How Pennsylvania achieved a successful AI rollout

Pennsylvania has been known to embrace new forms of government…and government AI.

Back in 2023, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order calling for state agencies to begin using generative, deep-learning generative AI models. That resulted in a year-long pilot program for the enterprise version of ChatGPT, which concluded in spring 2025.

This past April, the Keystone State’s AI rollout expanded to include 3,000 employees using generative AI, with 6,500 more employees training to utilize the technology safely.

The Pennsylvania Story. Mélanie Terrasse, the head of user experience research at the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience (CODE) PA, the state’s digital services team, said in an interview with IT Brew that the AI project initially focused on identifying the lowest-risk uses before expanding.

It was key for the state to focus the technology on solvable, scalable problems, according to Terrasse. In one example involving document processing for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Terrasse said, AI flagged blurry or incorrect documents before submission, giving applicants a chance to resubmit more legible versions.

Other state AI uses included creating documentation, improving the clarity of communications, and research—according to a lessons-learned report from the pilot, the state government claimed that 85% of employees had a positive experience using the AI model.

“Just because you start small or you maybe start slow, that still allows you to come to great outcomes,” Terrasse said. “This iterative approach and employee-centered approach is core to what has made PA a national leader in terms of safe and responsible AI use, instead of being a barrier to it.”

Takeaways. Maddy Dwyer, a state policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), told IT Brew that the Pennsylvania state government’s use of clear metrics around its AI pilot is an actionable lesson for other organizations.

Specifically, Dwyer said, the state’s use of AI across 14 different agencies allowed it to see a “breadth of different contexts.” In a 2025 report from the state, “Lessons from Pennsylvania’s Generative AI Pilot with ChatGPT,” employees were estimated to have saved roughly eight hours of work per week, despite some issues with learning curves and lack of training time.

“This type of research and documented value is something that I hope both more governments and even the private sector can conduct and really take as a model instead of just going ahead to procure AI with no clear goal or measurements in mind,” Dwyer said.

Quinn Anex-Ries, a senior policy analyst on the equity and civic tech team at CDT, added that enterprises can look at PA’s pilot as a helpful case for identifying common challenges, including how to effectively roll out tools instead of “figuring out those challenges once your tool is already available at scale.”

“Imagine in any enterprise, if you were learning about some of the inaccuracy challenges specific to your organization, once every single employee in your organization is using that tool, there might already be a lot of problems with wrong information circulating,” Anex-Ries said.