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

Across Wisconsin, state and local leaders are accelerating AI adoption to cut routine work and speed decisions: NCSL's state AI survey shows offices in Wisconsin are already focusing on data governance and interoperable systems, and purpose-built tools like Madison AI for local governments turn decades of disconnected records into a searchable knowledge assistant that drafts staff reports, analyzes code, and automates procurement workflows - Madison AI reports deployments with 29+ local governments and a typical setup in about two weeks that can give elected officials and staff back roughly five hours per week.

For agencies and contractors preparing teams, practical courses such as the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp teach prompt-writing and workplace AI skills to help Madison organizations adopt these tools responsibly.

Program	Length	Early Bird Cost
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582

We consistently give elected officials and staff back 5 hours a week - an impact felt across the communities where Madison AI is deployed.

Madison's strong readiness for government AI rests on an unusually complete ecosystem: UW–Madison is scaling campuswide AI capacity through the RISE‑AI initiative and targeted hires, while practical, vetted services and industry ties turn research into deployable tools for public agencies.

RISE‑AI will add faculty and funding to accelerate both core models and human‑centered safeguards, and UW's enterprise generative AI stack (Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Webex AI Assistant, Zoom AI Companion) gives city and state teams access to productivity features with higher data protections than public services - UW guidance even notes Copilot and Gemini won't use NetID‑authenticated prompts to train models.

Local industry partnerships, rapid CDIS enrollment growth (from ~3,200 to 6,200 students) and new facilities like the privately funded Morgridge Hall ($267M) supply talent, research, and implementation capacity so Madison agencies can pilot AI projects quickly and responsibly.

For practical next steps, refer to the AI Essentials for Work syllabus and the AI Essentials for Work registration page.

Strength	Evidence from UW–Madison
Strategic investment	RISE‑AI to add up to 50 new faculty positions
Talent pipeline	CDIS enrollment nearly doubled to ~6,200; Morgridge Hall $267M
Secure tools	Enterprise AI: Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Webex, Zoom (enterprise data protections)

“AI has genuinely transformative potential, with high stakes, great possibilities and significant risks. It was a natural choice to be the first focus area for our Wisconsin RISE Initiative.”

Madison agencies and contractors are focusing AI on predictable, high‑volume processes that free staff for complex work: AI‑powered document automation and chatbots speed application intake and citizen requests (turning weeks of manual review into seconds), while RPA paired with machine learning automates invoice processing, HR onboarding, benefits checks and back‑office reconciliations for finance and procurement teams; process mining and intelligent automation then expose bottlenecks and let teams iterate faster during IT modernization.

Practical public‑sector deployments also include contract and eProcurement workflows, grant opportunity discovery and automated proposal drafting for local departments, and predictive analytics that prioritize inspections or social‑service interventions.

For playbooks and evidence, Madison teams can start with a detailed look at process mining and automation in government and the role of AI in public‑sector workflows to map quick wins and governance needs.

Use case	Example / measurable benefit
Document automation & chatbots	Process applications in seconds instead of weeks (faster citizen service)
RPA + AI (finance, HR, IT, customer service)	Automate invoices, onboarding, reconciliations, reduce manual effort and errors
Process mining & intelligent automation	Identify bottlenecks, shift modernization to in‑house continuous improvement
Grant discovery & proposal drafting	Find funding and draft competitive proposals for local departments

“Executives to shift their dependence on outsourced knowledge to in-house control for continuous problem-solving… That translates into a radically different time-to-value modernization quotient - and a radically lower cost structure.” - Todd Schroeder

Real Madison measurable results already exist: the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation standardized its CRM, layered Salesforce Einstein and Data Cloud to create a single source of truth and planned full AI capability rollout by July 2025 to speed award processing, case resolution, and meeting prep - success is tracked with KPIs like decreased case volume, shorter resolution and intake times, and rising AI prompt complexity (WEDC digital transformation with Salesforce Einstein and Data Cloud).

A complementary marketing-to-CRM example from WEDC's talent attraction campaign - built by Hoffman York and fed into Salesforce Marketing Cloud - sent 38,000 emails, achieved an 8% signup conversion from site sessions, a 20% conversion on a second information form, doubled average open rates, and generated a secondary lead in 1 of every 6 signups, showing outreach plus CRM automation can quickly turn interest into engaged leads (WEDC talent attraction CRM and email marketing case study by Hoffman York).

