Building Sustainable AI Operations in Government: Lessons from the Field By Paul Richards, Client Services Executive, World Wide Technology
The AI adoption wave is hitting state government with full force. Over the past two years, I've watched agencies across Florida begin their AI journeys - deploying chatbots, analytics tools, and automation systems at different paces and with varying levels of operational readiness. Getting AI working? That's the “easy” part. Agencies can launch proofs-of-concept and demonstrate capabilities in months, not years. The hard part is operating AI sustainably. Turning experiments into production infrastructure. Building operational discipline that lets you run AI systems reliably for years, through leadership transitions and budget cycles. This is where I'm seeing a consistent pattern emerge among successful agencies. The Two-Phase Approach: Prove Value, Then Scale Ask any agency leader and they'll describe the same reality: budgets aren't growing, but citizen expectations are. When the legislature is actively discussing AI policy, when citizens demand digital-first service delivery, when peer agencies announce initiatives - you need momentum.
reflects on their evolution: "We prioritized speed to delivery over perfection and deprioritized some steps in the planning process. And while our first chatbot was functional, we lacked visibility into how it worked. Different people knew different pieces, but nobody had the complete picture of the architecture. We couldn't accurately track costs. We didn't have proper monitoring in place. And when something broke, like losing connectivity to our policy library, troubleshooting was a long and tedious process. We figured it out... eventually." This is the reality of effective AI adoption in government - prove value fast to secure commitment, then build for scale.
Successful agencies take a phased approach. First, they demonstrate AI value quickly to build organizational buy-in and secure resources for long-term investment. Then, they use that momentum to build the operational maturity that makes AI sustainable at scale. This is exactly what's happening at Florida Department of Corrections. They proved their chatbot concept rapidly, delivered visible wins, and built confidence across the organization. Now they're strategically building the foundation for sustainable operations.
Ken Kicia, CIO at Florida Department of Corrections,
4 – 2026 Legislative Edition – Florida Technology Magazine
Powered by FlippingBook