A national initiative announced Tuesday aims to help governments at the state, territory and tribal levels to build their AI preparedness through collaboration, education and experimentation.
The Rockefeller Foundation and Center for Civic Futures (CCF), two nonprofits, have launched The AI Readiness Project initiative, to convene and support states, territories and tribal nations.
Other initiatives with the similar goal of supporting various levels of government include the GovAI Coalition, which works with entities nationwide to support the evaluation and adoption of emerging AI tools; and the National Association of Counties’ Artificial Intelligence Leadership Academy, which educates county leaders.
“Our goal isn’t just to keep up with AI,” CCF Executive Director Cass Madison said in a statement. “It’s to make sure it helps government work better for people.”
The AI Readiness Project seeks to do several things. At a high level, it will expand CCF’s nonpartisan State Chief AI Officer Community of Practice to enable broader knowledge sharing and the collaborative development of tools to support responsible AI use.
CCF has gathered AI and technology leaders from more than 30 states on a regular basis; support from The Rockefeller Foundation is intended to help expand this reach through the AI Readiness Project to all 50 U.S. states, territories and tribal nations by 2026.
In addition to sharing information, the initiative supports nonpartisan workshops and groups around coordination and capacity-building. It grants access to a low-risk environment to test AI solutions and evaluate their outcomes. And it will enable the launch of at least 10 new state-level pilots of public-sector AI, with a plan to share the information obtained. These pilots, and the resulting insights, will contribute to the development of shared frameworks, policy templates and model practices, per the announcement.
Looking ahead, the State AI Knowledge Hub is slated for a 2026 launch. It aims to serve as a public repository of lessons learned, case studies, and tools that governments can use.
The AI Readiness Project will support monthly working groups for learning opportunities across states; it is currently guiding three nationally. One is focused on agentic AI to establish guardrails and guidance for these systems. Another centers on AI and workforce policy, examining and strategizing for how to respond to AI’s impact. The third examines AI evaluation and monitoring, with a goal of developing shared frameworks to assess the performance and improve the accountability of AI technologies.
“This work is nonpartisan and government-led,” Madison underlined. It builds on CCF’s work to convene government leaders; for example, CCF has been working with the National Governors Association to bolster public-sector collaboration across states.
