How AI Is Helping Government Companies in Greenville Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency

Greenville's government companies should pay attention: North Carolina is actively testing practical AI tools to cut administrative costs and speed service delivery, most visibly in a 12-week pilot led by the State Treasurer to use ChatGPT with public data to find unclaimed property and analyze local government finances (North Carolina Treasurer–OpenAI pilot to locate unclaimed property), while the N.C. Department of Information Technology offers clear North Carolina IT Principles for Responsible Use of AI to guard privacy and fairness.

Research and practical guides show municipalities can start with low‑risk pilots - chatbots for public FAQs, automated permit intake, or financial‑data flagging - to shave staff hours and redirect talent to complex work; pairing these pilots with targeted upskilling, such as a 15‑week AI Essentials for Work cohort, gives Greenville teams concrete skills to operate and govern AI responsibly (AI Essentials for Work: 15-week practical AI training for workplace skills).

“Innovation, particularly around data and technology, will allow our department to deliver better results for North Carolina. I am grateful to our friends at OpenAI for partnering with us on this new endeavor, and I am excited to explore the possibilities ahead.” - Treasurer Brad Briner

In Greenville,

“government companies”

covers more than elected offices: it includes city departments that recruit, train, and manage services, county agencies that publish bids and public notices, nonprofit partners, and the private contractors and vendors who deliver capital improvements and day‑to‑day services; the City's Human Resources team administers recruitment and benefits and the Neighborhood & Business Services office runs a contractor pre‑screening process that requires a general contractor's license and specific insurance minimums (Comprehensive Bodily Injury $30,000; Property Damage $100,000), so firms must meet clear thresholds before bidding (Greenville city contractor pre‑screening requirements and process, Greenville City Human Resources department).

The local job boards and county site show this ecosystem in practice - dozens of open roles across transit, public safety, engineering, and finance - so practical AI pilots should be designed to automate paperwork and pre‑qualification steps while respecting procurement and hiring rules (Greenville area government and nonprofit job listings), cutting administrative hours so staff can focus on higher‑value, regulated decisions.

Greenville governments and their contractors can cut tangible costs by starting with three practical AI applications: modernizing customer channels and call centers so cloud‑based tools can scale on demand (Maximus' example of adding 500 remote CSRs in five days and 3,200 in 30 days to handle 70,000 calls a day shows how surge capacity avoids overtime and long waits - see reducing costs through Maximus reducing government costs through integration and automation), deploying back‑office robotic process automation to shave 20–60% of baseline FTE cost on repetitive tasks (accounts, permit routing, transcript analysis for training - Blue Prism back‑office automation (RPA) savings), and using digital twins to prioritize infrastructure repairs and forecast maintenance spend so limited capital stretches further (Digital Twins for Infrastructure in Greenville).

Together these low‑risk pilots free staff from routine work, reduce vendor and overtime spend, and produce measurable savings that can fund training and oversight for responsible AI adoption.

“Federal government agencies are at an inflection point. Investments in service delivery platforms are finally beginning to pay dividends in that they finally have enough data to not only train systems to improve customer experience (CX) but also enhance service delivery by identifying inefficiencies and assisting in making processes more efficient.” - Evan Davis

Greenville local governments and their contractor partners can realize concrete efficiency gains by following the model being piloted statewide: the N.C. Department of State Treasurer's 12‑week ChatGPT partnership aims to speed work that relies on public records - like locating unclaimed property and scanning local government financial audits - so teams spend less time on data hunting and more on decisions that require human judgment (NC Department of State Treasurer and OpenAI 12-week AI pilot announcement).

Early results from similar state pilots show measurable time savings - one OpenAI state program reported an average of about 95 minutes saved per employee per day - meaning Greenville offices could reallocate roughly an hour-plus a day from routine lookups to audits, permitting, or resident outreach (report on state pilots and employee time savings).

Practical, governed deployments - automated FAQ chatbots, AI‑assisted permit intake, and automated financial‑data flagging - paired with governance and privacy guardrails translate directly into fewer overtime hours, faster response times, and lower vendor costs, while vendors and IT leaders can use established playbooks from experienced firms to manage risk (Abt Associates perspective on AI-driven efficiency in public service).

“We wanted to see if we could get tremendous productivity out of this tool by applying it only in the divisions where we don't use private data.” - Treasurer Brad Briner

Statewide pilot projects show a clear playbook Greenville can follow: the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer's 12‑week DST–OpenAI trial, evaluated with North Carolina Central University, used ChatGPT to scan public records and identified “millions of dollars” in potential unclaimed property while reporting average staff time savings of roughly 30–60+ minutes per day; the independent 48‑page study documented dramatic speedups (for example, some 20‑minute tasks finished in 20 seconds and a 90‑minute audit review completed in one‑third the time), demonstrating how a small, governed pilot can free an hour a day for higher‑value work and reliably flag recoverable assets for the public (North Carolina Treasurer DST–OpenAI initial analysis, North Carolina Treasurer independent report and press conference).

