Dive Brief:
- Six U.S. cities — Austin, Texas; Boston; Dallas; Denver; Kansas City, Missouri; and Newport News, Virginia — are set to join the Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance, Bloomberg announced last week.
- The program, designed to help local governments of communities with populations of 100,000 or more make the most of technological advancements like AI, launched in 2022 with a $60 million investment.
- “These municipalities will show the world how government can be faster, smarter, and fair — using data and technology to meet real needs, deliver efficiently and make measurable progress [that] people feel,” James Anderson, government innovation program head at Bloomberg Philanthropies, said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
AI use among state and local government agencies has roughly tripled since 2020, to 45%, according to a recent EY survey of government IT leaders. Forty-seven percent of respondents said modernization, including the adoption of AI, is their top priority, while 56% said reducing costs and 54% said improving security.
“State and local IT leaders recognize the imperative to modernize systems, but also need to lower costs and combat escalating cyber threats in the current environment,” Chris Estes, technology leader and client service partner for the EY Center for Government Modernization, which conducted the survey, said in a statement…