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

Omaha matters for AI in government because its applied-AI ecosystem is already built for action: Greater Omaha's AI hub - including Scott Data's nonprofit data center with access to Nvidia GPU computing - gives local agencies real compute and talent to turn pilots into production, while a 1,000,000‑person metro and 500,000‑strong workforce offer scale and hiring depth.

The University of Nebraska's systemwide AI task force is organizing campus expertise to support public-sector use cases, and accessible training like Nucamp AI Essentials for Work (15-week AI bootcamp) helps nontechnical staff learn prompts and practical AI skills.

Together, infrastructure, academic coordination, and upskilling make Omaha a pragmatic Midwest hub where governments can trim costs, speed services, and keep citizen trust intact.

We are living in an exciting time in which recent advancements in artificial intelligence have created unique opportunities for innovation across nearly every sector.

Omaha's local AI infrastructure gives government agencies practical pathways from pilot to production: Scott Data's high‑capacity, Tier III campus - a 20‑acre, 110,000 ft² complex with a 60,000 ft² compute floor and a 20 MW central plant - offers GPU‑as‑a‑service and high‑density cabinets that remove the upfront hardware hurdle for public organizations, while the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is pairing campus expertise with real hardware by offering students and partners access to eight NVIDIA H100 GPUs in a new AI makerspace; together these assets mean city and state teams can run complex model training and analytics without buying or housing their own racks.

That combination of private-sector colocation (backed by partners like NVIDIA and VAST) and university resources creates a resilient, locally governed stack for secure, auditable AI work - so municipal IT leaders can experiment faster, keep sensitive data nearby, and scale only when results prove out.

Learn more about UNL's makerspace and Scott Data's offerings to see how Omaha is building practical AI capacity for government.

“We have to go all in on GPU as a Service and this AI that has changed the world.”

Real-world private‑sector wins make it easy to see where Omaha governments can squeeze real savings: Klarna's AI-driven playbook - summarized in a detailed write‑up showing a 37% cut in certain marketing costs and about $10M saved annually, plus AI handling a large share of customer chats - proves measurable, auditable gains are possible when automation is targeted at high‑volume, repeatable work (GetCrux analysis of Klarna AI marketing savings).

For municipal teams, those high‑volume wins map neatly to mundane but time‑consuming processes: turning stacks of permit PDFs and zoning records into searchable dashboards for planning and public‑works staff can shrink cycle times and vendor spend while preserving human oversight (Guide to extracting permits and zoning data for municipal automation).

Paired with local compute and makerspace access and employer strategies that protect workers during transitions, Omaha agencies can pilot small, verifiable automations that free budget and people for complex, trust‑critical tasks - so the “so what?” is simple: less routine cost, more capacity for decisions that need a human touch.

“Initially, Klarna embraced AI with an eye toward cost savings and efficiency - but perhaps underestimated the tradeoff,” Geller said.

Sector-specific AI uses for government in Omaha land squarely in public healthcare and long‑term care: Lincoln‑based Ocuvera's AI-powered, 3D depth‑camera monitoring gives hospitals a “camera's‑eye” to predict unassisted bed exits, cut costly sitter FTEs (sites often replace 25–50% of sitters) and redirect nurses back to bedside care while preserving privacy by streaming anonymized depth images (Ocuvera AI patient monitoring system).

Independent annotation and training at scale - highlighted in a CloudFactory annotation case study for Ocuvera - helped produce models that protected tens of thousands of patients and delivered steep reductions in unassisted exits and falls, results already appearing in Nebraska pilots with hospitals like Great Plains Health and Bryan Health (Great Plains Health pilot with Ocuvera report on KNOP).

The practical payoff for municipal and state health agencies is concrete: immediate labor and liability savings, faster nurse response via mobile alerts, and a data‑rich, auditable trail built from hundreds of thousands of hours of anonymized footage so models improve over time - a single vivid measure: some hospitals report going over 220 days without a fall after deploying the system.

“Ocuvera has virtually eliminated our unassisted falls from the bed.” - Matt S, Director of Nursing

Nebraska's talent pipeline is getting a major boost: the University of Nebraska at Omaha has opened enrollment for the state's first Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, a program launching in Spring 2025 that emphasizes data analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing and aims to produce graduates who can build and manage AI systems across industries - a clear win for municipal hiring needs and midsize IT teams that need practical AI skills on day one (UNO Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence program details).

Local access is designed to be low‑friction: UNO's registration infrastructure and step‑one orientation and registration days make it straightforward for students to enroll and start coursework, creating a steady flow of trained candidates for city, county, and state roles (UNO enrollment and registration dates).

Complementing degree pathways, employer-focused training and transition strategies - from short bootcamps to formal workforce plans - give public employers tools to reskill existing staff rather than replace them (Employer strategies for AI transition in Omaha government).

One vivid signal: photos of students already working in UNO's FNBO Code Studio make the pipeline feel immediate and tangible for Omaha's civic tech future.

“This degree is a game-changer for Nebraska. It will attract students from all over the state - and the country - who want to be part of the next wave of AI innovation. And it will give Nebraska employers the talent they need to compete in a global market.” - Martha Garcia‑Murillo, IS&T Dean

Nebraska's proposed LB 642 - introduced Jan. 22, 2025 by Sen. Eliot Bostar and now under Judiciary Committee review - matters for Omaha governments because it would require disclosure and additional safeguards when “high‑risk” AI systems make consequential decisions in areas like housing, employment, criminal justice and health care, creating new procurement expectations for vendors and agencies alike; city and county buyers should plan to demand auditable model documentation, correction and appeal mechanisms, and clear bias‑mitigation clauses in contracts to keep services lawful and trusted.

