Could Promptathons Unlock AI for Government?

Artificial intelligence could help transform how state and local governments operate. But to truly unlock its power, public-sector employees need a specific skill: being able to effectively "talk" to AI.

As state IT leaders at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Midyear Conference in Philadelphia highlighted, a common challenge is navigating how to empower workers to use approved AI systems to make the biggest impacts on workflow.

Pennsylvania conducted a yearlong pilot program with OpenAI where more than 175 state employees accessed ChatGPT Enterprise. While most employees (85 percent) described their experiences as “very positive,” they also had some challenges.

“There's just a learning curve of learning how to prompt and interact with something new for different teams and different ways,” said Harrison MacRae, director of emerging technologies for Pennsylvania. “That was something that would pop up. We experimented with a bunch of different ways, to provide different training and opportunities to really set people up for success."

OpenGov recently provided examples of quality prompts for public-sector employees. Government Technology tested one of the examples alongside a short and simple prompt into Google Gemini in the video below to reveal the differences.

WHAT ARE PROMPTATHONS?

This is where promptathons emerge. Imagine a hackathon, but instead of coding, teams focus entirely on crafting, refining and testing the perfect instructions for generative AI tools.

According to recent data from the Pew Research Center, about 1 in 6 workers report some of their work is currently done with AI while an additional 25 percent responded that although they’re not using AI tools much at the moment, at least some of their tasks could be tackled with AI.

As promptathons have shown promise in other industries, such as one conducted at NYU Langone Health in 2024, they could also help state and local government workers become more comfortable at maximizing the generative AI resources they have available.

"I think that skill set just gets built with practice, right?” said Nathan Loura, CISO for Rhode Island, at the May NASCIO conference. "Just like anything else, you go to ride a bike, you're going to fall the first few times, and once you get those pedals in motion, you're going to know how to ride the bike. And the next thing you know, you're doing wheelies."

However, as AI itself evolves, experts predict that skills like prompt engineering may become less explicitly important in the future as AI systems grow more intuitive and better understand nuanced human intent.

"The younger folks or the folks that are in school now, they're learning this just a part of their everyday lives,” said former New York Deputy CIO Jennifer Lorenz at NASCIO. “So I don't know, you know, in the future, if there'll be so many programs. When we’re talking for 10 to 20 years — I'm not sure if it'll be like the new thing."