{"id":203863,"date":"2026-03-14T01:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T01:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/203863\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T01:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T01:02:14","slug":"texas-promotes-ai-and-innovation-chief-to-cio-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/203863\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas promotes AI and innovation chief to CIO role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Sauerhoff, who\u2019s been Texas\u2019 interim chief information officer since January, when the governor appointed<\/a> Amanda Crawford as his insurance commissioner, was on Friday named as her full-time replacement.<\/p>\n

Most recently serving as Texas\u2019 chief artificial intelligence and innovation officer, Sauerhoff now heads the state\u2019s Department of Information Resources, where he\u2019s tasked with all of the usual duties<\/a> of a state\u2019s top technology official: crafting a statewide technology strategy, offering \u201cshared services\u201d to be used across many agencies providing the public with a broad array of essential services and administering \u201ctechnology procurement and contracting resources, and technology direction and guidance,\u201d according to the department\u2019s press materials.<\/p>\n

In an email, Sauerhoff said Crawford provided \u201cstrong, foundational leadership,\u201d work that included modernizing IT systems and boosting collaboration across agencies, that he hopes to build upon, \u201cwhile continuing to support Texas\u2019 public sector with secure, reliable and innovative technology that allows government to better serve Texans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sauerhoff joined the Texas state government in 2022, first as its deputy chief information security officer, after a career that included six years with the Air Force, three years with the Marine Corps Reserve and five years with the U.S. courts system in New Orleans, where he served as a circuit IT security officer. According to a press release from Texas\u2019 technology department, Sauerhoff has \u201cmore than 32 years of experience in information technology, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TonyTony Sauerhoff<\/p>\n

As CIO of one of the nation\u2019s largest states, Sauerhoff will manage a budget exceeding three-quarters of a billion dollars, a task complicated by technology\u2019s rapid pace of development. \u201cThe pace of technology development and breakthroughs keeps advancing more and more quickly, especially lately,\u201d he acknowledged in an email, when asked about how he\u2019ll manage to keep the state\u2019s technologies current while operating within Texas\u2019 biennial budget cycle. He said agencies will need to \u201cplan and prepare well in advance of deadlines\u201d and to anticipate future needs before asking the legislature for funding.<\/p>\n

Sauerhoff noted that his department also employs staff who help other agencies sketch out their modernization initiatives: \u201cOne of my goals is to increase awareness that DIR is available to help in this area. For example, at the end of last year, DIR hosted an IT Planning, Reporting, and Funding Cycle Webinar to help agencies start thinking through how to address this challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the technologies moving fastest \u2014 AI \u2014 plays a central role in Sauerhoff\u2019s plans, though the state\u2019s IT strategic plan observes that the state is challenged by \u201cpoor data quality\u201d that \u201climits the reliability of analytics and AI models.\u201d Many states, after breakthroughs in large language models in 2022 began exciting the public, have similarly reported<\/a> being unprepared to make the most of the latest AI software. Sauerhoff said the Department of Information Resources is addressing its data issues \u201cin increments,\u201d and \u201cas AI use cases are identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Texas\u2019 public sector, he said, is becoming more capable in the realm of AI, moving \u201cfrom pilot to execution.\u201d State CIOs in many states are telling a similar story \u2014 the National Association of State Chief Information Officers last year reported<\/a> that four in five of state governments were using AI tools as part of their daily work, and a quarter had begun receiving dedicated funding for AI. In January, Texas published<\/a> an \u201cAI data quality protocol\u201d that includes a series of \u201cpractical actions\u201d agencies can take to ready their data for AI, like employing \u201cpurpose-built solutions\u201d to address technical issues like duplicative records, or defining \u201cfairness metrics for AI-driven decisions\u201d and publishing results quarterly to boost trust with the public.<\/p>\n

Sauerhoff on Friday also reminded a reporter that \u201cresponsible data management\u201d and \u201cstronger services supported by data and AI\u201d are included in the state\u2019s IT strategic plan \u2014 AI seems to be embedded in the state government\u2019s future: \u201cDIR remains committed to supporting Texas government entities as they strengthen data practices and responsibly expand the use of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Colin<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Colin Wood
\n\t\t\tColin Wood is StateScoop’s editor in chief. Contact him at colin.wood@statescoop.com or cwood.64 on Signal.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Sauerhoff, who\u2019s been Texas\u2019 interim chief information officer since January, when the governor appointed Amanda Crawford as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6776,80405,32904,356,80406,27,29,28,6780],"class_list":["post-203863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-chief-information-officer","tag-cio","tag-data","tag-data-quality","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tony-sauerhoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}