Report: How counties are priming themselves for AI innovation
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A new report ranked Miami-Dade County in Florida ahead of the pack in AI adoption, due to its “forward-looking approach” to the technology.
Artificial intelligence remains top of mind for the public sector as governments at every level grapple with the technology’s impact on services, the workforce and the public. Further complicating the issue are current efforts to balance its increasing presence in governments’ systems and some lawmakers’ efforts to loosen regulations on the technology.
“In a period of much ambiguity around what you can and can't do with AI, the first thing I feel like people naturally do is just ask their peers what they're doing … or what they're holding back on,” said Jennifer Jiao, head of marketing of Starbridge, an intelligence platform that helps connect government and education organizations with businesses.
A new report from the company aims to create more transparency about how local governments are adopting AI. Based on data including requests for proposals, board minutes, publicly available AI plans and reports, researchers built a scoring model to understand which county governments were at the forefront of AI, Jiao said.
A critical part to counties’ capacity to realize their AI initiatives is their ability to attract vendors offering the tools and products needed to meet their goals, she said. Jiao underscored how counties could better appeal to potential vendors by having a comprehensive approach to AI, such as a formal AI strategy or report that outlines potential use cases for AI solutions, security criteria for AI products or governance about the tech’s implementation.
Miami-Dade County, Florida, for instance, was ranked as the No. 1 leading county in AI adoption for its "structured and forward-looking approach to AI,” the report stated.
The county released a report earlier this year that offers a roadmap for integrating AI into it’s operations over the next few years. For example, the report identifies high-priority AI projects for the county to pursue, including an AI assistant for public benefits applications and a human-resources chatbot to address staff questions on employee benefits and rules.
The report also suggests that the county should invest in partnerships with industry and academic organizations to create upskilling programs aimed at preparing county staff for AI integration into their work. It also recommends that the government establish an AI sandbox for agencies to experiment with the development of AI solutions.
Plus, counties that were more receptive to AI adoption “clearly had someone at the helm of their AI initiatives … coordinating all the efforts across different departments” to support a comprehensive approach to AI, such as a chief information officer, she said.
Communities looking to stay abreast of tech innovations to enhance government operations and improve service delivery, “understand that AI tools take time to train and deploy,” Jiao said. That sentiment can further help governments signal to vendors that they can handle change management when it comes to adopting AI tools, she explained.
Other counties that the report identified as leaders in AI adoption included Montgomery County, Maryland; San Francisco, California; Placer County, California; and Maricopa County; Arizona.
Jiao highlighted that researchers found that AI adoption was not unique to urban areas typically associated with tech hubs, according to the report’s findings.
Across the U.S., “there are a lot of suburban counties that are incredibly adept at adopting AI,” she said, such as Placer County, California. The county was the first local government in the state to deploy an AI chatbot to strengthen community engagement in 2019, according to the report.
“There's this mass perception that government is slow to move on AI,” Jiao said. And while “there's definitely greater truth to that, … what we found is the majority of counties have some sort of AI pilot going on or using a tool that has AI inherent to their technology.”
According to the report, for instance, 70% of counties have mentioned AI in board discussions the last two years with “positive sentiment and neutral sentiment” like new policies, initiatives or investments in the technology. Another 61% of counties used an AI-related tool, such as an enterprise solution that has an AI component to it, she said.
Over the last year, there’s been an “exponential increase in AI adoption,” and that momentum shows little signs of stopping, as “more and more vendors have incorporated AI into their product offerings,” Jiao said.
Having knowledge on what neighboring counties are doing to adopt AI can help standardize counties’ approach to the technology, she said, while also supporting innovation across the board.