NASCIO Survey: CIOs Look Ahead With Accessibility, AI

DENVER — With compliance deadlines looming and technologies such as AI constantly evolving, CIOs are focused on matching the pace of change to deliver services to customers — both residents and state agencies.

The State CIO Survey released during the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) 2025 Annual Conference explored CIOs’ sentiments on a range of topics, from accessibility and AI to modernization and data governance. The overarching theme is that technology is advancing rapidly, and officials must evolve their IT products, policies and practices to match the pace.

Accessibility was top of mind Monday morning as a panel of CIOs discussed results of the NASCIO survey. Even with progress already made, their comments made clear that much work — and much uncertainty — remains. For starters, state tech leaders are unsure how the federal government might enforce the upcoming rules for accessibility.

The survey revealed that a CIO focus is the 2026 deadline for accessibility, when a Department of Justice mandate requires all content on state government websites and mobile apps to be accessible for people with disabilities. However, NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson underlined at the conference that it is unclear "what the Department of Justice will do about that."

But that doesn’t mean the push toward more accessibility lacks enthusiasm at the state level.

"I think it’s a welcome focus,” said Craig Orgeron, Mississippi CIO. “I welcome the urgency.”

While the majority of CIOs indicated that work to meet the deadline is in progress, only one state has fully implemented its plan; two state CIOs are unsure of the status of their plan; and one has no plan.
One of the main challenges in getting more accessibility in state IT is getting buy-in — and funding — from elected officials for new programs and new positions. That includes hiring professionals who focus on digital accessibility for public services.

“We don’t have an IT accessibility coordinator,” said North Dakota CIO Corey Mock. “There was no money in the budget for this.”

The majority of CIOs, 54 percent, said that their organization does not have funding to support IT accessibility services. However, 52 percent of CIOs have onboarded a statewide IT accessibility coordinator within their organization to guide this work, which NASCIO has previously recommended.

In Georgia, the state’s tech professionals are preparing a “deep dive” into bringing more accessibility to applications, said CIO Shawnzia Thomas.

She said Georgia is “actively recruiting” an accessibility coordinator, and an ADA office already exists that helps agencies. The state is also doing such grunt work as crafting what Thomas called a “PDF accessibility tool.”

States are authorizing IT accessibility in various ways, primarily with CIO organization directives, but also through state regulations, enterprise architecture, statutes and executive orders.

Another timely priority for state CIOs is both the governance of AI technologies as they rapidly advance and to guide responsible implementations.
AI is already in use in state government: 82 percent of CIOs said employees are using generative AI tools in their daily work, and 90 percent are implementing pilot projects with AI. But largely, AI use is occurring with protections in place.

Eighty-eight percent of respondents have implemented guardrails to support responsible, secure, ethical use.
As the debate continues on whether AI regulatory authority belongs to federal or state government, state CIOs expressed broad opposition for moratoriums or pre-emption of states’ ability to regulate AI. However, CIOs said they do support federal standards, which states can then choose to build on, as well as federal funding to support AI advancement, security and workforce development.

Successful AI implementations require quality data, and data management has been identified as a leading state CIO priority in NASCIO’s State CIO Top 10 every year since 2016. But state CIOs are at different stages of their data maturity journeys; only 4 percent of respondents described their data governance as “very mature.”
State CIOs said they are using data analytics to create dashboards and reports, enhance fraud prevention, detection and response, improve public transparency and accountability, and more.

State IT organizations also empower other state agencies to better use data, offering various services to agencies. Only 10 percent of respondents said their organization does not provide data analytics services to customer agencies.
Not only do state IT organizations provide services to other state agencies, they also provide services to local governments. The top five such services were GIS, network services, co-location, security services or infrastructure, and data center hosting.

These technology focus areas support states as broader IT modernization initiatives are taking place. Half of respondents had their budget increased in the CIO organization for Fiscal Year 2026. Of that increased funding, 48 percent said they received funding for modernization and 38 percent said they received funding for innovation.

As states work to meet the upcoming deadline on accessibility and keep pace with the evolving technology landscape, CIOs also are taking responsibilities that cover more than just the details of public agency technology. “Change leader” now describes many CIOs, reflecting the “unbelievable level of uncertainty” and the “democratization of technology,” as Mock described it during the conference.

The report concludes by saying that “full speed ahead is the name of the game” for CIOs today. The full NASCIO survey can be found here.