Top 10 AI Prompts and Use Cases and in the Government Industry in Charleston

Charleston's government landscape is at an inflection point as the South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy drives local modernization, creating opportunities for targeted pilot projects and more efficient constituent services; read why that strategy is a turning point for local government modernization in this overview of how AI is helping Charleston agencies Charleston government AI modernization to cut costs and improve efficiency.

To manage risk and workforce impact, officials should prioritize human-centric competencies and governance roles for AI in government, while practical training - like a 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp - gives staff prompt-writing and tool skills that make pilot projects actionable and sustainable; learn the bootcamp details and register AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration and syllabus.

Program	Length	Early-bird Cost	Registration
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582	AI Essentials for Work registration

Selection prioritized use cases that directly map to the South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy and the practical goals of local modernization, emphasizing projects with clear cost‑saving or service‑efficiency outcomes, and those that reinforce workforce resilience through human‑centric competencies and governance roles; learn why the state strategy is a turning point for local modernization at the South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy for Charleston government cost savings and efficiency.

Each candidate prompt was screened for alignment with state guidance, pilot readiness in Charleston agencies, and training-readiness so staff can adopt tools without long disruption - criteria summarized in the Complete Guide to Using AI in Charleston (2025) for government modernization - and selection also favored prompts that support human-centric governance to help mitigate job displacement concerns discussed in human-centric competencies and governance roles in Charleston government.

The result is a prioritized, practical set of prompts and use cases Charleston agencies can pilot quickly to cut costs and improve constituent services while upskilling staff.

The South Carolina Department of Administration formally published the South Carolina State Government's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy on June 19, 2024, providing statewide guidance designed to help state agencies plan pilots, coordinate training, and frame governance as local governments in Charleston consider deployments; the announcement and related news items are available on the South Carolina Department of Administration News & Initiatives page South Carolina Department of Administration News & Initiatives, and the strategy's implications for Charleston modernization and upskilling are explained in the Nucamp guide to using AI in local government Complete Guide to Using AI in the Government Industry in Charleston (2025), so city and county teams can reference an official state roadmap when structuring pilots and training plans rather than starting from scratch.

Document	Release Date	Source
South Carolina State Government AI Strategy	June 19, 2024	South Carolina Department of Administration News & Initiatives

Internal government chatbots - deployed as a scoped ChatGPT pilot for constituent services - give Charleston agencies a practical, low‑risk path to apply the South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy by automating routine information flows while preserving human oversight; agencies can design pilots that answer frequent procedural questions, escalate edge cases to staff, and log handoffs for audit and improvement, aligning with the state roadmap described in the South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy (Charleston government AI roadmap).

Pilots should pair narrow scope with workforce measures from the human-centric competencies and governance roles for government AI pilots in Charleston to ensure staff are upskilled to manage exceptions - so what: a well-scoped chatbot pilot preserves service levels while freeing employee time for complex constituent needs, making modernization measurable and defensible to local stakeholders and auditors.

Image recognition applied to body‑cam and fixed‑camera feeds gives Charleston public‑safety teams a focused, measurable path to implement the South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy by automating routine footage triage while keeping humans in the loop; scoped pilots - such as automated flagging of high‑priority clips with mandatory human review and logged handoffs - demonstrate efficiency gains without sacrificing oversight and align with Nucamp's guidance on using AI for local government modernization (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus: AI at Work Foundations).

Pairing these pilots with workforce upskilling and governance roles described in Nucamp's workforce guidance helps ensure projects cut manual review time so officers can focus on community‑facing work while preserving auditable trails for prosecutors and public accountability (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work registration and program details).

AI-assisted legal workflows in Charleston are already reshaping routine case work by pairing digital forensics with generative drafting: Mount Pleasant attorney and longtime examiner Steven M. Abrams told the Charleston City Paper that these tools “basically do what a clerk would do,” turning days of memorandum prep into roughly five minutes and enabling faster e‑discovery triage and incident‑response summaries; read the Charleston City Paper coverage of Steven M. Abrams on AI in legal work Charleston City Paper coverage of Steven M. Abrams on AI in legal work.

Abrams' practice, Abrams Cyber Law & Forensics, advertises services from computer forensics to breach counsel, and the firm's published rate of $350/hour for forensic work (CV and service details available on the firm site) underlines the practical “so what”: narrow, audited AI pilots can cut billable time on clerical drafting while preserving expert review and courtroom‑ready evidence handling, making modernization both measurable and defensible for Charleston agencies; see the Abrams Cyber Law & Forensics CV and services Abrams Cyber Law & Forensics CV and services.

