Arkansas’ CTO ‘excited’ about AI potential

Artificial intelligence is probably the technology most exciting in the context of state government, Arkansas Chief Technology Officer Yessica Jones tells StateScoop in a video interview.

Jones says she hopes to expand the use of the state’s existing chatbot, which currently refers website visitors to the correct service pages they are seeking, to perform other functions. There may also be other agencies a specialized chatbot might assist, she says. A chatbot could be able to assist internal state employee users using the state’s upcoming IT service management solution, which Jones said was an upcoming procurement when this video was recorded last October.

There are many places automation technology could slot into the state’s evolving architecture, as other recent upgrades include an upcoming IT consolidation, for which Jones said the state plans to hire a systems integrator in April.

For now, she said, her office is simply getting up to speed with agencies on their IT infrastructure “footprint,” personnel and fiscal data so the state is prepared to talk to the integrator when it arrives.

Jones talks about her agency’s top projects and priorities:

On her team’s greatest accomplishments of 2018:

On data analytics:

These videos were produced by StateScoop at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ annual conference in San Diego, California, in October 2018.