San Jose Leads Civic AI Adoption Through Service Enhancement and Collaboration

Key Quotes

"I've tried to bring a bit of that startup environment entrepreneurial spirit into city hall and run the mayor's office a little differently than it's traditionally been done and we're having a lot of fun just getting everybody focused on the outcomes we're trying to drive and being a little less worried about risk taking and making mistakes so we're trying to bring a more experimental culture."

Mayor Matt Mahan explains his approach to leading San Jose by infusing city hall with an entrepreneurial spirit. He emphasizes a focus on achieving desired outcomes and fostering a culture that embraces experimentation and learning from mistakes, moving away from traditional, more risk-averse governmental operations.

"The first big area is making city services more efficient and accessible so ai driven automation for providing city services for example permitting and here again i believe san jose is using it for streamlining adu permitting for example and then there are other services such as business licensing filing forms emergency relief support looking for affordable housing options you know ai can make the delivery of all these services you know much more streamlined comprehensive personalized and accessible."

Jumbi Edulbehram highlights a primary opportunity for AI in cities: enhancing the efficiency and accessibility of public services. He points to AI's potential to streamline processes like permitting, business licensing, and emergency support, making them more personalized and easier for residents to navigate.

"We have an mou with nvidia that includes a pillar around workforce development we also have a close relationship with san jose state university that's right here next door to city hall and we've created this curriculum for ai upskilling and rather than do this in a top down way where we came to our city workers and said ai's coming it's a big deal you should be scared for your jobs and go take the course or you you've got to you've got to quickly learn this thing we did the opposite we said we see ai as not a labor replacement so much as labor enhancement and we want to empower you."

Mayor Matt Mahan describes San Jose's strategy for AI adoption within its workforce, emphasizing empowerment over fear. He details a collaborative approach involving NVIDIA and San Jose State University to create an AI upskilling program, framing AI as a tool for enhancing employee capabilities rather than replacing jobs.

"The first of its kind program as far as we know we're trying to create an ai ecosystem in san jose that's broad diverse and touches every sector and i i think downtown is a particularly good place to see the diversity of that ecosystem we've talked a lot about what we're doing inside city hall we mentioned our partnership with our wonderful public university san jose state university across the street with 40 000 students in downtown and graduates more students with technical degrees every year than any other university in the state of california."

Mayor Matt Mahan introduces San Jose's pioneering civic AI grant program, aiming to cultivate a diverse AI ecosystem that spans various sectors. He emphasizes the strategic location of this initiative in downtown San Jose, near San Jose State University, to leverage the area's rich technical talent and foster innovation across the city.

"My favorite example in san jose is bus route optimization we partnered with a local startup light ai to put these sensors on buses and then controllers on red lights to create signal prioritization signal prioritization for public vehicles is not a new concept people are probably familiar that many fire departments around the country will give that signal prioritization to a fire engine when it's going lights flaring down a road but it has been a very blunt instrument and one that has had downsides this new ai enabled system is dynamic it doesn't guarantee a green light for every public bus but it tracks the velocity of the bus tracks what's happening more broadly with the signals and can dynamically lengthen or shorten the duration of a red light so that cross traffic is still going but you're reducing the probability that a bus ever hits a red light."

Mayor Matt Mahan shares a specific example of AI implementation in San Jose: dynamic bus route optimization. He explains how an AI-enabled system uses sensors and traffic light controllers to adjust signal timing, reducing the likelihood of buses hitting red lights and improving overall route efficiency without significantly disrupting other traffic.

"I would encourage folks to visit the the govai coalition it's it's hosted on the san jose city website there are now over 800 public agencies and the whole idea is to create a safe trusted environment for collaboration amongst public agencies that want to advance the frontiers of ai adoption for public sector use cases we have a number of documented case studies we have a vendor registry policy manual suggestions just a very robust set of tools and very practical use cases people can pick up from you don't have to start from scratch you're not alone."

Mayor Matt Mahan recommends the GovAI Coalition as a resource for other cities looking to adopt AI. He describes it as a collaborative platform for public agencies, offering practical tools, case studies, and policy suggestions to help them implement AI solutions without having to start from the beginning.