As technology like artificial intelligence continues to capture governments\u2019 interest in the effort to drive efficiency and enhance service delivery, San Jose, California, has recognized that a tech-ready workforce is a critical first step to doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The California city employs approximately 7,000 people, yet houses nearly a million residents who rely on the government\u2019s systems, services and operations, San Jose\u2019s chief innovation officer and budget director, Stephen Caines, told Route Fifty. For the city\u2019s \u201clean\u201d staff to get ahead of residents\u2019 growing and evolving needs, officials see AI as a valuable force multiplier but recognize that many workers lack the tech experience and digital background necessary to optimize AI tools, he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the city\u2019s AI Upskilling Program<\/a> aims to help even the playing field, equipping city workers with the training to build their own AI solutions that are tailored to their specific jobs and tasks.<\/p>\n More than 1,000 city staff, or roughly 15% of the municipal workforce, have completed the program since it launched in 2024, city officials announced Wednesday. Their next goal for the initiative is to have 30% of the city\u2019s workforce participate by June 2027.<\/p>\n Through the upskilling program, staff can learn about responsible AI practices, prompt engineering and other skills to develop custom-built AI tools. The training involves self-paced online modules and\u00a0a 10-week course, the curriculum for which city leaders developed in-house with assistance from San Jos\u00e9 State University.\u00a0<\/p>\n The in-house approach aims to help San Jose staff feel more comfortable delving into the technology, particularly as resistance to AI often comes from skepticism or concern toward external products, Caines said. There\u2019s \u201cless friction\u201d when employees can be more vulnerable and transparent about their AI learning away from the conditions or rules that may come with a commercial resource, he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, program participation is \u201ctypically oversubscribed, so there\u2019s a higher demand than we have seats,\u201d Caines said. It\u2019s not uncommon for city staff to repeat the upskilling course, \u201cso we\u2019re very happy to see people embrace this training and not only take it once, but also come back.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Across the U.S., many states and municipalities have launched AI upskilling and training efforts as governments aim to leverage the latest tech to solve public issues, like housing shortages<\/a>, emergency response planning<\/a>, benefits administration<\/a> and health care<\/a>.<\/p>\n In April, for instance, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced<\/a> that she is expanding access to an AI training and education tool to the entire state workforce after it was piloted among eight state agencies. Officials in Washington, D.C., also announced<\/a> that municipal workers are now required to undergo mandatory AI training that will ensure agencies implement the tech responsibly and efficiently.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Jose\u2019s \u201cbottom up\u201d approach to workforce upskilling looks to expand upon that trend, especially as city officials increasingly recognize that executive leaders are often not the ones experiencing the day-to-day challenges agencies face, and therefore may not always know what the most efficient solutions could be, Caines said.<\/p>\n \u201cSan Jose is one of the only cities in the country to create a custom AI training program to empower our workforce to use these new tools,\u201d Mayor Matt Mahan said in a statement. \u201cThe best way to protect workers from technological change is to invest in their skills and knowledge\u2026. That’s the kind of responsive and efficient government our residents deserve.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, a broader goal of the AI Upskilling Program is to not only enable participants to better identify pain points and AI-enabled solutions to their workflows, but also to ultimately share their learnings and AI tools with their colleagues, Caines said. Doing so can, for example, further standardize data and AI practices across city departments so employees can more efficiently collaborate on or adopt each other\u2019s AI solutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have so many brilliant people in the city of San Jose, but inertia will kind of force you to stay in your department, and it’s up to us to figure out how we can encourage those silos to break down,\u201d Caines said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As technology like artificial intelligence continues to capture governments\u2019 interest in the effort to drive efficiency and enhance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2080,7,68147,91090,88,90,89,148738],"class_list":["post-366674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-california","tag-job-training","tag-municipal-workforce","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-upskilling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}