Family and Protective Services CIO Hints at AI Model for State Agencies

Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) Chief Information Officer Drew McGrath and Chief Information Security Officer Jennifer Bush spoke at an Industry Insider — Texas member briefing on Thursday, detailing the agency’s procurement priorities, its successes with automation and hinting at a potential artificial intelligence model trained “strictly for Texas.”

According to McGrath, the agency’s top priority is planning for a new case management system (CMS). DFPS received funding for the system’s planning in the 88th Legislature.

“For us, that is our primary No. 1 item,” said McGrath. “We’ve pretty much sidelined most other things.”

The CIO revealed the agency’s intention to push for a cloud-based CMS should they receive the necessary funding, but if not, a backup procurement of a smaller upgraded component has also been accounted for.

Bush shared her department’s use of AI to automate a majority of the agency’s tier one and tier two security incidents, which has freed up their analysts to work on other tasks.

“I looked yesterday at the monthly reporting, we automated 5,800 incidents,” said Bush. “We never saw them; we never touched them. So that’s been pretty cool to be able to do that.”

In response to a question regarding the agency’s plans for future AI integration, McGrath revealed that plans for a state agency-specific model trained to adhere to federal requirements may be in the works at the Department of Information Resources (DIR).

“We've had conversations with DIR about doing something like that, but as a government, one that's strictly for Texas,” said McGrath.

“That may be a bit of a game-changer because now it's controlled. And so any learning it does is strictly with state agencies, but that's something that DIR would have to basically bring forth to help drive.”