On November 20, Penn IUR and The Volcker Alliance convened a panel of government, academic, and industry experts for a webinar, “Special Briefing on AI in Government – More Efficiency but Fewer Workers.”  

Bill Glasgall, Penn IUR Fellow and Public Finance Adviser at the Volcker Alliance, and Susan Wachter, Co-Director of Penn IUR, co-hosted the Special Briefing. 

The panel included Jon Hartley, Policy Fellow, Hoover Institution, Leigh Palmer, Vice President, Google Public Sector LLC; Megan Kilgore; City Auditor, City of Columbus, Ohio; Howard Neukrug,  Executive Director, The Water Center at Penn and Professor of Practice, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania; and Thomas Sanches, Professor, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University.

Some of the more interesting takeaways from the panelists: 

• Though data and analytics are a primary use of AI in the public sector, many "public agencies have their data locked away in silos,” said Palmer, identifying a key challenge and opportunity of AI deployment. 

• Kilgore spoke about the transformative impact of AI in government operations in Columbus and the need to embrace modernization. As the leader of a “large, very financially- and technology- forward office,” she noted that her role involves overseeing the revenue side of “one of the fastest-growing cities in America.” 

• She stressed the need for a new mindset: “We need more goats—not sheep. People who are curious, courageous, and willing to climb into unfamiliar terrain as technology reshapes how we’re constantly working and ultimately serving the public.”

• Neukrug spoke about the water needed to drive the growing AI industry. As he explained, data centers “generate an awful lot of heat, and water cooling is preferred over air cooling because it uses less energy and is less expensive. But this strains local supplies, especially in drought-prone regions… Our goal is to achieve net-zero or even net positive water using all different types of technologies.” 

• Sanchez delved into AI's roles in urban planning. As he explained, "We’re using sensors, we’re monitoring activity and then capturing information and, in some cases, using it in real time.” He distinguished that approach from using information to plan for cities, or to look to the future.”

• Hartley emphasized the time-saving potential of AI innovations: “Conditional on using generative AI to complete a task, roughly two-thirds of the time that would traditionally be dedicated to that task is saved,” with the largest productivity gains for lower-income workers.

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