Today’s Morning Buzz is brought to you by Jorge Valens, Innovation Manager for Miami-Dade County’s Information Technology Department in Miami, Florida. Follow Jorge on LinkedIn, BlueSky, and Threads.
What I’m watching: Alien Earth on Hulu
What I’m listening to: “Heard it in a Past Life” by Maggie Rogers (one of those “take with you to a desert island” albums)
What I’m reading: “Heat 2” by Michael Mann & Meg Gardiner
A quiet revolution is happening in local government, and it’s not being led solely by technology or IT professionals. It’s driven by passionate employees who deeply understand their departments, processes, and communities and are curious enough to explore how AI tools can amplify their expertise.
Walk into any work area in your City Hall or government building, and you’ll find professionals who are experts in complex areas like permitting, parks maintenance, or procurement better than anyone. When you bring together that experience with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot—or more custom AI solutions—these teams can work smarter and faster while unlocking new creative abilities.
Tech founders and experts have said, over and over, that AI will empower people with broad skills and a deep understanding of their work. The public sector workforce fits that criteria perfectly and stands to benefit greatly from AI’s capabilities. Many call this the era of the AI-powered generalist, but for us, it is the era of the AI-powered public-sector professional.
Many public sector professionals work in resource-constrained environments where budgets are tight, and human capital is spread thin. In that same stroll around City Hall, you’ll find countless dedicated employees wearing multiple hats and managers looking to do more with less. Even marginal gains in productivity can lessen the administrative burden on teams and lead to better outcomes for residents.
The Art of the Possible: AI Empowering Subject Matter Experts
AI is fundamentally changing what’s possible for government employees who deeply understand their domains. Subject matter experts can now directly translate their knowledge into solutions rather than being constrained by technical limitations or lengthy development cycles.
Consider planning department employees with an idea for an application to collect feedback from transit riders along their routes. Instead of showing up at IT or procurement with a blank slate, they can describe their needs to AI assistants, which can generate a working prototype to guide internal development or to create an RFP.
AI also enables on-demand learning. An economic development specialist can have tailored conversations about blockchain. A public works manager can rapidly synthesize research on green infrastructure. AI empowers employees to fill knowledge gaps and explore adjacent fields, jumpstarting their upskilling journey.
Perhaps most impactful is how AI handles tedious work. A grants manager might draft initial RFP responses in minutes. A communications specialist could automate social media calendaring. A budget analyst might generate preliminary variance reports instantly.
The pattern is clear: when domain expertise meets AI tools, the result is more time for work that requires human judgment, creativity, and relationship-building.
What Skills Make Someone Thrive with AI?
As we move deeper into this AI-augmented era, certain qualities will be must-haves for professionals looking to make a difference with AI:
- Deep domain knowledge: You can’t prompt-engineer your way around, not understanding your field. The most effective AI users know their subject matter inside and out and can evaluate whether AI outputs make sense, serving not just as a human-in-the-loop but as an expert-in-the-loop.
- Healthy skepticism: AI tools are powerful but imperfect. Thriving AI users verify, test, and validate. They understand that AI is a collaborator, not an oracle.
- Ethical awareness: With power comes responsibility. Successful AI users think carefully about data privacy, bias, transparency, and the appropriate use of automation in public service.
- Growth mindset: The tools are evolving rapidly. Those who see AI as something to continuously explore (rather than a one-time skill to master) will stay ahead of the curve.
- Communication skills: Articulating problems clearly to AI tools, translating technical concepts to non-technical colleagues, and sharing learnings across the organization multiply impact exponentially.
- Institutional knowledge: Understanding how your organization works (formal and informal processes, political dynamics, historical context) helps you identify where AI can make a difference and how to implement solutions that will actually stick.
The future of government innovation doesn’t require every employee to become a computer scientist. It requires empowering passionate, knowledgeable public servants with tools that amplify their expertise.