Expert	Location	Published Rate
Steven M. Abrams, J.D., M.S. (Digital Forensics Examiner)	Mount Pleasant, SC	$350/hr

“It basically does what a clerk would do. If you had a practice with a big enough system to support a law clerk, you'd send them for a couple of days to [prepare a] legal memorandum, and here the AI tool does it in about five minutes.”

South Carolina moved decisively in 2025 to protect minors from AI‑generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM): the General Assembly passed S.28 and S.29 - bills that define “morphed images” and make it a felony to create, possess, or distribute non‑consensual AI sexual images, give victims civil remedies to demand removal, and require online platforms to deploy detection and prevention tools - then sent the measures to Governor Henry McMaster's desk; read the Attorney General Alan Wilson announcement on S.28 & S.29 Attorney General Alan Wilson announcement on S.28 & S.29.

The legislative urgency is grounded in data: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 7,000 reports of AI‑generated CSAM in 2023–2024, a volume that prosecutors and investigators cited as a key reason to close legal loopholes and compel platform safeguards (see state law summaries and maps on AI‑generated CSAM statutes).

The practical payoff: these statutes give prosecutors clearer tools, force platforms into active detection, and provide victims a civil path to remove morphed images - so Charleston agencies designing AI pilots must pair detection tech with clear removal workflows, legal intake procedures, and victim‑centered reporting channels.

Bill(s)	Key Provisions	Status (May 2025)
S.28 & S.29	Criminalize creation/possession/distribution of AI‑generated non‑consensual sexual images; define “morphed images”; empower civil removal; require platform detection tools	Passed General Assembly; sent to Governor McMaster

“This is a major victory for victims and a major blow to predators who think they can hide behind a keyboard.”

College of Charleston literacy educator Dr. W. Ian O'Byrne offers practical AI‑literacy building blocks Charleston agencies can reuse: his research on digital literacies, computational thinking, and hybrid coursework - and classroom offerings such as EDEE 325, EDFS 326 (Integrating Technology into Teaching), and EDFS 687 (Introduction to Educational Technologies) - map directly to short, measurable professional development modules that teach prompt design, ethical use, and human‑in‑the‑loop review.

Agencies designing workforce training can draw on O'Byrne's faculty profile and his CofC podcast discussion about integrating AI while preserving integrity to craft PD that moves staff from anxiety to concrete skills - organizing briefs, flagging likely hallucinations, and creating auditable handoffs - so municipal pilots gain immediate, defensible value without sacrificing oversight (College of Charleston faculty profile for Ian O'Byrne, College of Charleston podcast: Navigating AI in Higher Ed (Jan 22, 2025)).

Name	Title	Selected Courses
W. Ian O'Byrne, PhD	Associate Professor, Literacy Education	EDEE 325; EDFS 326; EDFS 687

“He encourages students to use AI as a ‘cognitive amplifier' for tasks such as organizing their work and sorting out the most important parts of lectures.”

Procurement in Charleston should follow the South Carolina Department of Administration's AI Strategy - rooted in the three Ps (Protect, Promote, Pursue) - by channeling RFPs through an agency Center of Excellence and the proposed AI Advisory Group to centralize vendor evaluation, require demonstrable data protections, human‑in‑the‑loop controls, and auditable logs, and set clear success metrics before wider rollout; the state strategy frames those governance steps and makes vendor oversight a practical priority (South Carolina Department of Administration AI Strategy and Governance Guidance).

A concrete budgeting example: the University of South Carolina now offers Microsoft Copilot licensing to faculty and staff at $430/year and directs purchasers to the Software Distribution system, illustrating a straightforward procurement path and a per‑user cost Charleston agencies can use to size pilot budgets and RFP terms (University of South Carolina Microsoft Copilot Licensing and Procurement Details).

So what: pairing the state's COE review process with line‑item license costs (e.g., $430/year) makes small, auditable pilots affordable for Charleston while giving procurement teams leverage to insist on oversight clauses that protect citizens and staff.

Rep. Jeff Bradley, who represents S.C. House District 123 and now chairs the expanded House Regulations, Administrative Procedures, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity Committee, is steering 2025 legislative attention toward concrete consumer protections - drafting bills to address unauthorized use of personal data, biometric theft, and criminal misuse of deepfakes while promoting a statewide cybersecurity framework and workforce education; see the committee overview and priorities in the South Carolina 2025 Legislative Session AI and Cybersecurity summary (Maynard Nexsen) South Carolina 2025 AI and Cybersecurity legislative summary (Maynard Nexsen).

Planned measures range from social‑media disclosure rules (for example, the South Carolina Social Media Regulation Act H.4700 currently tracked by bill services South Carolina H.4700 Social Media Regulation Act bill tracking) to statutory protections for digital identity, but federal proposals that would ban state AI rules for a decade could undercut these efforts - so Charleston policymakers should prioritize near‑term statutes and administrative guardrails while monitoring federal action (PolitiFact analysis of proposed federal AI moratorium).

