals.

Pakistan’s official national portal already links citizens to many services, including passports, identity documents, visas, tax registration, jobs, pensions, complaints and court information.

Ask Pakistan’s difference is primarily the conversational AI interface rather than the creation of new government services.

It Supports English, Urdu and Roman Urdu

One of the platform’s most useful features for Pakistan could be language support.

Users can type questions in:

English

Urdu

or

Roman Urdu

Siddiqui demonstrated the idea using questions such as asking how to renew a CNIC, asking about passport fees in Roman Urdu and asking what to do after losing an identity card in Urdu script.

This could lower a significant usability barrier.

Many Pakistani government websites contain useful information but may require users to understand formal terminology or navigate complex departmental structures.

A citizen may know what they want to do without knowing which agency is responsible.

Conversational search can potentially bridge that gap.

Voice Questions Are Also Supported

Ask Pakistan also supports spoken questions.

According to information published about the platform, voice input is transcribed so users do not necessarily need to type their query.

Voice access could make the system more useful for people who are more comfortable speaking Urdu or Roman Urdu than typing formal search terms.

However, speech recognition can still produce errors, particularly with names, regional accents and mixed-language sentences.

Users should therefore check the transcribed question before relying on the resulting answer for an important official task.

Answers Are Supposed to Come From Official Sources

Siddiqui says one of the central design principles is that Ask Pakistan should answer from official government material rather than general web content.

The system also shows the source behind its response.

If the indexed government material does not contain an answer, Siddiqui says the system is designed to admit that rather than invent information.

That is an important design choice because AI systems can produce confident but incorrect answers when information is missing.

Source-grounded responses can reduce that risk, although they cannot eliminate it entirely.

Even the US government’s America.gov service warns users that AI can make mistakes and advises them to review the official sources attached to answers.

The same caution should apply to Ask Pakistan.

Ask Pakistan Was Inspired by America.gov

Siddiqui says he built the Pakistani project after seeing the launch of America.gov.

America.gov is an official US government service operated by the General Services Administration and uses a conversational interface to help users find information spread across roughly 29,000 government websites.

The US platform allows citizens to ask questions in ordinary language rather than navigating separate agencies and departmental websites.

Siddiqui said the launch made him wonder whether a similar model could work for Pakistan.

There is, however, a major difference.

America.gov is an official government service. Ask Pakistan is not.

That distinction affects both trust and capability.

Ask Pakistan Cannot Process Applications

At present, Ask Pakistan primarily provides information.

It cannot:

• Renew a passport
• Submit a CNIC application
• Register a taxpayer
• Apply for a government job
• Access a citizen’s NADRA record
• Check private application data
• Make payments
• Approve benefits
• Book official appointments through government systems

The project does not have the secure government APIs or internal access necessary to perform those tasks.

This is why calling it a portal for “all government services” is technically too broad.

It is more accurately described as an AI search and guidance tool for government information.

Future Goal: AI That Can Actually Perform Government Tasks

Siddiqui believes the larger opportunity lies beyond answering questions.

He describes a future where an AI system could act more like a government-services assistant.

For example, a citizen might eventually be able to say:

“Renew my passport.”

The system could then potentially help:

• Complete forms
• Gather required documents
• Schedule appointments
• Track the application
• Notify the user about progress

But Siddiqui acknowledges that this would require official APIs and secure access to government systems.

An independent website cannot safely create that access by itself.

Government participation would be required.

Interestingly, America.gov is moving toward a similar direction. Its official roadmap says future versions are expected to allow users to complete forms and track progress rather than only receive informational answers.

Privacy Is a Major Part of the Design

Ask Pakistan also makes several privacy claims.

According to the project, sensitive details such as:

• CNIC numbers
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• Passport numbers
• Bank-account numbers

are removed in the user’s browser before a question is transmitted.

The platform also says it does not maintain a permanent conversation history tied to individual users.

Some initial question-and-answer data may reportedly be cached temporarily for approximately 24 hours after identifiable numbers have been removed.

These are privacy practices described by the platform itself.

Info-Matix has not independently audited its source code, hosting infrastructure or data-handling systems, so they should be reported as the service’s stated policies rather than independently certified guarantees.

Users Should Still Avoid Sharing Sensitive Information

Even with automatic filtering, users should avoid entering unnecessary personal data into an AI search box.

For a general question such as:

“How do I renew my CNIC?”

there is no reason to enter the actual CNIC number.

Likewise, a question about passport renewal usually does not require the user’s real passport number.

The safest approach is to ask general procedural questions and only provide sensitive information directly through the official government portal when it is actually required.

Early Interest Was Strong

The project attracted substantial attention shortly after launch.

Siddiqui said the site initially attracted hundreds of users faster than expected, temporarily exhausting the AI usage budget he had allocated for the service.

He later increased the limit after some users encountered a “busy” message.

Subsequent reports citing Siddiqui said Ask Pakistan recorded more than 7,500 visits from 71 countries within a little over 24 hours.

More than 1,700 users reportedly asked questions, producing over 5,000 answers.

Around one-third of the traffic was reportedly from outside Pakistan, including users in countries such as the United States, UAE, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

These usage figures come from the project’s creator and have not been independently audited.

Overseas Pakistanis Could Be a Major User Group

The interest from outside Pakistan makes sense.

Overseas Pakistanis frequently need information about:

• NICOP
• Passports
• Taxation
• Property matters
• Visas
• Family registration
• Government documentation

Finding the right authority can be particularly difficult for someone who is not physically present in Pakistan.

