This famous opening line from Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities of course reflects the contradictory nature of the time period surrounding the French Revolution, juxtaposing moments of great joy and sorrow, hope and sadness.
But the line also quickly summarizes the perspectives I heard from state CIOs and CISOs and during keynote and breakout sessions with industry thought leaders, and the general “vibe” surrounding conversations with industry partners from the private sector at the after-hours parties in Philadelphia at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Midyear Conference this week.
On the "best of times" side: Artificial intelligence is changing the future of government service delivery. Many states are moving beyond the conceptual phase and yielding real results, albeit in limited proofs of concept with subsets of government employees or citizen-focused projects.
Advances are also happening in citizen-centric portals, cybersecurity, legacy modernization, cloud services and most of the priority areas listed for CIOs in 2025. (You can see that top 10 NASCIO list here.) I was impressed with how upbeat many state leaders were regarding their road maps for the next year.
On the “worst of times” side of things, attendees shared stories of budget cuts, states losing federal grant dollars and programs being reduced. I was a bit surprised by the wide variance between states regarding near- and mid-term outlooks, and other leaders were in a “wait and see” mode on numerous topics. Some of those examples are shared in this blog, but others made sure to emphasize that our conversation was off the record.
WHAT HAPPENS AT NASCIO CONFERENCES?
Unlike, most other tech conferences, there is no vendor exhibit area (show floor) nor are live demos offered for vendors to sell their products at NASCIO events. Rather, everyone joins for breakfast, lunch, and numerous keynote and breakout sessions on topics that are important to public-sector leadership. The agenda can be found here, and you will see that the keynotes each day offer inspirational examples that come from outside the government technology areas that typically dominate conversations.
One highlight for me was the Learning Lounge: Connecting States to AI Talent. You can see the new report that was discussed here. The report covers “The Six Steps to Developing an AI strategy” which include:
Step 1: Determine Ownership of AI strategy
Step 2: Issue Guidelines for Responsible Use by State Agencies
Step 3: Raise Awareness Across Agencies
Step 4: Source Use Cases and Prioritize Them
Step 5: Launch Standard Off-the-Shelf Solutions
Step 6: Prototype Custom Point Solutions
The key points covered in that session and on the related topic was covered in this excellent GT article. Here’s an excerpt:
“Prompt engineering is the science of crafting effective instructions or 'prompts' to guide artificial intelligence models and provide it with the essential data it needs to make informed decisions. Users who give artificial intelligence language models overly simplistic commands are more likely to receive what's termed 'AI slop.' Conversely, an expertly crafted prompt with detailed data about the task at hand and desired output can massively enhance the result.
“The challenge for governments is scaling a workforce of non-technical staff to understand the difference. An expert prompt engineer will provide necessary context, dictate tone and set output constraints, further refining responses to meet specific expectations.”
GovTech also covered many of the hot topics from the NASCIO Midyear 2025, and I highlight a few of those reports here (which include video interviews with many government leaders):
- For California, Keeping Up With AI Means Staying Agile: At this week's NASCIO conference in Philadelphia, California's two top technology leaders outlined the state's approach to putting AI to work for the state's 39 million residents.
- Georgia's Public Website Scoring System Creates Performance Race: Georgia launched "GAP" scores for state websites, publicly ranking quality, accessibility and search engine optimization. Chief Digital Officer Nikhil Deshpande shared at NASCIO how the transparency fuels agency competition, boosting digital services for citizens.
- Why Both Students and Criminals Matter to AI’s Future: At the NASCIO 2025 Midyear Conference in Philadelphia, state tech leaders talked about how to grow AI while also defending it from attack. The commonwealth of Massachusetts offers an instructive example.
- Iowa Centralizes IT, Moves Into System Rationalization: The massive effort might be invisible to the average Iowan, says CIO Matt Behrens, but it's setting his organization up for "the delivery of IT for the future."
MORE CYBER, PLEASE
There were many sessions and discussions on cybersecurity at the NASCIO Midyear, and one described what Massachusetts is doing to mitigate potential vulnerabilities that AI tools may be taking advantage of. Here are the six strategies described by Donald Chamberlain, chief operating officer and assistant secretary for security and operations at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security:
- Application modernization: The commonwealth follows the “six R’s”: rehost, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, replace and retire, he said.
- Regular system updates and patches
- Implementing multifactor authentication
- Centralized identity management supported by a robust, AI-enhanced identity management solution
- Eliminating legacy business processes
- Required employee training and awareness
Referencing the Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Studies, the session outlined solutions to talent acquisition in government. I covered this topic as well in a recent blog on career shifts and in this 2023 blog.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This was the first time in a decade that I did not attend the RSA Conference in San Francisco, as that event happened during the same week as NASCIO Midyear for the first time. (I hope that is not a trend.) I am watching many of those RSAC 2025 keynotes on YouTube, and may do a future blog on RSAC highlights (as seen from afar).
But back to NASCIO’s Midyear event, there is no doubt that the top reason I attend the NASCIO events is for the networking opportunities and one-on-one conversations with top state government leaders. There is also a sense of community that extends from former CIOs and CISOs to current CIOs and CISOs and their staffs, which is wonderful. The picture below was from the “Michigan team” after we finished ninth in the trivia contest one afternoon. The group consists of current and former Michigan government leaders, along with a few extra helpers that we gained as friends were walking by.
D. Lohrmann