Item	Detail
Committee Chair	Rep. Jeff Bradley (S.C. House District 123)
Priority Themes	Statewide cybersecurity framework; digital identity protections; workforce education
Key Issues	Unauthorized data use; biometric theft; criminal deepfakes

“The potential for misrepresentation, outright deception, with AI is so high,”

AI tutors and adaptive reading tools give Charleston schools a practical way to scale differentiated instruction, turning one‑on‑one responsiveness into a system-level capability: College of Charleston literacy researcher W. Ian O'Byrne highlights how AI can monitor progress, deliver real‑time feedback, and adapt tasks to each learner's needs - moving teachers from blanket instruction to targeted intervention (College of Charleston: 4 Ways that AI Can Help Students).

Local partners already demonstrate the human side of that equation - Reading Partners' South Carolina program reported 477 students with 12+ tutoring sessions and 86% of participants meeting or exceeding their end‑of‑year literacy growth goal in 2024–25 - showing measurable gains when individualized attention is sustained (Reading Partners South Carolina literacy tutoring program).

Combining adaptive platforms with trained volunteers and teacher oversight (for flagging misunderstandings and auditing assessments) keeps humans in the loop while using AI to triage readers who need extra support; districts can pilot intelligent‑textbook or tutor integrations with clear growth metrics and replicate what evidence‑based tutoring programs already achieve in Charleston classrooms (Discovery Education: AI-powered literacy and personalized learning tools).

Program / Tool	Example / Metric
Adaptive AI tutors	Real‑time feedback and dynamic difficulty (O'Byrne)
Reading Partners (SC)	477 students; 86% met/exceeded literacy growth goal (2024–25)
Discovery Education	Platform with AI‑driven literacy personalization and teacher supports

Docket triage - prioritizing filings by custody status, violent‑crime designation, and evidentiary readiness - offers the Charleston County Solicitor's Office a pragmatic lever to chip away at the region's massive backlog: local reporting documents more than 20,000 pending cases across Charleston and Berkeley counties and examples of families who waited six years for a trial, while the Ninth Circuit alone had nearly 8,000 cases open a year and a half or more, underscoring why a data‑driven triage layer matters now (WCSC Live5News report on Charleston court backlog (Feb 2025), Governing analysis of South Carolina criminal case backlog).

Practical steps - automated flagging of in‑custody defendants and cases with complete discovery, followed by human review - would directly support Solicitor Scarlett Wilson's plan to “fill up every docket” so jailed defendants ready to plead aren't repeatedly turned away; the Solicitor's public trial dockets show how clearer prioritization can translate into scheduled court weeks and measurable disposals (Ninth Judicial Circuit public trial dockets).

The so‑what: even modest triage automation can free scarce courtroom slots for violent‑crime hearings and pleas, reducing pretrial incarceration and delivering faster resolution for victims and defendants.

Metric	Figure	Source
Pending cases in Charleston & Berkeley Counties	More than 20,000	WCSC Live5News (Feb 2025)
Ninth Circuit cases ≥545 days	Nearly 8,000	WCSC Live5News (Feb 2025)
Statewide pending criminal cases (Nov 30, 2023)	175,167	The State / Governing (Jan 2024)

“Well, we don't have room for you to come in this week and you're sitting in jail. It shouldn't be like that.”

Responsible next steps for Charleston start with the state roadmap: use the South Carolina Department of Administration's AI Strategy as the governance backbone, run narrowly scoped pilots that require human‑in‑the‑loop review and auditable logs, and pair each pilot with a concrete upskilling plan so staff can operate, validate, and veto outputs.

The Admin playbook already recommends a staffed Center of Excellence and an AI Advisory Group to centralize procurement and risk review, and local teams should treat the City Paper's finding that Admin is tracking 29 proposed use‑cases as a cue to prioritize 2–3 high‑impact pilots (docket triage, constituent chatbots, and image‑flagging) before wider rollout (South Carolina AI Strategy and Guidance, Charleston City Paper reporting on S.C. AI efforts).

Make “so what” measurable: require pre/post metrics, license line‑items in RFPs, and sign staff up for practical training (for example, the 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp) so pilots deliver defensible efficiency gains and preserve public trust (Register for the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp).

Next Step	Source / Evidence
Establish Center of Excellence	South Carolina AI Strategy and Implementation Guidance
Form AI Advisory Group	South Carolina AI Strategy and Implementation Guidance
Prioritize 2–3 pilot use‑cases (29 tracked)	Charleston City Paper reporting on tracked S.C. AI use‑cases

“Safety, not speed, would be the agency's goal as it moved forward.”