Less than half of local IT leaders not ready for AI, survey says
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A recent survey of state and local executives found that 38% feel their agencies are not ready to use AI, although more than half are developing policies to govern its use.
While just over half of IT executives in city and county governments are developing governance policies and frameworks for their agencies’ use of artificial intelligence, much less than that feel they are not prepared to use AI tools productively and safely, according to a recent survey.
Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed said their organizations are not ready to use AI, while 53% said they are developing policies on the technology, a survey by the Public Technology Institute found late last month. By contrast, 46% said they are somewhat prepared to use AI, while 9% said they are fully prepared.
Respondents said their top three concerns around the impact of generative AI on government tech workers are security, privacy issues and the lack of necessary skills.
PTI, which offers training and other resources to local government technology officials, contacted 200 local government executives, including their members and graduates and current students of the PTI/Rutgers University Certified Government Chief Information Officer certification program, to complete the survey. PTI received a representative sample of 55 to participate. PTI said participants in the survey this summer represented a “cross-section of large to smaller jurisdictions, cities and counties.”
While more than half of those surveyed said they are developing policies, nearly as many — 40% — said they have taken no steps at this stage. Meanwhile, just under 30% apiece said they are collaborating with AI industry experts and researchers; and investing in AI training and educational programs. Just 7% said they are assessing potential job displacements and recruiting strategies.
Respondents did not appear terribly confident in their workers’ ability to fill the key roles and skillsets required by generative AI. That is in keeping with a broad trend that government leaders feel they will need to invest heavily in hands-on, standardized training to keep up with the demands of the new technology.
Of those surveyed at the state level, 39% said they are less confident in their employees’ expertise, while 34% had the same level of confidence at the local level. Just 4% apiece said they are highly confident in their workers’ ability to work well with generative AI. And for both state and local government executives, employees lacking the necessary skills was a major concern, alongside more technological worries like privacy and security, ahead of worries like bias, inaccuracy and ethics.
Despite the impacts generative AI may require on workers’ skills, only a relative minority of government leaders in both the state and local arenas said they are concerned about worker displacement. That reflects much of the rhetoric from government leaders over the last two years, as they say that AI will not directly displace many workers but instead augment the job that they already do and take away many of their mundane tasks.
And that is reflected in the tasks that government executives are most actively considering for generative AI. The vast majority — 70% — said they are planning to use the technology for a virtual customer service chatbot, while 48% apiece said they will use it for automatic document generation and automated or enhanced data management.
It might also appear that the hype cycle around AI is dying off slightly among government leaders. In 2024, 53% said they expect the technology to have a “dramatic change” on local government operations and service delivery in the next three years, while the previous year, 58% said they expected to see dramatic change. Meanwhile, of those surveyed this year, 47% said they expect to see little change in how government operates and delivers services from AI.
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