Coverage of the bill shows Nebraska positioning itself as an early mover on AI consumer protection while hearing concerns that compliance could strain small businesses - so procurement teams can balance innovation and access by using staged pilots, exemptions and vendor support to avoid cutting out local suppliers.

For the practical takeaway: include transparency and remediation requirements in RFPs now, because when LB 642 advances it will make those contract terms not just best practice but central to legal compliance and citizen confidence (see the official bill text and local reporting on the hearings).

“Consumers will have the right to correct inaccuracies, appeal adverse outcomes and access transparent explanations about how decisions were made,” Bostar said.

Start small, stay focused, and let measurable wins drive scale: pick a mission‑aligned, high‑volume task - for example, turning a stack of permit PDFs into a searchable dashboard - and run an internal prototype to prove value, surface data gaps, and set clear KPIs before any big procurement; the GSA's practical GSA Starting an AI Project playbook walks through assembling an Integrated Product Team, prototyping, and the pilot→production transition.

Tie those pilots to local capacity by using University of Nebraska system resources and the NU AI Taskforce recommendations for AI governance, training, and shared infrastructure so agencies can reuse governance and talent across projects.

Protect people and budgets as you scale by embedding Test & Evaluation, human oversight, and cost controls from day one, and treat early wins - like an automated permits dashboard - as the storytelling lever that builds leadership buy‑in and frees staff for higher‑value work (see practical prompts for extracting permits and zoning data to get started quickly).

Phase: Pilot - Key action: Internal prototype on a narrow use case (data extraction into dashboards).
Phase: Governance - Key action: Form an Integrated Product Team, publish policies, and embed human oversight and Test & Evaluation.
Phase: Scale - Key action: Translate pilot learnings into procurement requirements and shared University of Nebraska resources.

Measuring ROI for Nebraska government projects means marrying practical pilots with disciplined accounting: start by defining mission‑aligned KPIs (hours saved, cycle‑time, error reductions, or avoided vendor spend), establish pre‑project baselines, then monetize benefits against a full three‑year Total Cost of Ownership that includes data preparation, GPU or cloud costs, and ongoing retraining and governance.

Use straightforward formulas (for example, the standard ROI equation and payback calculations explained in the QED42 and Agility‑at‑Scale guides) and track both “hard” savings (labor, reduced external contracts) and “soft” gains (faster decision cycles, higher staff capacity).

Local pilots - say, turning permit PDFs into a searchable dashboard - are ideal: measure time saved per permit, multiply by monthly volumes, and compare to infrastructure and vendor costs to produce a clear payback story.

For practical measurement advice and tools, see Sand Technologies' playbook on defining pre/post metrics and expected timelines, and Agility‑at‑Scale's ROI lifecycle framework to translate early signals into hard ROI before scaling.

The result: Nebraska agencies can prove dollars saved, document risk reduction, and build a repeatable approach that turns a small pilot into city‑wide efficiency - no hype, just measurable outcomes.

Omaha agencies face a clear set of challenges as they adopt AI: new state privacy rules, heightened scrutiny over “high‑risk” automated decisions, and the practical task of keeping data local and auditable while still moving fast.

The Nebraska Data Privacy Act (NDPA) - effective Jan. 1, 2025 - raises the bar on consumer rights, DPIAs, consent for sensitive data, and mandatory transparency, and the Attorney General can levy penalties (with a 30‑day cure window) if controllers fall short, so procurement and IT teams must bake compliance into pilots rather than bolt it on later (see a plain‑English rundown of the NDPA and how to prepare).

At the same time, LB642's focus on disclosure and remedies for consequential AI decisions signals that procurement specs will soon need auditable model documentation, appeal processes, and anti‑bias clauses (read reporting on the legislative hearing).

Best practices for Omaha: limit collection to purpose‑driven fields, require vendor DPIAs and data processing agreements, stage pilots with university partners and NU's AI guidance to reuse governance, and protect workers through retraining pathways.

A vivid “so what?”: treat the NDPA's 30‑day cure as a countdown that turns sloppy data practices into visible legal and budget risk - so start governance, logging, and human‑in‑the‑loop checks on day one.

“Consumers will have the right to correct inaccuracies, appeal adverse outcomes and access transparent explanations about how decisions were made,” Bostar said.

Omaha's path forward is clear: pair local compute and university talent with disciplined pilots, measurable ROI, and responsible governance so AI delivers real savings without sacrificing trust.

Leaders should prioritize narrow, mission‑aligned projects - for example, turning permit PDFs into a searchable dashboard - and measure outcomes against rigorous baselines (BCG notes AI can cut agency costs substantially, with up to a 35% impact in some case‑processing budgets).

At the same time, watchdog research reminds policymakers to plan for misuse and oversight - NCITE's AI case studies underline the need for human review, clear controls, and ongoing risk assessment.

Closing the loop means investing in people as much as platforms: practical upskilling like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work (15‑week bootcamp) equips nontechnical staff to write better prompts, run pilots, and translate early wins into scaled services.

When Omaha ties data, governance, training, and careful ROI measurement together, the result is not flashy tech for its own sake but faster services, lower vendor spend, and more capacity for the decisions that truly need a human touch.