When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-12-23 back in late 2023, few could have guessed that one of the outcomes would be a tailored, state-run AI platform in the hands of every worker.
Getting any model up and running in state government is a challenge, let alone a consolidated suite of them. There are privacy, security, governance and appropriate use considerations, and yet the California Department of Technology (CDT) made it happen from pilot to practice in just under a year.
Earlier this month, officials pushed send on Poppy, a collection of 10 different models tailored to fit the diverse and challenging work of government.
Shera Mui, deputy director of CDT’s Platform Services, told Industry Insider — California that what started as an effort to create a statewide chatbot quickly evolved into something exponentially more useful — a platform that could be managed and adapted to new technologies in real time.
“We discovered early on that we didn't want to create large language models; that was not going to be the smart thing to do,” Mui said. “So, we were looking forward to how can we help departments and other state workforce use this in a safe way with security and governance and data protection.”
A small cross-section of departments was given early access — 70 departments with around 100 users in each — to drive discussion around the types of use cases for the first iteration of the platform, which Mui noted.
The platform allows users the option to securely choose a model that best fits the task at hand, whether that’s deep analysis of legal documents or creating code for a new website.
“And that has really been, I think, the biggest driving factor of Poppy, is that we are able to offer multiple models from one location that keeps all of your data, all of your information secure, and you don't have to have it in four different places,” the deputy director explained.
The divide between theory and practice often leaves something to be desired when it comes to technology platforms like this, but Poppy is already delivering big results for users.
Dr. Lucy Andrews, a scientist with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), said the tools have played a critical part in labor- and time-intensive work, such as determining the intellectual and financial value of the department’s contributions across a wide array of sources.
“We invest tens of millions of dollars every year in scientific work, but have lacked for a long time a way to track our scientific contributions. And so we have this public investment. We can sometimes see how public investment translates into scientific products and science-informed decision-making, but we didn't have a really comprehensive view of that.”
Doing this work was previously a manual process tracked by an Excel spreadsheet over weeks, Andrews added, noting that access to AI tools has cut much of that down to an hour to 90 minutes with a slow Internet connection.
“We're now able to trace our scientific relationships better and be more accountable to the public to say 'Your proposition dollars funded us to do this amount of grant making,'” Andrews said.
Given that DWR is focused on the state’s most valuable natural resource, Andrews said there is some consideration about the amount of water required to run the data centers that support AI, but that staff is taking a conscientious approach to model selection and use case before setting Poppy to work.
Early metrics from the statewide launch show an appetite for document summaries, policy analysis and complex code creation. Mui noted that some departments are interested in the possibility of image generation features in future additions, but that more work needs to be done on outlining a long-term road map.
As for what’s next for Poppy, Mui sees more features, tailoring, cleaner data sets and greater cooperation among departments to expand its capabilities and usefulness. CDT requested $1 million in funding during the budget process toward this end.
“There's a lot of instances where departments share data, and we have it all stored at different places, and so having Poppy be able to access some of those data spaces eliminates the need for duplication as well, and we can collectively put our resources together to really try to … clean up and be more cohesive as a state rather than at a department level,” Mui said.
However capable Poppy’s toolset might be, officials noted that no decision is left to an AI system and that humans maintain control of all outcomes.
Along Came Poppy: CDT Talks Origins, Expansion Plans for AI Assistant
California's bold foray into the world of tailor-made AI assistants is paying dividends. Just a week after the statewide rollout of Poppy, officials shared their experiences with and future plans for the platform.
