AI is supporting modernization efforts at the state government level, and in human services, the technology can help address staffing shortages. Arizona has not shied away from AI. The state established an AI steering committee in 2025 to inform the technology’s deployment in the Grand Canyon State, and Arizona’s IT executives are leading the charge for effective implementations.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) has been on a modernization journey for several years, the department’s CIO Mark Darmer said. The focus with a modernization project, he said, should center on a team or program’s business needs. For DES, that need is to digitize assistance program forms and processes, Darmer said.
The agency focused on its child-care assistance program initially, which had never had an online application process for clients; instead, applicants had to print the form, fill it out by hand, and deliver it to a DES office by mail, fax or in person. The agency created a client portal, A-to-Z Arizona, through which the process could take place. The goal is that as officials add additional programs into the portal, it will further simplify interactions and enrollment. DES serves underemployed and unemployed populations, so making the process more available to clients outside of normal business hours and being self-service to the greatest extent possible were priorities, Darmer said.
Governments are not always able to modernize as regularly as the private sector, he said, and processes are often powered by institutional knowledge. Private-sector partners can offer value to governments to explore “the art of the possible.” A partnership with Salesforce has supported DES’ modernization efforts.
Modernizing legacy systems, and the limited resources governments have to do so, are key challenges in the public sector, according to Nadia Hansen. Hansen leads go-to-market strategy for Salesforce, and was previously CIO for Clark County, Nev., which she said shapes her ability to serve as a trusted adviser for governments in demonstrating potential use cases for technology.
“I think a superpower of people who have worked in both the public and private sector is being able to communicate in the language that government agencies speak,” Hansen said.
Arizona officials worked with existing and potential clients to assess and improve the prototype’s usability. The portal includes a real-time feedback tool, which clients can use to provide data that is analyzed twice weekly. This has already led to functionality improvements, according to DES Director of Organizational Change Management Kellyanne Beck. As she put it, when it comes to product development and customer experience, seemingly small things can actually be big things — especially with the rate at which technology’s advancing.
The current technology evolution powering much modernization is AI, a path on which DES is now starting to advance, Darmer said.
This entails integrating AI into a child support application that the state deployed on Salesforce, he said. Officials have created a virtual policy assistant, trained on child-care policy and procedure data, so that the child support staff can ask policy questions and get answers based on the applicable information. Notably, the assistant offers a policy reference so staff can verify and easily access additional information.
Another AI piece officials are working to add is a case analysis assistant, which will synopsize case information and suggest next steps that should be done for an individual case.
Looking ahead, DES will work with Salesforce to leverage the company’s Agentforce platform to address a case backlog in its unemployment insurance program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and in its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Currently, to receive assistance, a state staffer must do a live interview. The goal is to use AI where possible, to bolster the limited capacity of staff for these interview processes while keeping humans available where needed. The goal, the CIO said, is to bring this AI component in towards the latter half of this calendar year.
Governments are still cautious around AI, Hansen said, so the company offers education — including a free-to-use educational platform called Trailhead. With education, the aim is to help officials understand what AI can and cannot do, “because you can’t use AI to solve every single problem.” The focus, she said, should be on the outcome that needs to be reached.
Data management is also part of the modernization process, Darmer said, as information is often replicated across the organization for the state’s many human services programs. This could involve variations in a client’s name — like the use of a middle initial or lack thereof — for different programs, which limits the ability to analyze this information.
“We are very data rich, but information poor, because of the inability to cross those data sets and really get a true picture of a client’s journey through the department,” Darmer said.
As programs are added to this portal, they are undergoing a master data management process to clarify the client information in one “golden record” for a client across multiple DES programs.
As human services processes are modernized, DES leadership is working to ensure they are being simplified for staff as well. Submitting an online application versus a paper application can get the former in the queue for an eligibility specialist to see it within 10 minutes rather than the traditional 72 hours, Beck said. And notably, it reduces the manual labor needed by employees — resulting in faster eligibility determinations for clients.
All of these improvements, Darmer emphasized, enable DES staff to be “agents for change,” better supporting clients to overcome the root cause of their need, so that ultimately, they can be self-sufficient.
