{"id":73177,"date":"2025-10-13T11:11:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T15:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=73177"},"modified":"2025-10-14T13:19:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T17:19:19","slug":"nascio-2025-annual-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"State IT work \u2018moves pretty fast,\u2019 NASCIO 2025 survey shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers on Monday published the results<\/a> of its annual membership survey. The group, which represents state governments\u2019 highest ranking technology officials, this year prodded the broad range of jobs that CIOs must surmount \u2014 from guiding AI policies and adapting new accessibility guidelines to managing relationships across their wide enterprises \u2014 and encapsulated the current state of affairs by borrowing from the 1986 teen comedy Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off, in which the eponymous hero, played by Matthew Broderick, intones: Life moves pretty fast. If you don\u2019t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a neat 28 pages, the report captures much of what\u2019s so quickly changing in the work of state IT offices. The group\u2019s report is never meant to be comprehensive, but interviews with officials and status updates on its longitudinal studies show how attitudes, such as those around generative artificial intelligence tools, and federal policies, like the Justice Department\u2019s April 2026 deadline for states to ensure their websites are accessible<\/a>, are driving technology decisions in state governments in new directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though NASCIO picks and chooses each year\u2019s survey topics to prevent the findings of any one report from becoming too unwieldy, one topic in particular, AI, was impossible this year to ignore, said Doug Robinson, NASCIO\u2019s executive director. In an attempt to sensibly quantify a trend many have treated more recklessly than two parking attendants joyriding a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, the group asked its members to describe the maturity of their AI implementations. Eighty-eight percent said they\u2019ve completed guidelines for responsible use, security and ethics, 84% have documented what apps agencies are using and 82% have created advisory committees and task forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study published this month by researchers at The Budget Lab at Yale University found that, despite much hand-wringing about what generative AI might do to the labor market, it\u2019s so far had no measurable effect<\/a>. The researchers conceded that market effects may simply be delayed, as they were with the introduction of personal computers decades ago, and concluded it is \u201creasonable to expect\u201d it might take longer for any effects to materialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employees of state governments are among those testing the technology\u2019s ultimate effects. NASCIO\u2019s survey found that employees in 82% of state government offices are using AI tools in their daily work. Ninety percent of states reported they\u2019ve begun pilot projects, 71% have begun training staff, 51% have created \u201csandboxes\u201d for safe testing and 25% have dedicated funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anticipating an April 2026 Department of Justice deadline<\/a> requiring states to meet accessibility standards for websites and other digital assets, NASCIO\u2019s report also asked CIOs about their progress in ensuring state services can be used by everyone. They\u2019re working on it, but they face challenges. Two-thirds of states have hired a technology accessibility coordinator, but only 46% have funding for accessibility improvements, and only one state has fully implemented its plan. Many could miss meeting full compliance by the deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the slower moving changes inside technology offices is represented here, too. When asked to select the attributes that best described their roles, the top responses to a forced-choice question were change leader, communicator, strategist and relationship manager. One unnamed respondent asked to issue advice to new state CIOs said, \u201cUnderstand that most of your job has nothing to do with IT.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though perhaps not intending to be the bearer of bad tidings, the report does in fact point to an uncertain future for state IT budgets. State revenues are on the decline after rising to surprising levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the majority of states operate on chargeback funding models, recovering much of their funding from other agencies that need technology services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, half of respondents said their budgets increased, while only 18% said they\u2019ve seen decreased budgets and 32% said they stayed the same. But, Robinson said, this isn\u2019t surprising because this year\u2019s budgets were set before the tumult of 2025 and Donald Trump\u2019s cuts to Medicaid and other programs could be priced in. The first months of Trump\u2019s second presidency have brought spending cuts that if George H.W. Bush was alive today might even be tempted to call \u2014 anyone?<\/em> \u2014 voodoo economics. Some CIOs reported to NASCIO having already been affected by federal cuts, with one official specifically calling out the sweeping reductions<\/a> at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NASCIO\u2019s latest report is titled Leading Change Through Uncertain Times, <\/em>apt for a year in which tariff rates can change by the hour and programs legally created by Congress can be abandoned at whim<\/a>. And the landscape for state CIOs isn\u2019t expected to become any more stable. Thirty-six states and three territories are set next year to hold gubernatorial elections, races sure to bring leadership changes and shrink the median state CIO tenure, which currently hovers around 30 months, by NASCIO\u2019s accounting. Instability doesn\u2019t only have to bring chaos, though. As Robinson pointed out: \u201cWe will have a whole set of new perspectives.\u201d One might even say it\u2019s a fool\u2019s paradise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you don\u2019t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":73178,"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":[4677],"tags":[234,1482,3973,5272,5365,5550,5732,24324,24746,25131,25900,25905],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-73177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","tag-nascio","tag-govtech","tag-state-government","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-data-governance","tag-accessibility","tag-state-it","tag-annual-survey","tag-government-it","tag-technology-news","tag-nrvous","tag-nascio25","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nState IT work \u2018moves pretty fast,\u2019 NASCIO 2025 survey shows | StateScoop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cIf you don\u2019t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"State IT work \u2018moves pretty fast,\u2019 NASCIO 2025 survey shows | StateScoop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIf you don\u2019t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"StateScoop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StateScoop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-13T15:11:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-14T17:19:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-159836068.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"857\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colin Wood\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@State_Scoop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@State_Scoop\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/\",\"name\":\"State IT work \u2018moves pretty fast,\u2019 NASCIO 2025 survey shows | StateScoop\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-159836068.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-13T15:11:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-14T17:19:19+00:00\",\"description\":\"\u201cIf you don\u2019t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.\u201d\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/nascio-2025-annual-survey\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-159836068.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-159836068.jpg\",\"width\":1300,\"height\":857,\"caption\":\"Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara and Alan Ruck pose for a publicity portrait for the film 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 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