{"id":73332,"date":"2025-10-20T13:06:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/?p=73332"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:06:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:06:44","slug":"stretched-thin-san-jose-calif-reaches-for-generative-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/stretched-thin-san-jose-calif-reaches-for-generative-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Stretched thin, San Jose, Calif., reaches for generative AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many view the city government of San Jose, Calif., as an excellent career \u201claunchpad,\u201d said Stephen Caines, the city\u2019s chief innovation officer, but he and others in City Hall want to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For at least a decade, San Jose\u2019s leaders have prided themselves on running one of the leanest operations among U.S. local governments, a designation remarkable particularly because of the city\u2019s size and influence. Today the Silicon Valley hub consists of about 9,000 staff who provide services \u2014 everything from issuing parking permits to extinguishing fires \u2014 to a greater metropolitan population of nearly 2 million residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If managing (with varying degrees of success) to serve so many with so few has instilled pride, it\u2019s also generated fatigue. Caines said many staff move on to nearby jobs that provide similar pay but that require less of them. Providing powerful new technologies to ease workloads is a key part of the city\u2019s strategy for retaining more of its personnel. To that end, the city on Friday released a request for proposal for a generative artificial intelligence platform, in hopes of providing its staff with a tool they can use to create their own digital helpers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who this summer was highlighted by the local press<\/a> for his use of large language models in daily work, including directing his aides to use ChatGPT to help write his speeches, said in a press release that the city is \u201cworking to integrate generative AI into everything we do at City Hall because you deserve government that is fast, responsive, personalized and cost-effective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the city, the new software the city seeks will be able to help staff with a broad range of repetitive tasks, like analyzing and summarizing policy documents, reviewing computer code and generating charts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe platform should provide secure access to conversational AI tools, have the ability to connect with internal systems and data, and include enterprise-level administrative and privacy controls,\u201d the city\u2019s release reads. \u201cThe solution must also support low-code and no-code features so employees with different levels of technical experience can use it effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Jose has already begun offering its staff two basic training courses, for the use of generative AI and data analysis. Caines said about 400 staff have taken at least one of the hour-long IT Training Academy<\/a> courses so far, progress toward the city\u2019s goal of training 1,000 staff in the ways of LLMs by the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur constant challenge is how do we retain great workers and in our opinion the way to do that is to give them tools to allow them to have a better work-life balance by making their workload more manageable,\u201d Caines said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the city\u2019s website, some staff have used what they learned at the academy to develop customized AI assistants to assist with tasks like taking meeting notes and writing policy drafts, \u201cfreeing up time to focus on helping our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The technical training isn\u2019t only for technical roles, but for anyone who works behind a computer, Caines said. A platform that would allow many different types of city staff to create assistants could be useful given the city\u2019s deficits. Caines pointed to the city\u2019s police department, which has more than 100 vacancies and must cover 182 square miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe result of that is we are not always hitting our priority 1 and 2 calls,\u201d he said, referencing incidents that can include life-threatening or serious injuries. \u201cWe can’t be everywhere all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the city\u2019s public-safety response has been to install automatic license plate readers, which aren\u2019t loved by privacy and civil rights advocates, and are limited besides. ALPR cameras can generate leads and help the city better cover its broad geography, but officers are still needed to do the follow-up police work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LLMs and other new software could help reduce the paperwork burden police face. At least one California law enforcement office has started automating<\/a> document redaction, and a major police technology firm has begun offering<\/a> a body-camera transcription service that some departments are using to generate incident reports. The American Civil Liberties Union is worried<\/a> that the latter could introduce new biases and provide cover for corrupt officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Jose isn\u2019t only looking at tech for police, but for a wide range of jobs. The RFP is hoped to lead to a purchase that will make staff feel they aren\u2019t being stretched quite so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe recognize that technology moves fast,\u201d Caines said. \u201cWe recognize that the field of vendors who provide these LLMs has grown rapidly, almost exponentially, in the last few months and we want to make sure we’re casting the broadest net to find what works for San Jose.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Silicon Valley hub is looking to buy a software that will allow its staff to create their own digital assistants, before they burn out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":73333,"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":[44,156,1562,1878,5270,5272,24150,25928],"people":[],"special-report":[],"authors":[4696],"class_list":["post-73332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","tag-california","tag-san-jose","tag-training","tag-rfp","tag-workforce","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-generative-ai","tag-llms","author-colin-wood"],"yoast_head":"\nStretched thin, San 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