More Than 400 Local Governments Created a Chief AI Officer Role in 18 Months. Most of Them Have No Idea What They Are Supposed to Be Buying.
In the 18 months following the public release of large language model tools, more than 400 state and local governments in the United States created some version of a Chief AI Officer, AI Governance Director, Technology Ethics Lead, or Responsible AI Coordinator role. This is a genuinely remarkable pace of institutional response — few technology…