The agency’s technology-powered initiatives, including a records search tool and broader modernization efforts, are led by its CIO Robert Fulk.
Money Quest is the state’s new financial education program to help the public develop stronger financial knowledge, centered on three key areas: education, fraud prevention and financial literacy. Launched in April, it offers interactive tools, with learning journeys categorized to meet the needs of different stages of life — working adults, retirees and seniors, young adults, educators and leaders, teens, and kids.
Although SOS previously had an education platform, Fulk said it was not designed for the way people consume information today. The goal with Money Quest was to offer important information in bite-sized chunks, accessible from mobile phones, and in a way that is more “fun” and engaging.
SOS used instructional designers to make its information accessible for learners, but AI was leveraged on the back end to enhance the content. For example, AI helped officials create videos to support learning without having to hire actors.
“AI is a force multiplier in terms of cost and time,” Fulk said, noting the program was put together in about four weeks. The CIO was recognized this spring as one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of 2026.
SOS officials are tracking everything from clicks, to usage, to where individuals are getting stuck, he said, in order to enable continuous refinement.
The platform is slated to evolve in phase two to include microlearning ecosystems, through which learners can receive very targeted information in short segments. Learning theory will still be applied by instructional designers to shape the content in a way that is accessible for different audiences.
SOS used Google’s Gemini Vertex AI for this project, a tool now known as the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, which was also used for the state’s notary education platform. Officials kicked off the second phase of that project earlier this month, Fulk said.
Phase one of the notary education platform focused on delivering the Learning Management System, and phase two involves using AI for licensing registrations for notaries.
The licensing process to become a notary in the state requires people to complete numerous steps, including background checks and submitting various materials, Fulk said. The goal with integrating AI into the process was to reduce the human workload.
“We’re actually using agentic AI,” Fulk said. The AI interacts with the customer submitting their materials, reviews the submission and provides feedback to the license applicant as needed to ensure the submission is completed correctly. After the initial review, AI can provide a recommendation to human staff, who still ultimately review the application. “And the human being makes the final determination.”
The workload on the back end, however, has been reduced between 60 to 70 percent, Fulk said. The technology also makes the process clearer for applicants on the front end, who can interact with the agent to understand needs in the context of submission materials. The purpose is not to reduce staff, but to free up the time they spend on data entry review to have more time for serving customers directly.
“I think that’s what we’re all missing when we talk about AI here is AI frees people’s time up to actually do better customer service and more human action, not less,” the CIO said.
With these different modernization efforts applying AI technologies, Fulk emphasized the importance of having strong partnerships in place, both with vendors and with the Indiana Office of Technology. Such collaboration helps ensure AI implementations are in alignment with AI governance and security control models.
