SALT LAKE CITY — At this point, the artificial intelligence revolution is a global locomotive that’s showing no signs of slowing down.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday revealed his “AI Action Plan” he ordered after returning to the White House in January and revoking former President Joe Biden’s signature AI guardrails.

The plan and related executive orders seem to accelerate the sale of AI technology abroad and make it easier to construct the energy-hungry data center buildings that are needed to form and run AI products.

“America is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence. Winning this race will usher in a new era of human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security for the American people,” reads the plan.

A 2025 World Economic Forum report found 41% of employers intend to replace workers with AI by 2030. Additionally, the number of students with AI-related degrees reached 424,000 in 2023, up 32% from five years earlier.

When it comes to the states paving the way for AI adoption, Utah is among the leaders. A study released in July from Brainly positioned the Beehive State as the third-most-prepared place in the nation for the AI revolution based on jobs, education and government funding.

This ranking is likely music to the ears of Utah’s top decision-makers, with Gov. Spencer Cox during his June PBS broadcast declaring Utah as having the “first and smartest of the AI regulations that have been proposed.” These policies include bills that create a state-run AI policy lab, clarify consumer protection liability for AI and require AI disclosures in industries like finance and mental health.

Among the Brainly study’s key findings, Utah scored particularly well for businesses’ AI adoption (12.5%, No. 2) and households’ ultra high-speed internet access (82.2%, No. 4).

Here’s a look — while not all-encompassing — into how Utah has emerged as a leader in the national AI discussion.

Business

Since the rise of Silicon Slopes, Utah has been an envelope pusher when it comes to technological innovations.

Of course, Utah-based tech giants like Adobe, Qualtrics Instructure, Pluralsight and Vivint are leaning into AI to optimize operations. But other Utah companies are capitalizing on the state’s business friendly environment in a push to become big players in the tech and AI landscape.

Tarriflo, a student startup from Utah State University, won the $20,000 grand prize at March’s Tim Draper Utah Entrepreneur Challenge hosted by the University of Utah’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.

The startup offers a platform powered by artificial intelligence that automates international trade documentation, outperforming traditional and competing software solutions, said Bryce Judy, the company’s CEO and co-founder.

The AI-driven technology uses product information and generates detailed documents, including comprehensive references to customs rulings and regulations. It also offers tariff-rate management and possesses a large trade-compliance database covering nontariff measures, free-trade agreements, country-specific harmonized tariff schedule codes and indirect taxes.

“Tarifflo uses AI to do what you would’ve had to pay an entire team to do. What used to take hours and days to fill out documentation, we can do in several minutes,” Judy said. “We can do it real-time, we can do it more accurate, and that’s all just using these AI models that we built.”

Farther south, Lehi-based SchoolAI in April celebrated its latest funding round of $25 million — one of the largest Series A funding rounds in Utah history.

The platform offers over 150,000 spaces with AI tutors, interactive games, simulations, well-being check-ins and a library of grade- and subject-specific activities. Teachers also benefit from dashboards with real-time feedback and moderation, allowing them to easily track student progress and develop tailored learning plans to meet students where they are.

“It’s like a tutor for students and teacher’s aide for teachers,” said Anthony Godfrey, superintendent of Jordan School District, one of the many Utah districts to adopt SchoolAI in its classrooms.

Today, it’s used by teachers and students in more than 1 million classrooms across all 50 states and over 80 countries worldwide. The platform is embedded in more than 400 school districts through strategic partnerships that train teachers and students how to use AI in a safe, managed way.

Education

AI innovation can be found at all levels of Utah’s academic system.

In the K-12 realm, the Utah State Board of Education has partnered with Qualtrics since 2018 to gather comprehensive, experiential data from teachers, administrators, parents and students alike.

Moving forward, Sarah Young, the board’s chief of staff, said the board is looking to lean into Qualtrics’ AI technology, dashboard and ticketing system and more to integrate structured and unstructured data into comprehensive datasets used to inform the path forward.

Along with the Jordan School District using SchoolAI, even more districts across the state are adopting the platform. Alpine School District, Granite School District, Weber School District and more are currently using it, with 80% of the schools and districts in the state entered into a strategic partnership with the company.

As the main pipeline for a majority of the workforce, AI integration is also at the forefront of how Utah’s colleges and universities are preparing the coming generations of employees to be effective workers in a new era of technology.

“We were talking to an employer just two weeks ago who said to us, ‘People should not be worried about losing their job to AI; people should be worried about losing their job to people who understand AI,'” Salt Lake Community College President Greg Peterson said during the Utah AI Summit in October 2024.

To that end, Peterson said SLCC is working to build AI experience into different industry pipelines so students are experiencing it before entering the workforce. Like the internet many years ago, AI is a rapidly evolving entity.

SLCC is not alone in the venture of building a future of AI-literate citizens, either.

The University of Utah, in October 2023, launched a $100 million AI research initiative digging into the ways AI can be used responsibly to tackle societal issues.

The Responsible AI Initiative is led by Manish Parashar, director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the U., and will look to advance AI in a way that achieves “societal good” while also protecting privacy, civil rights and liberties and promoting principles of accountability, transparency and equity, the university said.

The initiative’s initial focus is on three thematic areas that build on the U.’s research strengths: environment, health care and wellness and teaching and learning.

Utah Valley University has rolled out a graduate certificate in AI, providing fundamental and advanced skills in the principles, algorithms and technologies that enable AI and cybersecurity.

While many more examples exist throughout Utah, these ventures offer a glimpse of how Utah’s higher education system and business ecosystem are not shying away from AI, but leaning into it.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.