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AI Use in U.S. State Governments

State governments have moved from AI curiosity to daily use in barely two years. According to NASCIO’s state CIO survey, 82% of states now report their employees use generative AI in daily work — up from 53% a year earlier — and nearly every state is running pilots, proofs of concept, and employee-training programs. Flagship assistants are scaling fast: New York is expanding its Gemini-powered “AI Pro” toward 100,000 workers, Pennsylvania rolled ChatGPT Enterprise across dozens of agencies with mandatory training, and New Jersey rebuilt its assistant on Claude for some 20,000 employees. But adoption is outrunning the guardrails — only about a quarter of states have data governance for generative AI or dedicated AI funding. This page maps the adoption jump, how states approach rollout, what individual states are doing, and the governance gap underneath it all.

4 visualizations 5 sources Last updated June 2026 Free to embed
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Source: NASCIO State CIO Survey (via Smart Cities Dive). Share of state CIO organizations reporting daily employee GenAI use.
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Chart 1 · The adoption jump

State employees using generative AI daily

State employees using generative AI daily (NASCIO)

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Source: NASCIO State CIO Survey (via Smart Cities Dive): 82% of state CIOs report their employees use generative AI in daily work, up from 53% in 2024. Share of state CIO organizations reporting daily employee GenAI use.
Chart 2 · How states approach it

State AI rollout approaches

How states approach AI (low-risk on-ramps lead)

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Source: NASCIO 2025–26: states favor low-risk on-ramps — pilot projects 90%, proofs of concept 86%, employee training 71%, sandbox environments 51%. Share of states using each approach; multiple-select.
Chart 3 · State by state

Selected state AI deployments

Flagship state AI assistants — approx. workforce reached

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Source: TechPolicy.Press 2026: approximate state workforce reached by flagship assistants — New York “AI Pro” (Gemini) expanding to 100,000+; Pennsylvania ChatGPT Enterprise ~9,500 (3,000 live + 6,500 training); New Jersey “AI Assistant” (Claude) ~20,000; California “Poppy” (ChatGPT) statewide pilot. Deployment scale varies by state and is approximate.
Chart 4 · Governance gap

Adoption is outrunning governance & funding

Adoption is outrunning governance and funding

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Source: NASCIO / Pew (via TechPolicy.Press): 82% of states report daily GenAI use, but only ~24% had data governance in place for GenAI and only ~25% had dedicated AI funding. Rollout is outpacing the guardrails and budgets meant to support it.

About this data

This page compiles published data on AI adoption in U.S. state governments, drawing on NASCIO’s state CIO survey and agentic-AI report, reporting from Smart Cities Dive and TechPolicy.Press, Pew data on state data governance, and Code for America’s government AI landscape assessment.

The AI Behavior Index is the research arm of OneChat AI, an integrated multi-model AI platform. We compile and analyze data from primary research sources to make AI adoption and market trends more accessible to journalists, researchers, and decision-makers.

A note on what these figures measure: NASCIO’s 82% is the share of state CIO organizations reporting that employees use GenAI daily — an organizational measure, not the share of all state employees using AI. The state-by-state deployment numbers are approximate workforce-reached figures from press reporting (often agency announcements), not audited usage counts, and they change quickly as rollouts expand.

Methodology notes: survey figures are from NASCIO’s CIO survey (a census of state CIOs, so a small but complete population) and Pew. The state deployment chart uses approximate, press-reported figures that mix “live users” and “in training,” so we label it approximate and time-sensitive. The approach percentages are multiple-select. This is a fast-moving area; figures reflect late-2025 to mid-2026 and will shift as states scale.

Sources used on this page:

Corrections or suggestions: research@aibehaviorindex.org

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