Maryland to use Anthropic AI to address child poverty, housing access
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Thursday announced a new partnership with Anthropic, which will see state employees using technology powered by its generative artificial intelligence chatbot Claude, with the goals of accelerating state services, reducing child poverty and improving housing access.
According to a news release, some agency teams will use a Claude-powered virtual assistant to deliver benefits faster and streamline housing permitting. The tool, the state announced, will help residents apply for benefits, update information and track applications, while also identifying additional programs for which they may qualify.
Implementation of Maryland’s new partnership will be aided by Percepta, a company that helps organizations transform their business processes. The state will also receive support from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Percepta’s engineering and technical staff will help accelerate progress on state AI initiatives, to improve permitting and licensing timelines, and to support Maryland’s efforts to expand housing development. Since July, Percepta has worked with the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Maryland Digital Service and Office of AI Enablement, housed within the Maryland Department of Information Technology, to develop a self-service portal for environmental site assessments. The new platform, the state said, will accelerate the development and financing of building projects across the state.
To start, the new initiative will be extended to employees at Maryland Benefits, the Department of Labor, the Governor’s Innovation Team and the Maryland Department of the Environment. The state said it hopes the effort will demonstrate “a unified commitment to embedding AI responsibly across state government.”
The announcement is the latest from the Moore administration this year aimed at improving service delivery with investments in technology and modernization. In January, Moore signed a an executive order, catalyzing a statewide modernization effort that also directed agencies to review data to find operational cost savings, streamline operations and eliminate redundancies to better serve taxpayers. Maryland Chief Information Officer Katie Savage in May said the state technology bureau was “looking at everything” as it identified ways to increase efficiency.
In June, the state unveiled a new, bilingual AI chatbot, built with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet model, that expanded customer access for benefits programs, and reduced call volumes. In August, Moore launched six new pilot programs to improve the permitting processing for infrastructure plans, with the aim of bolstering efficiency and productivity in the state.
“Artificial Intelligence can be a powerful tool for change. Today, we harness that power through a landmark partnership with Anthropic and Percepta,” Moore said in a press release. “We’ve been clear since Day One that it wouldn’t be enough to rebuild someone else’s broken government—we need to innovate. Leveraging AI will accelerate our push to fight poverty, turn renters into homeowners, and ensure every Marylander can access essential services like nutrition and financial support, quickly and effectively.”
