That bit of red meat was the takeaway this week for a standing-room-only crowd of vendors, when Chief Information Officer Ajit Girn and his team from the Employment Development Department spoke at an Industry Insider — California Member Briefing in Sacramento. Girn issued his call to action by industry representatives with a proviso, though: Do your homework, understand EDD’s mission and plans, don't waste their time, and tailor any solutions to the department’s specific needs.
Girn acknowledged that ringing phones are nothing new to EDD; the department has been besieged by calls for the last five years, since the pandemic struck in March 2020 and unleashed a one-two punch of unprecedented demand for benefits as well as an onslaught of fraud.
In the ensuing years, the department has implemented a multipronged approach to both challenges, said Loree Levy, EDD’s deputy director for public affairs. It’s beefed up its security and implemented chatbots and other AI tools to guide callers through a self-serve process for filing claims for benefits and other tasks. It’s also worked to improve the technology and the processes used by EDD employees and the public. And it’s revamped the wording on a plethora of forms to replace bureaucratic jargon with “plain language.” Levy said that has made a big difference, based on customer satisfaction surveys the department has done.
In that vein, the department is also moving apace with the EDDNext modernization initiative.
Beyond the chatbots, modernization and antifraud measures the department has implemented, though, there are even bigger opportunities on the horizon for vendors, Girn said. And he wants to hear from them.
“We've got a ton of procurements,” he said. “I can talk about some of the big ones. The Integrated Team Management is already in evaluation, and it’s a massive project. In order to support Integrated Team Management, we're going to have smaller procurements as well that are mainframe resources. We always need mainframe resources. We have a massive mainframe footprint in EDD. So you have procurements coming in: An offer for mainframe. You’ll have [a request for offers for a] testing resource. … you’re going to have smaller procurements coming out to support that, as well.”
Girn added: “We’ve got our data RFO coming out. We would love to get as many bids as possible on this. This is our sales support, support and license. We’re talking a massive contract that is coming out as well. Look out for that.”
The third member of the EDD team at Tuesday's briefing was Adam Brunner, chief of EDD's Application Services Division.
“We have small procurements all the time,” Brunner said. “We’re integrating (Microsoft) Copilot with 365 — looking for help there. You want to offer an internal chatbot? We're looking for branding ideas. … So, like Ajit mentioned, please reach out to us with ideas.”
Girn said he’s been a little surprised by how few responses some of EDD’s RFOs have drawn.
“There are times when I am looking at the number of proposals that are coming in and I question myself — ‘What are we doing wrong? Why do I have only two bids for something like this?’ … You can help the department modernize, but yet we get, like, one bid, two bids, and I'm doing my best. … So please, yeah, I want the phones to ring,” Girn said.
The briefing’s moderator, e.Republic* Chief Innovation Officer Joe Morris, asked Girn for examples of where artificial intelligence can help with EDD’s ongoing and future efforts.
“Security and fraud prevention and detection — that’s a big domain where we can have AI,” Girn said. “We already have Elastic in this. We have the models built in this predictive analysis in coordination and with support from Okta; Okta is our authentication mechanism. So taking the lock from Okta, doing the device analytics, the fingerprints of the device in coordination with Elastic — that’s what we are doing. That's where the AI takes them. So that is one example, implementing and improving our pipelines, code deployments, modernizing those things, and then publishing the service.”
Girn emphasized that while he wants to hear from vendors, EDD needs not only solutions, but ones that make sense financially and practically.
“If you just say, ‘I’ve got a solution for A, B and C, and let’s replace it with X, Y and Z, because it will save you a small percentage,’ I can already tell you, you are losing my attention. For me, the biggest goal is, how are you improving the lives of our customers? What we don't want to do is spend $2 million in unhooking the solution and replacing it with X, Y and Z to save $100,000. That's a bad business value. The ROI that we will need on that will be like 10 years from now — and it'll keep the [EDD staff] busy, the customers will still complain. So my request is, yes, please spend time understanding those challenges. I think it'll help you tailor your solutions better to help EDD.”
Girn and team underscored that EDD is looking for cloud-native solutions “so that we don't have to do multiple transformations.”
Levy urged industry members to subscribe to EDD’s newsletter and keep up with the department’s blog and other announcements: ”Follow us and learn about what we’re doing and what’s important to us,” she said, “and those things will help.”
*e.Republic is the parent company of Industry Insider — California.
Dennis Noone/Industry Insider