Platform ROI benchmarks (Salesforce Einstein lift estimates such as up to 30% higher conversion and 25%+ ticket reductions) provide realistic targets for Madison agencies automating intake, routing, and outreach (Salesforce Einstein AI use cases and ROI insights), so pilot projects can expect clear, trackable gains in speed, engagement, and staff time reclaimed.

Program / Metric	Measured result or KPI
WEDC AI rollout	Full AI deployment planned July 2025; KPIs: ↓case volume, ↓resolution time, ↑agent self-service
WEDC Talent Attraction (Hoffman York)	38,000 emails; 8% signup conversion; 20% form‑2 conversion; 2× open rate; 1 in 6 signups requested ambassador
Salesforce Einstein benchmarks	Up to 30% higher conversions; 25%+ decrease in support tickets (vendor case studies)

“We're creating an AI-powered customer relationship management system, one that helps free up staff to focus on the value-add work.” - Joshua Robbins, WEDC

Madison governments and their contractors are already turning AI into hard-dollar savings by automating estimates, trimming schedules, and shrinking cloud costs: Madison's Graceful Management Systems is exiting beta with an AI tool that “autonomously makes cost‑saving adjustments” to project costs, schedules, and estimates - moving beyond cloud storage to active budget management (Graceful Management Systems AI construction cost‑saving tool), while cloud architecture choices can multiply savings at scale (one hybrid Azure deployment reported 10–13× faster AI response and an 86% reduction in image/video AI costs, per Microsoft).

Combined with agency pilots that automate intake and routing (WEDC's planned AI rollout tracks lower case volume and faster resolution), these tools cut contract overruns, reduce billable hours, and let staff focus on higher‑value oversight - so a single automated estimate tweak or cheaper model hosting can turn a multi‑percent contingency into realized program savings.

Initiative	Mechanism	Reported impact / status
Graceful Management Systems (Madison)	AI‑optimized estimates, schedules, project costs	Beta wrapping up; tool “autonomously makes cost‑saving adjustments”
Hybrid Azure deployment (Microsoft case)	Optimized AI hosting for image/video	10–13× faster responses; 86% cost savings (Microsoft)
WEDC AI rollout	CRM + AI for intake, routing, casework	KPIs: ↓case volume, ↓resolution time (planned rollout)

“We know that AI technologies are already changing the world as we know it - including the way folks work. And it's why Wisconsin is working to lead the way on AI implementation and ethical utilization as we continue our work to build an economy that works for everyone.”

AI is already streamlining how Madison governments run meetings, manage records, and respond to the public: UW–Madison's enterprise Zoom and Webex include AI meeting assistants that can transcribe sessions, generate concise meeting summaries and action‑item lists, and answer “what happened” queries - features that are free for NetID users and approved for use with public, internal and even FERPA/HIPAA‑protected data when used under the university's secure settings (UW–Madison AI meeting assistants in Zoom & Webex).

At the same time, campus‑vetted generative tools (Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Webex Assistant, Zoom AI Companion and pay‑as‑you‑go cloud services) give departments safer options for summarization, automated routing, and inclusive services such as real‑time transcription and translation - reducing follow‑up delays and making public meetings, permit reviews, and citizen requests faster and more accessible (UW–Madison enterprise generative AI tools overview).

Local solutions that index minutes and agendas can turn routine records into searchable policy intelligence, cutting research time and speeding decision cycles for staff and contractors.

Enterprise service	Public	Internal	Sensitive	Restricted
AWS Bedrock	OK	OK	Requires evaluation	Requires evaluation
Google Gemini	OK	OK	Not approved	Not approved
Microsoft Azure	OK	OK	Requires evaluation	Requires evaluation
Microsoft Copilot	OK	OK	Not approved	Not approved
Webex AI Assistant	OK	OK	OK	OK
Zoom AI Companion	OK	OK	OK	Only Secure Zoom accounts

“This is an exciting time for our world,” says Naomi Tucker, CMP; “AI is the driver for this evolution.”

