NASCIO 2025: State Officials Eye Pilot Paralysis in GenAI Projects

A recent report outlines six imperatives for states to support successful generative artificial intelligence programs.

Mickey McCarter is the senior editor of StateTech Magazine.

In September, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and Accenture released a report on states’ use of generative artificial intelligence to support citizen services. In the report, NASCIO and Accenture recommended six steps state CIOs should take to “turn promising pilots into transformative, trustworthy solutions.”

The six recommendations in the report, “Harnessing GenAI to Elevate the Citizen Experience,” include:

Start with strategy and sponsorship
Strengthen governance and funding foundations
Place the worker in the center
Enable the right technology and data
Scale at the speed of trust
Design GenAI services for diverse consumer segments

In a session of the NASCIO 2025 annual conference in Denver last week, panelists dug into the report’s finding that many state CIOs struggled with “pilot paralysis.” “Most deployments remain in pilot phases within controlled environments and are often confined to specific departments,” the report says.

To overcome pilot paralysis, state CIOs can strengthen governance and funding. And they should establish protocols for sharing data across agencies, the report says.

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Massachusetts Supplements Its AI Workforce with Students

Massachusetts CIO Jason Snyder addressed the report’s finding that at least half of GenAI projects are in pilot phase for development and that they often languish there.

Snyder said his commonwealth recruits college students to sustain some AI projects. “We actually have three different colleges that are working with us, and they are creating so much AI work for us,” he said. “The students are producing all kinds of work.”

He added, “We have turned things around in the last two months. I think we’ve had 12 different things go to production, and we’re building that up. We have an AI director; someone who’s really focused on that and driving that forward is essential.”

“It’s not something like a CTO or somebody else that just takes on an additional responsibility,” Snyder said. “There are too many distractions, too many other things to talk about. For many CTOs, their focus is compliance.” AI directors should instead focus on acceleration, he said.

Snyder also revealed that all Massachusetts government employees will receive access to an AI assistant and be encouraged to use it.

LEARN MORE: Colorado CIO David Edinger successfully adopted Google Gemini AI assistance.

Vermont Prioritizes GenAI Projects Based on Viability

In the NASCIO conference panel, Vermont Chief Data and AI Officer Josiah Raiche spoke to the difficulty of scaling AI projects.

“When we do pilots, we really create ideal conditions for those pilots,” Raiche said. “And then we’re like, ‘Hey, they work!’ It’s not surprising. We’ve got clean data, we’ve got a relatively large team dedicated to it, we’ve got customers who are early adopters, we’ve got all those pieces in place.”

“And then we get to real life, all the processes are not that way in real life,” he continued. “So, we run into trouble.”

Vermont is careful to ensure the state has enough capacity to innovate as it builds support models, Raiche said. If the state invests manpower in supporting AI pilots, it will quickly run out of capacity.

“I have a team of three, and they can support exactly one tech stack,” he said. Mechanisms that support scaling will let them build on their success, he added.

Keep this page bookmarked for our coverage of the NASCIO 2025 Annual Conference. Follow us on the social platform X at @StateTech and the official conference account, @NASCIO. Join the conversation using the hashtag #NASCIO25.

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