Expanding Artificial Intelligence Workforce Training Tool

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) education and training to the entire New York State workforce, fulfilling a bold and forward-looking 2025 State of the State pledge that ensures over 100,000 hardworking state employees can use AI responsibly to better serve New Yorkers. This expansion makes New York the largest state in the nation to securely provide this emerging technology to its entire state workforce.

“We are putting New York at the forefront of the AI revolution, ensuring that the journey forward is safe and responsible,” Governor Hochul said. “I’m excited to fulfill our vision of embracing innovation, upskilling our employees and better serving New Yorkers.”

Today’s action builds upon the success of the recently completed AI training pilot program managed by the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS), which extended AI training and AI Pro, a secure generative AI assistant tool, to more than 1,200 users across eight state agencies.

Pilot results revealed:

• 75 percent of pilot participants saved time using AI Pro
• 90 percent felt their understanding of AI improved following the pilot program
• Participants generated over 170,000 prompts during the pilot period
• 86 percent of users want to continue using AI Pro after the pilot

AI training is offered to state employees in partnership with InnovateUS, an online platform governed by a coalition of public sector learning and innovation leaders. InnovateUS has trained over 200,000 public sector learners across 50 states and cities and in 80 countries. The two-part training is specifically designed to teach NYS employees about responsible AI use as a public sector employee.

Accompanying the training is the AI Pro generative AI assistant, developed by ITS and powered by Google Gemini, which will provide State employees with a secure environment to hone their AI skills, and unlock ideas about how AI could help agencies problem-solve and deliver even more for New York.

These new AI training resources, including the AI Pro tool, will be provided to the 50+ state agencies and entities ITS supports, while the AI training will be offered to all state workers. Responsible AI training will be required for agencies that elect to use AI Pro.

New York State Chief Information Officer and Director of ITS Dru Rai said, “Governor Hochul has been a national leader without peer when it comes to leveraging technology to enhance productivity in government, improve service delivery and create efficiencies so state agencies can better serve the public. We are thankful to have incredible support for this groundbreaking initiative and know that responsible AI will bring us limitless possibilities to enact positive change, while giving our employees an opportunity to grow their own skills for the future.”

InnovateUS Founder Beth Noveck said, “By equipping its workforce with practical AI and digital skills through InnovateUS, New York will be positioned to deliver better, more efficient and responsive services for its residents. At InnovateUS, we look forward to continuing to support Governor Hochul and our New York partners to harness the potential of AI to serve the public.”

Google Public Sector Customer Engineering Managing Director Elizabeth Moon said, “Equipping New York State employees with both the skills and tools to use AI responsibly is critical to unlocking this technology's potential to drive efficiency and innovation, enabling the public sector workforce to better serve New Yorkers. ITS's AI Pro, powered by Gemini, underscores Google Public Sector's commitment to supporting New York State’s digital transformation. We applaud Governor Hochul’s focus on setting an example for how government can embrace technology to build a better future.”

Assemblymember Steve Otis said, “Governor Hochul’s announcement today marks a vitally important next step to advancing responsible and knowledgeable use of AI tools by state agencies. Artificial intelligence tools bring great benefits and risks. Providing training programs will help support state employees and provide a framework for quality control protections essential to responsible AI use. Governor Hochul, the Legislature, and our team at the Office of Technology Services continue to make keeping up with the evolution of AI a priority.”

Praise for the AI Training Pilot Program

Last Fall at the Governor’s direction, ITS initiated an expansive AI training pilot program with more than 1,200 participants across eight state agencies, including the Department of Labor (DOL), the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES), the Department of Health (DOH), NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR), the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), the Office of General Services (OGS), the Division of Human Rights (DHR) and the Division of the Budget (DOB).

Participants represented a range of roles and professional experience levels, including workers from administrative, communications, policy, legal, service delivery, operations and technical functions. 41 percent of pilot users entered the pilot program with no prior experience using generative AI tools, and 87 percent of users had received no prior training in generative AI. Overall confidence using generative AI rose by 36 percent following the pilot program.

Pilot participants outlined numerous cases where AI Pro streamlined their work and facilitated decision-making, including crafting executive summaries and policy briefs, translating complex topics into easily digestible language, summarizing large reports and consolidating duplicative documents, and facilitating the creation of data dashboards, among other uses. Throughout the pilot and with all uses of AI Pro, careful human oversight was emphasized.

Users found that using AI Pro often allowed them to spend more time focusing on high-level, complex, and high value tasks.

Governor Hochul’s Innovation Agenda

Governor Hochul’s commitment to advancing New York’s leadership in AI builds on her broader agenda to expand cutting-edge technology development in the Empire State. Governor Hochul launched the historic Empire AI initiative, a $500 million partnership of New York’s leading public and private universities who have come together to establish a state-of-the-art AI computing center at SUNY’s University at Buffalo. Empire AI is already facilitating statewide innovation, research, and development of AI technologies.

The recently completed AI Training pilot was part of a series of initiatives announced as part of the Governor’s 2025 State of the State to ensure equitable growth of the AI industry in New York, including training students for AI-enabled jobs, funding NY AI startups, supporting small businesses with AI adoption and tracking the potential impact of new technologies on the workforce. These programs followed recommendations released by the Governor’s Emerging Technology Advisory Board, co-chaired by IBM CEO Arvind Krishna and Girls Who Code CEO Dr. Tarika Barrett.

At the Governor’s direction, ITS wrote and issued the first-ever statewide policy, Acceptable Use of AI Technologies, which now serves as a roadmap for state agencies to adopt AI thoughtfully, safely and responsibly, while optimizing efficiencies and delivering quicker and better results for their constituents.

Most recently, Governor Hochul launched the FutureWorks Commission to advise on policy and private sector interventions which protect the economic security of workers while harnessing the economic benefits of AI. The Commission will work to identify real-time data strategies for monitoring AI’s impact, and identify policy and private sector interventions to ensure New York’s workers, families and small businesses, not just large corporations, stand to gain from the potential benefits of AI.

The Governor’s innovation agenda has catalyzed major public and private investments, transforming New York’s economy and creating good-paying jobs of the future. GlobalFoundries recently announced an $11.6 billion investment to expand its chip manufacturing campus in New York’s Capital Region, creating 1,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs. In 2022, Micron announced a 20-year, $100 billion investment to create a megafab campus in Central New York, creating 50,000 new direct and indirect jobs and unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars in community benefits.