But for Mississippi CIO Craig Orgeron, the state’s tech strategy is less about chasing AI’s flashiest promises and more about understanding what it actually takes to make new tools work inside government.
“There’s a lot of hype around AI, generative AI,” Orgeron said. “A lot of hype is fabulous. Ultimately, you’ve got to do the work.”
That realism has shaped how Mississippi approaches AI, cloud computing, cybersecurity and digital services. Over the past year, officials have laid the groundwork for policy and governance in AI adoption, including a gubernatorial executive order that creates an inventory of AI acceptable-use guidelines and the launch of an AI Innovation Hub. But Orgeron is clear that none of those steps automatically translates into transformation.
“You still have to have your house in order,” he said, pointing to data quality, privacy, transparency and security as prerequisites that often receive less attention than new tools themselves. “Your data has to be in order if your data is going to be part of a solution.”
This has led Mississippi to favor proof-of-concept projects and limited pilots over sweeping deployments. Early use cases — such as tools that summarize legislative bills — are designed as learning exercises as much as productivity gains, helping agencies understand both the promise and the limits of AI before scaling it.
MAKING AI EARN ITS KEEP
Rather than rushing to deploy generative AI broadly, Mississippi is focusing on bringing a small number of projects into production and measuring whether they deliver real value.
The state’s AI Innovation Fund, created by lawmakers last year, is central to that effort. Orgeron describes it as a “nudge fund” — not a massive investment, but enough to remove friction and push the most promising ideas into operation.
“We desire to take that next step,” he said, indicating success will be judged by outcomes, not enthusiasm. “Let’s get these use cases into production and let’s measure.”
His philosophy extends to newer, agentic forms of AI. Despite news that agent-based systems are already reshaping government tech, Orgeron believes meaningful adoption — particularly in state government — will come more gradually, often embedded within vendor platforms and enterprise systems rather than built independently by agencies.
BUILDING CLOUD, PROCUREMENT AND SECURITY FOUNDATIONS
And although AI continues to surface in the big headlines, Mississippi’s 2026 technology agenda spans multiple areas — all of which are closely integrated. A major pillar of that strategy is the state’s Cloud Center of Excellence, which was authorized in statute last year and is now moving from planning into execution. The state has now completed an assessment of migration costs for its private cloud and has begun establishing the center’s operational framework, including defining security standards, creating landing zones with multiple public cloud providers and developing repeatable pathways for agencies to move applications out of legacy environments.
The focus now, Orgeron said, is removing barriers that slow agencies down — whether that’s uncertainty about migration readiness, lack of training or cost concerns. The state is now working with cloud partners on training opportunities and pricing structures while seeking funding to support application assessments and early migrations.
State procurement modernization runs in parallel, aimed at reducing delays that historically made it difficult for agencies to adopt modern tools, with cybersecurity underpinning all of it. And as AI capabilities expand, Orgeron emphasized the same tools that drive efficiency can also pose risks if security isn’t built in from the start — because “bad actors have them too.”
WORKFORCE, LEADERSHIP AND THE CAPACITY TO SCALE
Orgeron said Mississippi is also focused on the organizational capacity to deliver them as technology initiatives grow more complex. That includes workforce development efforts tied to AI and cybersecurity, and leadership roles designed to help scale enterprise-wide technology delivery. Programs like the AI Talent Accelerator and partnerships with groups focused on building in-state technical pipelines are still in early stages, but are intended to strengthen skills over time.
Simultaneously, Mississippi is actively recruiting for a new chief technology officer — a role Orgeron described as less about hands-on engineering and more about enterprise delivery.
The CTO, he said, will be responsible for helping the state translate strategy into execution, particularly as cloud, AI, identity and shared services expand across agencies and, increasingly, into collaboration with local governments.
“It’s really a C-suite role focused on technology delivery,” Orgeron said. “It's not necessarily just technical skills, but more about delivering technical solutions and services to the enterprise.”
DATA CENTERS TIED TO CAPACITY
All of these efforts are unfolding alongside major private-sector investments that are reshaping Mississippi’s technology profile. Last week, Gov. Tate Reeves unveiled xAI’s plans to invest more than $20 billion in a data center in Southaven, Miss. And Amazon Web Services has continued expanding its presence in the state, allocating $3 billion in Warren County to build a new data center campus.
Orgeron framed those projects as part of a broader ecosystem shift — one that raises expectations around readiness, governance and infrastructure at every level of government.
For Mississippi, he said, the challenge is ensuring that cloud adoption, AI governance, cybersecurity frameworks and workforce capacity keep pace with the scale of investment happening around them.
Strategic partnerships, he added, are critical — particularly as state government competes with the private sector for technical talent and specialized expertise.
MOMENTUM, NOT SHORTCUTS
Despite the caution around emerging technology hype, Orgeron describes the state’s current posture with a single word: “momentum.” Over the past year, the CIO said, Mississippi has aligned legislative support, executive leadership and agency priorities in a way that positions it to move faster — but without skipping steps.
As Orgeron put it, “year ’25 was the momentum year, and coming into ’26, it’s about saying, ‘We have most of the tools in the toolbox we need. Let’s nudge this further.’” In his view, the hype will pass, but the work will remain.
