Center for Civic Futures awards grant to Nava Labs to help modernize state benefits technology with AI

The latest award through the organization’s Public Benefit Innovation Fund will support the use of artificial intelligence tools to help agencies update aging Medicaid and SNAP systems.

By Sophia Fox-Sowell

October 30, 2026

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MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2026/07/30: Participants seen holding signs at the protest. New York patients, union members, and health workers gathered across from Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, to celebrate the 61st anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, to share personal stories about our broken healthcare system, and to demand bold action by Congress and state lawmakers to protect and restore Medicare and Medicaid and to pass Medicare for All and the New York Health Act to provide comprehensive healthcare for all, without exception. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The Center for Civic Futures is funding an effort to help states use artificial intelligence to identify and modernize aging technology systems that support Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

This week, the organization awarded Nava Labs — the philanthropic arm of Nava PBC, which builds and modernizes digital government services — a grant through its Public Benefit Innovation Fund to develop AI-powered tools and service-design processes meant toreduce the time agencies spend mapping legacy systems from months to weeks.

The project will focus on helping state policy, program and technology teams develop a shared roadmap for modernizing the infrastructure behind public benefits, potentially improving the speed and reliability of services for beneficiaries. According to the announcement, Nava plans to partner with several states to test the tools and establish an advisory group of state governments to provide feedback on how the approach could be adapted elsewhere.

The grant is part of the organization’s larger effort to explore how emerging technologies can help government agencies address administrative challenges and improve public benefits delivery, especially as states face mounting pressure to update their IT systems to meet new federal changes to Medicaid eligibility checks and SNAP administration.

“People who depend on public benefits experience delayed access, lost benefits, and services that don’t fit their needs because the legacy systems agencies run on were built around decades-old technical and operational constraints,” Genevieve Gaudet, firector of Nava Labs, said in a press release.

Aging IT systems for both Medicaid and SNAP can create major bottlenecks, leaving millions of eligible individuals — particularly seniors — struggling with access, data sharing and renewals. A 2024 report by the Urban Institute found that shifts toward “online-first” application and recertification portals exclude many older adults who lack smartphones, high-speed internet or digital literacy. Out of roughly 13 million eligible seniors, the report noted that fewer than 4 million currently receive SNAP benefits due to these barriers.

“These findings do clearly show that in many places, there are large gaps between the number of people 65 and older who are eligible for SSI, SNAP, or MSP, and the number who are receiving benefits from those programs,” the research concludes.

In states where Medicaid and SNAP are state-administered but county-operated, workload capacity and policy interpretation can also create friction across statewide technology platforms. Code for America identified several AI use cases for Medicaid service delivery earlier this year, including conversational interfaces, data quality analysis, process automation, and risk and fraud detection.

The Center for Civic Futures recently awarded $11 million to 11 projects exploring how AI could help states address administrative burdens and modernize public benefits operations. Its first funding round has already produced early results. A SNAP verification tool in Mississippi helped reduce the state’s payment error liability by $40 million, while AI tools in New Jersey have helped deliver an estimated $19 million in benefits to more than 97,000 residents.

Eleanor Davis, who serves as director of the Public Benefit Innovation Fund, said the civic technology field has historically concentrated on improving the experience of people applying for benefits, while giving less attention to the systems government employees use to process applications.

“There’s infinite reasons why that backend work is really hard to do,” Davis said in an interview. “And now is a critical moment to be driving innovation towards where we can leverage AI to make a huge difference in these spaces where we have not had as much opportunity to improve service delivery.”

Nava has also been testing AI-powered tools for mainframe modernization as part of New Jersey’s unemployment insurance system upgrade. This latest project will build on that work to help agencies better understand and replace aging technology.