Los Angeles IT Leaders Brief Industry on Priorities, Challenges

LOS ANGELES — A candid conversation Tuesday afternoon between Los Angeles city and county officials and industry members painted a clearer picture of where the governments are going and some of the upcoming challenges they face.

During a private session for the vendor community at the L.A. Digital Government Summit*, county CIO Peter Loo and Internal Services Department General Manager Mirian Avalos joined city CIO Ted Ross to talk about their respective work and where industry could best assist.

A theme running through the conversation was budget limitations. Both entities are expected to do more, faster, without the help of big budget increases.

While city revenues are relatively strong, Ross explained, the money IT might see for new solutions is being allocated to the other issues dominating the social or political moment, like homelessness.

This dynamic has both organizations looking to the private sector for long-term partnerships that weather down years, rather than flash-in-the-pan flings when the getting is good.

“You need to understand that we're not going to fund your innovation projects, and that if we're going to make commitments to multi-year agreements, it's because we want to have some cost savings across the county,” Avalos said.

Artificial intelligence dominated a significant portion of the conversation, with officials underscoring the importance of shoring up their data foundations and the need to better prepare staff for roles enabled by the tools.

For Loo and Avalos, aligning the county’s vast data stores and “going back to the fundamentals” is a major hurdle that needs to be cleared before AI tools can be deployed and used appropriately to inform business and service decisions.

Avalos noted that it's important for the county to understand how the technology is integrated into its cloud and on-premises environments and what protections are in place to safeguard sensitive data.

The city has also been moving in a measured and strategic direction with AI — namely, asking if the tools will support real-world business needs.

“When it comes to identifying emerging technology, I would say very shortly, we want to pilot as much as possible. We want to understand as much as possible. We're not going to invest in as much as possible. We're going to invest in those things that really move the needle for our business,” Ross said.

Ross added that the city has modernized many of its large systems — financial, procurement, HR and payroll — in recent years, which puts the focus squarely on how the city can deploy larger-scale, vendor-built AI systems and automate operations.

“Those are really the smart city conversations, but we're not quite there yet,” Ross said. “We do not live in a world where people say, ‘Let's just unleash AI in traffic management and see how it all goes.’ Right?”

For vendors, the opportunities in this region will need to be built on a strong foundation of trust and information sharing. The panelist underscored that while there is an appetite for innovation, the need to move carefully and reduce risk is ever-present.

Keeping a pulse on the social and political challenges facing each jurisdiction, as well as opportunities to pilot solutions, could give an advantage to companies willing to put in the work in the longer term.