The California Department of Finance on Wednesday announced it will allow state employees to use generative artificial intelligence tools to more effectively analyze the cost and budget impact of bills proposed by the state’s legislature.
The Department of Finance’s new agreement with the technology company Authorium is part of a new project to reduce the manual workload associated with drafting bill summaries and analyses. This work also includes collecting fiscal information from impacted state entities and parsing datasets and sources for background and historical information. Annually, finance department employees comb through more than one thousand legislative bills and proposals, a news release said.
“GenAI has great potential to enhance our ability to deliver high-quality analysis to California policymakers. We look forward to piloting this technology to enhance our efficiency, accuracy, and capacity,” Christian Beltran, the Finance Department’s deputy director of legislation, said in the release.
The tool is built on Amazon Web Service’s Bedrock platform, which uses several large language models, including Meta’s Llama. The California Department of Technology will support the use, security and maintenance of the generative AI tool, and provide oversight and guidance throughout the lifecycle of the project to ensure the system is used effectively and responsibly, the release said.
“California is embracing emerging technologies and innovation to modernize how we serve the public,” California Chief Information Officer Liana Bailey-Crimmins said in the news release. “By exploring the use of Generative AI in legislative workflows, we’re laying the foundation for smarter, faster, and more transparent government services.”
The project is part of California’s larger initiative to integrate more generative AI tools in state government, following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2023 executive order on AI. Other generative AI initiatives that have been launched within the last year include the California Department of Transportation’s initiative to use generative AI to analyze highway data and reduce congestion, while the Department of Tax and Fee Administration shared last month its intention to use AI to streamline its customer service systems.
The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration will use generative AI to search more than 16,000 pages of reference materials and assist staff in providing responses to taxpayers via telephone and live chat, a news release said. While the initiatives are ongoing, the state shared that it anticipates completing these projects by this summer.
The Department of Finance’s use of generative AI was also made possible by California’s revamped procurement process, known as the “request for innovative ideas,” or RFI2, which was created in 2019 via executive order. It’s designed to allow the state to test and scale tech projects more quickly and securely.
Written by Keely Quinlan
Keely Quinlan reports on privacy and digital government for StateScoop. She was an investigative news reporter with Clarksville Now in Tennessee, where she resides, and her coverage included local crimes, courts, public education and public health. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Stereogum and other outlets. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism and master’s in social and cultural analysis from New York University.