SACRAMENTO — What once neatly fit into the category of emerging technology is now seeping into the mainstream, forcing CIOs to evaluate and respond on behalf of their agencies.
During a Tuesday morning session at the California Public Sector CIO Academy*, technology leaders from multiple agencies shared their approaches and some of the major stumbling blocks in the space.
Unsurprisingly for anyone familiar with state government, finding the fiscal resources to implement new tech presents the biggest challenge to staying on the cutting edge. The difficulty finding money forces agency leaders to embrace the “minus mentality,” said California Correctional Health Care Services CIO Robert O’Brien, removing the less valuable parts of the program to make way for newer tech.
“In the budget climate times we’re in, it’s going to take everything to sell it,” O’Brien said.
Without a pathway to and passion for new and innovative tools like generative AI (GenAI), O’Brien warned agencies risk falling behind. Within his agency, O’Brien said tools like GenAI and voice assistance offer new opportunities to streamline processes, especially where maintaining patient records is concerned. Natural voice and speech tools, for example, could help providers interact more seamlessly with records, he said.
For the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the biggest challenges to implementing tools like GenAI responsibly are multifaceted: data readiness, security, workforce readiness and addressing technology debt.
Dara Wheeler, GenAI lead and chief of the department's Division of Research, Innovation and System Information, emphasized that good data was an essential and non-negotiable part of responsibly implementing generative AI tools.
“As leaders, we really need to prioritize our data strategy and our data policies and governance in order to ensure AI’s success tomorrow,” Wheeler said.
Similarly, Wheeler said outdated technology not only complicates the integration of new tech, but also the security needed to run it safely.
“For AI to be deployed responsibly, organizations really must modernize our tech stacks to support transparency, security and agility — because without this foundation, innovation stalls and risks increase,” Wheeler said.
For technology officials from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and Covered California, GenAI shines when it comes to processes like verifying eligibility for health-care services, verifying identity documents, fraud analysis and more, as long as human verification is kept in place.
“Think of it as a dumb employee,” DMV Chief Digital Transformation Officer Ajay Gupta joked about managing expectations and the need for a human in the loop.
DMV has seen early success with the technology when it comes to things like weeding out inappropriate personalized license plates, a process that has scaled down from nine months to mere weeks with the help of the technology.
Caltrans has also been pursuing proof of concept projects around roadway safety improvements for vulnerable users and mobility improvements.
*Editor's note: The California Public Sector CIO Academy is hosted by Government Technology, a sister publication to Industry Insider — California.
State Agency CIOs Talk Emerged Tech and Adjusting Course
Technology leaders from several agencies shared their perspectives on the technologies that were once closer to theory than practice during the California CIO Academy Tuesday morning.
