{"id":72927,"date":"2025-09-26T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T18:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=72927"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:31:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T18:31:03","slug":"state-government-ai-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/state-government-ai-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"States’ cautious AI strategies will become ‘harder to justify’ as tech improves, new report claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The public is skeptical about the role that artificial intelligence should play in providing government services, and efforts by technology officials to deploy AI have so far been \u201ccautious and uneven,\u201d according to a report published Thursday by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. But that caution, the report warns, will become harder to justify as AI\u2019s capabilities improve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report<\/a>, which draws on the opinions of 48 state CIOs, 300 other government employees and 1,000 U.S. residents, concludes with recommendations for the purportedly inevitable move to AI that state governments will make. (And, as the report\u2019s findings show, states have begun to integrate AI into a growing number of their services and functions.) The \u201cimperatives\u201d for state IT officials, as NASCIO calls them in the report, include strengthening governance, designing systems that prioritize users\u2019 needs and \u201cstarting with strategy and sponsorship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeaders at the highest levels\u2014especially governors and agency heads\u2014can remove barriers, accelerate alignment and reinforce urgency,\u201d the report reads. \u201cWithout this mandate, [generative AI] efforts risk fragmentation and stagnation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly half of residents said they still prefer human interactions over digital alternatives, and 63% said they prefer receiving in-person services. \u201cMost consumers don\u2019t trust AI when it comes to government services,\u201d the report notes, adding that many said they are willing to forego the convenience afforded by digital technology. Meanwhile, about three-quarters of government employees said they\u2019ve noticed that the public expects digital services to improve in quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And many state technology officials view AI as a way to improve their services \u2014 90% told NASCIO they believe generative AI will \u201cenhance citizen experience.\u201d State governments have been cautious<\/a> in adopting generative AI over the last several years, drafting detailed policies that keep in mind the possibility of introducing harmful new biases or privacy violations into their processes. But they\u2019ve been slowly integrating AI into low-risk functions all the while and have increasingly turned to AI to keep pace in the cyber arms race<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report shows that while CIOs are considering a broad range of uses for AI, the most common uses to have already been deployed include virtual agents and other chatbots, \u201cfrequently asked question\u201d documents and language translation service for websites. AI uses that are either in early testing phases or are being considered for future use include citizen alerts and crisis communications, surveys and feedback analysis, and forms and applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only 6% of CIOs said their states have fully \u201cscaled\u201d AI to their agencies, while 50% said they are currently \u201cdeveloping\u201d AI for wider use. Thirty-one percent said AI is in the \u201cdefined\u201d stage, meaning they have a strategy and maybe some low level of deployment. And 13% said their states are in the \u201cexploratory\u201d phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State CIOs won\u2019t be able to deploy AI all by themselves, of course, and the state government employees who will help do much of the implementation are more optimistic than not about AI. Sixty-two percent said they believed AI would reduce their workloads by automating routine tasks, and a majority responded affirmatively both when asked if they believed AI would improve their work experience overall and if they believed AI would improve customer service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though AI deployment may be uneven across states, CIOs seem to be largely in agreement on the best strategies for overcoming their top challenges. Ninety-two percent of CIOs named taking a \u201cphased approach\u201d to AI deployment as a useful strategy to overcome their challenges, such as the public\u2019s wavering trust and workforce shortages. Ninety percent said that improving data quality will help, followed by 79% who noted the importance of policies and governance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers says in a new report that states have been cautious with AI, but incentives could change as the technology improves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":72928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_grayscale_images":true,"grayscale_contrast":0,"sponsored_content":false,"display_author_bio":true,"story_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24394],"tags":[206,234,1482,1843,3973,5272,5732],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-72927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","tag-report","tag-nascio","tag-govtech","tag-technology","tag-state-government","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-state-it","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nStates' cautious AI strategies 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