One year into New York’s AI plan, city aims at partnerships

One year after publishing an artificial intelligence “action plan” last October, an official from New York City’s Office of Technology & Innovation says work is progressing ahead of schedule. Alex Foard, the office’s executive director of research and collaboration, says 30 of 37 actions were completed, one more than than the office had planned for in the initiative’s first year. Foard said the city’s AI work has been focused on translating policy actions into “pragmatic things” that agencies can use to support their work. The next year, Foard says, will include a heavier emphasis on public engagement and external partnerships. “The partnership emphasis really is one of the most important pieces out of the action plan because it’s an acknowledgement that we as a city have a lot of internal expertise related to AI but we’re also in New York City where we have access to any number of high-end academic institutions, a very health tech industry and all of these groups are rich with their own expertise and their own guidance that we can use to help inform our own policy.”

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