“Adopting this innovative technology has helped us deliver improved results to our constituents and to taxpayers.” - Treasurer Brad Briner

Greenville's AI pilots should be paired with North Carolina's operational guardrails so efficiency gains don't come at the cost of privacy or trust: the N.C. Department of Information Technology's “Principles for Responsible Use of AI” lay out seven concrete duties - human oversight, transparency, security, data privacy and governance, fairness, auditing, and workforce empowerment - that must guide procurement and vendor contracts (NCDIT Principles for Responsible Use of AI); before a chatbot, permit‑intake automation, or digital‑twin rollout, agencies use a Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA) based on the Fair Information Practice Principles to document data flows, vendor handling, and privacy risk so projects can be modified or stopped early if needed (NCDIT AI Assessments & PTA).

With the state adding a dedicated AI governance official to coordinate standards and audits, Greenville can run low‑risk pilots that save staff hours while preserving residents' privacy and limiting vendor and legal exposure (MeriTalk: North Carolina's first AI governance official).

The so‑what: a mandatory PTA and statewide oversight let Greenville capture an hour or more per employee per day in routine savings without sacrificing data protection or accountability.

“He will ensure the ethical, transparent, and accountable integration of AI technologies into public services to support innovation while managing associated risks.”

Measuring impact in North Carolina's state pilot gives Greenville a practical scoreboard: the 12‑week North Carolina Department of State Treasurer–OpenAI trial identified “millions of dollars” in potential unclaimed property and - by multiple independent summaries - delivered clear time savings and productivity gains (North Carolina Treasurer–OpenAI pilot initial analysis).

Independent coverage and the NCCU evaluation reported an estimated ~10% productivity boost, routine tasks cut from minutes to seconds (one 20‑minute job finished in ~20 seconds), and average employee time savings roughly 30–60+ minutes per day, which translates into immediate capacity to focus on audits, permit decisions, or resident outreach rather than data hunting (WRAL coverage of NC Treasurer AI pilot productivity boost).

The bottom line: governed, low‑risk pilots can both return recoverable assets to residents and free meaningful staff time for higher‑value work.

“We estimate that it improved the productivity of our employees by about 10 percent in the early phases of the trial, and it kept improving.”

Start small and governed: form a cross‑functional team to run AI strategic planning, then vet vendors with demos and select one or two low‑risk pilots (FAQ chatbots, human‑in‑the‑loop permit intake, or financial‑data flagging) so Greenville can prove value quickly without exposing sensitive data; follow the state's playbook by using the N.C. AI Responsible Use Framework guidance (NCDIT) and a Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA) to document data flows and vendor obligations, lean on practical guidance from the ncIMPACT AI strategic planning guidance for North Carolina governments, and study the DST–OpenAI 12‑week pilot to copy tested workflows that identified “millions” in recoverable assets - real results that translate to roughly an hour saved per employee per day when routine lookups are automated.

Begin pilots with clear metrics, short timelines, and training plans so savings fund oversight and workforce upskilling rather than risky scale‑ups; consider partnering with state programs to accelerate learning and protect taxpayers (North Carolina DST–OpenAI 12-week pilot overview and results).

“Innovation, particularly around data and technology, will allow our department to deliver better results for North Carolina.”

Greenville can avoid common AI pitfalls by treating data, vendors, and people as the core risks rather than the algorithms themselves: require a Privacy Threshold Analysis and pre‑deployment testing under the N.C. Department of Information Technology's Principles for Responsible Use of AI to document data flows, embedding privacy-by-design and human oversight into every pilot (N.C. Department of Information Technology Principles for Responsible Use of AI).

Start with back‑office, low‑risk use cases and align infrastructure and budgets to the specific data elements those pilots need - an approach experts call “build AI readiness around use cases and data” to avoid expensive rework and uncontrolled cloud costs (Build AI Readiness Around Use Cases and Data - StateTech Magazine).

Mitigate vendor and legal exposure through contract protections and by insisting vendors explain model provenance and indemnification; pair that with routine audits, bias testing, and job‑embedded training so staff remain decision‑makers.

The so‑what: following these steps lets Greenville capture the hour‑a‑day time savings shown in North Carolina pilots while preventing privacy lapses, biased outcomes, and runaway costs - so efficiency gains aren't traded for public trust.

For practical controls and approved tooling guidance, refer to NC State Extension's AI best practices when training teams and drafting procurement language (NC State Extension AI Guidance and Best Practices).

“Start with the use cases and look at the data elements that are needed.”

Greenville's future with AI is practical, not hypothetical: by following North Carolina's playbook - short, governed pilots like the State Treasurer's 12‑week ChatGPT trial - local government companies can both recover public assets and free staff time for higher‑value work; the DST–OpenAI pilot identified “millions” in potential unclaimed property and reported average time savings of roughly 30–60+ minutes per employee per day, showing how modest automation can convert routine lookups into audits, permitting, and resident outreach (North Carolina Treasurer OpenAI AI pilot announcement, Carolina Journal coverage of the North Carolina OpenAI pilot).

Pair pilots with the state's PTA and responsible‑use guidance, set clear time‑and‑dollar metrics, and fund oversight through measured savings; teams that also invest in practical upskilling - such as a 15‑week AI Essentials for Work cohort - will be able to run, govern, and scale those pilots without sacrificing privacy or public trust (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work 15-week bootcamp), yielding the real payoff: faster services, lower vendor and overtime spend, and more staff time focused on decisions that matter.

“Innovation, particularly around data and technology, will allow our department to deliver better results for North Carolina. I am grateful to our friends at OpenAI for partnering with us on this new endeavor, and I am excited to explore the possibilities ahead.” - Treasurer Brad Briner