Madison's near‑term workforce shift will be less about mass layoffs and more about rapid reskilling and smarter hiring: federal guidance and competency models provide a ready template local agencies can adopt, while Wisconsin's Governor's Task Force is already building an advisory plan to fund education and worker protections in the next state budget.

The Office of Personnel Management's generative AI guidance and AI competency model (which helped set a government‑wide goal to rapidly hire 100 AI positions) supplies practical role definitions, hiring flexibilities, and use‑case safeguards Madison HR teams can mirror to recruit and classify AI specialists quickly (OPM generative AI guidance and AI competency model - federal guidance for hiring AI specialists).

At the state level, task‑force hearings and employer workshops - where companies like Oshkosh describe running online training and hands‑on workshops to show staff how AI augments jobs - offer a playbook for municipal upskilling, labor‑management bargaining on AI use, and targeted short courses that put public servants into working AI roles in months, not years (Coverage of Wisconsin Governor's AI task force hearings and employer workshops on Wisconsin Public Radio).

Program / Body	Workforce action
OPM generative AI guidance	Competency model, hiring authorities, guidance for agency use - supports rapid hiring of AI roles
Wisconsin Governor's Task Force	Advisory plan for workforce development, employer workshops, emphasis on human‑centered upskilling

“What it takes to be a worker in the 21st century and beyond is going to be very different than what it looked like in the past.” - Amy Pechacek, Wisconsin Dept. of Workforce Development

Madison agencies must balance urgency with safeguards: statewide research shows workforce shortages and budget constraints remain the top barriers to scaling AI - WCMP's 2024–25 manufacturing analysis, based on interviews with 400 executives, flags workforce gaps, uneven adoption between larger and smaller organizations, and rising cybersecurity concerns - so cities and counties should pair small, measurable pilots with strict data governance and vendor vetting to avoid costly mistakes.

Practical steps endorsed by the Governor's Task Force include expanding digital literacy, creating flexible credentialing and targeted training, and connecting underutilized talent pools so agencies can staff pilots quickly and fairly; combining those workforce investments with secure enterprise tooling and clear KPIs (intake time, case resolution, cost per case) helps turn pilots into repeatable savings without sacrificing public trust.

The near-term “so what”: a focused pilot that reclaims five staff hours per week on a high-volume process can pay for training and tooling inside a single fiscal year, preventing a widening gap between well‑resourced and smaller municipalities.

Challenge	Responsible action (from state guidance)
Workforce shortages & skilling	Expand digital literacy, flexible credentialing, targeted upskilling (Governor's Task Force)
Funding gaps for small orgs	Pilot grants, phased deployment, vendor cost‑sharing
Cybersecurity & data risk	Use enterprise‑approved tools, data governance, proactive security reviews (WCMP findings)

“We know that AI technologies are already changing the world as we know it - including the way folks work. And it's why Wisconsin is working to lead the way on AI implementation and ethical utilization as we continue our work to build an economy that works for everyone.”

Start small and govern from day one: select one high‑volume workflow for a time‑boxed pilot, define AI guiding principles, and create a lightweight governance structure before buying tools - use the ready templates in the AI governance policy examples for municipal AI to draft policies, oversight roles, and an approval checklist (AI governance policy examples for municipal AI).

Secure data up front by following CISA's AI data security guidance for agencies - classify data, verify provenance, encrypt in transit and at rest, and run a data‑supply‑chain risk assessment before training or connecting models (CISA AI data security guidance for agencies).

Tie pilots to city priorities and enterprise tooling from the City of Madison IT Strategic Plan and priorities so deployments align with existing Microsoft/Cloud policies, procurement timelines, and security controls (City of Madison IT Strategic Plan and priorities).

Add an AI learning hub to share playbooks and KPIs, convene an oversight committee for ethical review, and measure outcomes (intake time, cost per case, staff hours reclaimed).

The payback is concrete: a targeted pilot that reclaims five staff hours per week on a single process can fund training and tooling within one fiscal year, turning experimentation into repeatable savings.

Step	Action
Define AI guiding principles	Document values, permitted uses, and accountability
Establish governance structure	Assign roles for data, security, procurement
Form AI oversight committee	Ethics, legal, and technical sign‑off for pilots
Identify risks & monitoring	Run data security assessment and continuous monitoring
Create AI learning hub	Centralize experiments, playbooks, and KPIs
Develop communication strategy	Inform staff, vendors, and the public about use and safeguards

We consistently give elected officials and staff back 5 hours a week - an impact felt across the communities where Madison AI is deployed.

