State governments are starting to pursue agentic AI

Instances of agentic AI, in which groups of digital agents are granted permission to automate multistep tasks without human approval, remain rare in state government, but a report published by an industry association Tuesday proposes that adoption could be on the rise. The report, published by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, notes that while “this shift won’t happen overnight,” state governments appear to be granting their artificial intelligence agents increasing levels of autonomy. “I think it is still really new,” said Amy Glasscock, director of NASCIO’s innovation and emerging issues program and the report’s author. “But there are some states that are starting to use it.” “It seems like agentic is going to be the next step,” she continued. “[Generative] AI started off creating and generating content and summarizing and things like that, and now states are finding ways for it to actually do some things, do some of the work, of course with a lot of oversight still.” Glasscock said a recent survey of the group’s membership, which includes most of the nation’s state and territorial CIOs, found eight states that are using agentic AI, though she declined to name them. But by drawing on public documents and news reports, the report does name several early state efforts to use agentic AI to automate low-risk tasks. Among these are Alaska’s Department of Administration, which last November published a request for information, noting imminent plans ...