A single searchable interface could therefore be useful for the diaspora even if the actual application still needs to be completed through an official portal.

Pakistan Already Has Several One-Window Government Platforms

Ask Pakistan is not the first attempt to simplify government-service access.

The federal Pakistan.gov.pk portal already maintains a central services directory covering passports, family registration, immigration, taxation, employment, pensions and other areas.

Punjab also operates Dastak, which provides a one-window platform for numerous provincial services and can support online applications and doorstep facilitation for selected services.

The difference is that those are government-operated platforms.

Ask Pakistan’s potential value comes from sitting across different layers of government and providing a natural-language search interface.

The Bigger Problem Is Fragmentation

Siddiqui says the AI itself was relatively straightforward compared with gathering the government information.

He says he identified around 18,000 government-related web addresses, while many important portals could not easily be read or indexed by software.

That highlights a broader digital-government problem.

Pakistan’s online public services are distributed across federal ministries, provincial departments, regulators, commissions, autonomous bodies, district administrations and specialised portals.

Citizens often need to know the administrative structure before they can even begin searching.

A unified search layer could reduce that burden.

But AI Cannot Fix Outdated Government Data

An AI system is only as reliable as its sources.

If an official government website contains an outdated fee, old deadline or obsolete form, an AI system grounding its answer in that page can reproduce the same problem.

This is particularly relevant for:

• Application fees
• Tax deadlines
• Eligibility requirements
• Office timings
• Recruitment notices
• Regulatory rules

Ask Pakistan itself advises users to verify changing information directly with the relevant authority.

That warning should be taken seriously.

Source Links Are Essential

One of the strongest aspects of the concept is that users can check the original government source.

This matters because government information often carries legal, financial or eligibility consequences.

An AI-generated summary can help explain the rules, but the underlying agency remains the authoritative source.

For example, if Ask Pakistan explains a passport fee but the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports publishes a newly revised schedule, the official passport authority’s information should control.

“All Government Services” Is an Overstatement

The source headline describes Ask Pakistan as a search tool for “all govt services.”

That is not literally accurate.

The creator currently says the system searches more than 5,000 pages across 50+ official websites.

Its broader directory reportedly identifies 212 government and regulatory sources, but Pakistan has far more public-sector websites and services than this.

Siddiqui himself says he found around 18,000 government web addresses while developing the project.

Therefore, Ask Pakistan should be described as providing centralised AI search across a growing collection of government information, rather than complete coverage of every government service.

What Ask Pakistan Can Do Today

The current product is best understood as performing four main functions:

1. Search

It searches government information without requiring users to know which department to visit.

2. Explain

It converts official text into a simpler conversational response.

3. Translate interaction

Users can ask questions in English, Urdu or Roman Urdu.

4. Direct users

It can point people toward the relevant official source and suggested next steps.

Those functions can still be useful even without transactional access.

What It Cannot Do Today

The current system does not replace government portals.

Users still need to visit the responsible department to:

• Submit documents
• Authenticate identity
• Pay official fees
• Retrieve personal records
• Complete biometric verification
• Receive government approval

This separation is important for both accuracy and security.

A private AI interface should not be mistaken for the agency actually responsible for a government service.

Why This Could Matter for Pakistan’s GovTech Sector

Ask Pakistan demonstrates a broader use case for generative AI in public services.

Instead of using AI mainly to create text or images, systems can help users navigate large and fragmented information environments.

For governments, that could mean reducing the time citizens spend searching for:

• Forms
• Departments
• Requirements
• Fees
• Procedures
• Eligibility information

A mature government-backed version could potentially combine natural-language assistance with authenticated digital services.

That would represent a more meaningful transformation than simply adding a chatbot to an existing website.

Government APIs Would Be the Critical Next Step

The biggest limitation is integration.

For Ask Pakistan to move from “tell me how” to “do it for me,” government systems would need secure APIs.

These could potentially allow authorised services to:

• Submit an application
• Verify a citizen
• Fetch application status
• Book an appointment
• Process payments
• Retrieve official documents

But such integrations would require strict identity management, cybersecurity, consent, logging and data-protection controls.

The convenience of AI cannot come at the expense of access to sensitive government databases.

Bottom Line

Pakistani developer Raheel Siddiqui has launched Ask Pakistan, an independent AI-powered search interface designed to make public-sector information easier to navigate.

The platform currently searches more than 5,000 pages across over 50 actively indexed official websites, including information from organisations such as NADRA, FBR, Passports, BISP, PTA, HEC, FPSC and ECP. Its broader directory reportedly lists around 212 government, provincial and regulatory sources.

Users can ask questions in English, Urdu and Roman Urdu, including through voice input, and the service says it attempts to answer only from official government material while showing the original source behind each answer.

But the project should not be mistaken for an official Pakistani government service.

It cannot access personal government records, submit applications, make payments or complete transactions on behalf of citizens.

The claim that it covers “all government services” is therefore an exaggeration of its current capabilities.

A more accurate description is that Ask Pakistan is an early AI-powered discovery and guidance layer across a growing collection of Pakistani government information.

Its longer-term potential is more ambitious: turning natural-language questions into actual government-service actions.

Reaching that stage would require official APIs, secure identity access and direct cooperation from government agencies.

For now, Ask Pakistan’s main achievement is simpler but still useful — helping citizens find the right official information without first having to understand Pakistan’s complex network of government websites.