Madison agencies can rely on a small set of proven vendors and local partners to deploy safe, measurable AI: Salesforce's Einstein family (including the government‑focused Einstein 1) embeds generative and predictive features into CRM workflows - vendor reporting cites “80+ billion AI‑powered predictions daily” and platform benchmarks like up to 30% higher conversions and 25%+ fewer support tickets, which give realistic ROI targets for intake or case‑triage pilots (Salesforce Einstein AI use cases and ROI insights).

Madison Logic's data and ABM integration with Salesforce accelerates targeted outreach and ties advertising signals directly into CRM journeys to speed lead-to-service conversion (Madison Logic and Salesforce integration case study for targeted outreach).

For government‑specific deployments, the public‑sector Einstein 1 announcement and FedRAMP/IL5 authorizations highlight options for secure, administrative automation - so starting with a timed CRM + Einstein pilot focused on one high‑volume workflow can cut ticket loads and reclaim staff hours within months (Salesforce launches Einstein 1 for government: FedRAMP and IL5 options).

Vendor / Tool	Role for Madison agencies
Salesforce Einstein / Einstein 1	CRM AI for intake, case routing, summaries; FedRAMP/IL5 options for sensitive workloads
Madison Logic	ABM + intent data integrated with CRM to accelerate outreach and pipeline
Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (prompt-writing and workplace AI)	Short courses and bootcamps to upskill staff in prompt-writing and workplace AI

“This is the kind of work that requires a lot of expertise and there's never enough people to handle it. … the system will cut down administrative time for government employees and ‘leave the experts to do the job of really interacting with people and making sure that the answer is provided to them.'” - Casey Coleman

Measure what matters by aligning AI KPIs to the City of Madison's IT strategic priorities - customer experience, service delivery, security and infrastructure - and publish results on a cadence that matches existing reporting (the City's IT Service Framework covers July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025 as an example) so pilots feed enterprise planning and procurement decisions (City of Madison IT Strategic Plan and Priorities).

Use governance KPIs drawn from AI best practice - fairness deviation, explainability coverage, incident detection time, audit/readiness status, and human‑override rate - to prove ethical operation and compliance, assign clear owners, and automate dashboarding where possible (Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for AI Governance - VerifyWise).

Tie these governance metrics to operational dashboards (intake time, resolution time, enrollment or case volumes) that local teams already use - such as WISEdash - so leaders see impact in familiar reports and can review quarterly; a concrete payoff: validating a pilot that reclaims five staff hours per week on one high‑volume workflow typically produces measurable savings sufficient to cover training and tooling inside a single fiscal year (WISEdash KPIs and Dashboards - DPI Wisconsin).

KPI	Target / Example
Intake time	Reduce median intake from days to hours
Explainability coverage	≥90% of automated decisions include human‑readable reasons
Model drift detection time	Detect and alert within 24 hours
Staff hours reclaimed	5 hours/week per pilot process → fiscal year payback

“We know that AI technologies are already changing the world as we know it - including the way folks work. And it's why Wisconsin is working to lead the way on AI implementation and ethical utilization as we continue our work to build an economy that works for everyone.”

Responsible, practical AI adoption in Madison means pairing focused pilots with clear governance, measurable KPIs, and fast local upskilling so city and county teams capture the “so what” quickly: a single high‑volume pilot that reclaims five staff hours per week can typically fund training and tooling inside one fiscal year.

Start by using municipal tools and governance templates - tap Madison AI deployment and governance resources to convert records into cited, private knowledge assistants - and train staff in prompt design and safe operational practices with targeted courses like Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus.

Pair pilots with human review, vendor audits, and KPIs (intake time, explainability coverage, staff hours reclaimed) so savings are verifiable and equitable; doing so keeps Madison's public services faster, more transparent, and sustainably cheaper without sacrificing trust.

Program	Length	Early Bird Cost
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582

We consistently give elected officials and staff back 5 hours a week - an impact felt across the communities where Madison AI is deployed.