The Complete Guide to Using AI in the Government Industry in Puerto Rico in 2025

AI matters for Puerto Rico's government in 2025 because it's now part of a deliberate modernization push: the IDEA initiative already cleared 251 obsolete regulations - more than 7,200 pages of red tape - and the administration is drafting the island's first government-wide AI Policy with PRITS oversight to require transparency, data protections, and human review (Puerto Rico IDEA initiative press release on regulatory cleanup).

Yet adoption won't be automatic: Tech Day experts flagged connectivity, electric-grid and ethical gaps that could stall real-world benefits (Tech Day Puerto Rico panel coverage on AI adoption challenges), while national trends show a growing patchwork of state and territorial AI bills shaping disclosure and accountability (Overview of AI governance across U.S. states - June 2025).

That mix of streamlined rules and regulatory uncertainty makes practical workforce training - prompt-writing, tool use, and applied AI skills - essential for agencies to turn policy into faster, fairer citizen services.

IDEA is a strategic priority of our administration to modernize government operations, and simplify processes, fostering efficiency, competitiveness, and transparency. With IDEA, the Government of Puerto Rico is eliminating burdensome regulations, cutting red tape, adopting responsible technologies, and setting a clear agenda for economic development.

Puerto Rico agencies are turning AI from promise into practical tools: the ASG's recent RFI is explicitly seeking virtual assistants, predictive modeling and process automation to speed citizen services and cut manual workloads (ASG Request for Information: Puerto Rico AI innovators and virtual assistants), while local firms and pilots show what that looks like in practice - chatbots and virtual assistants that reduce call volume, digitized workflows that turn months-long paperwork into seconds (graduation certificates and municipal processes), and law‑enforcement tools like COPOP Móvil that digitize protection orders to streamline case handling.

Energy and infrastructure teams are exploring AI for predictive maintenance and smart‑grid optimization to address chronic outages (recall the New Year's Eve blackout that affected over 1.2 million customers), and proposed Senate bills would formalize oversight - creating an AI Officer, an Advisory Council, real‑time auction monitoring apps, a business registry, and cybersecurity training requirements to make deployments safer and more transparent (Puerto Rico Senate proposed AI legislation overview and oversight proposals).

These use cases - citizen-facing chatbots, automated back-office processing, predictive analytics for grid resilience, and procurement monitoring - are exactly the building blocks agencies can scale once policy, procurement, and workforce training align, so early pilots become island-wide improvements rather than isolated experiments (AI for government use cases and lessons learned on chatbots and pilots).

“Artificial intelligence can help governments deliver smarter and more responsive services, but only if the technology is rooted in the real-world needs of government teams and the people they serve.”

Puerto Rico's 2025 AI patchwork is shaping up to be both ambitious and pragmatic: the Senate introduced a cluster of bills in January that would create a Government of Puerto Rico Artificial Intelligence Act (including an AI Officer housed at PRITS, an AI Advisory Council, and agency-level governance rules), require agencies to review AI systems every two years, and set up practical tools like a PRITS‑run real‑time auction‑monitoring app and a public registry of AI-using businesses - measures designed to balance innovation, transparency, and accountability (Puerto Rico Senate Artificial Intelligence Act bills overview).

Those proposals sit alongside the IDEA modernization push and a planned government‑wide AI Policy that mandates data protections, disclosure, and human oversight with PRITS auditing authority, aiming to turn pilots into island‑wide services while avoiding the “wild west” of ungoverned deployments (Puerto Rico IDEA regulatory cleanup and government AI Policy press release).

The local effort mirrors a broader U.S. sprint - 48 states plus Puerto Rico introduced AI bills in 2025 - so Puerto Rico's mix of an AI Officer, cybersecurity training mandates, election and gaming safeguards, and an investment fund for AI skills positions the island to both capture vendor partnerships and require new procurement, compliance, and workforce steps from agencies; a memorable detail: one bill would even force campaign messages to disclose AI use, putting transparency into everyday voter communications (State AI governance trends - June 2025 overview of campaign AI disclosure bills).

With the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Policy in the Government of Puerto Rico, which reflects Governor Jenniffer González-Colón's programmatic commitment, we are establishing a solid framework that promotes the responsible use of AI.

Puerto Rico's procurement landscape is moving from curiosity to coordinated outreach: the ASG's RFI (RFI‑26‑001) is explicitly casting a wide net for vendors with public‑sector experience - seeking virtual assistants, predictive modeling, intelligent data analysis, process automation, computer vision, and even generative AI or autonomous agents - and it's designed as an information‑gathering step to shape future bids rather than a purchase order today (ASG RFI‑26‑001 AI solutions news coverage).

Practical notes for vendors: the informational session was set for July 17 at the Minillas Government Center (the initial sign‑up hit capacity and ASG split the session into two dates), questions had to be submitted by July 22, and full responses were due by July 30 in PDF format; the ASG portal hosts the RFI documents and follow‑up minutes for anyone tracking clarifications or next steps (ASG public communications portal (RFI documents)).

Local tech leaders amplified the call on LinkedIn, sharing registration links and urging teams to highlight security, integration experience, and sustainability credentials when responding (LinkedIn amplification of the ASG RFI by local tech leaders).

For vendors and partners, the RFI is a live opening: it's a chance to shape scope, secure technical follow‑ups, and position solutions for competitive procurements to come - so submitting crisp, government‑focused use cases now can translate into formal opportunities later.

“The world has changed, and the government must be at the forefront,” said ASG Administrator Karla Mercado.

For Puerto Rico agencies the near-term implementation playbook should focus on practical, measurable building blocks: deploy citizen‑facing chatbots and virtual assistants for 24/7 multi‑lingual help while tightly linking them to authoritative back‑end systems (so answers are grounded, auditable and don't “hallucinate”), inventory and clean agency data so analytics and predictive models can actually run, and prioritize secure integration with legacy CRMs and APIs to avoid brittle one‑off pilots.

Operational priorities include accessibility and inclusion (bots plus non‑digital channels), role‑based access and encryption to protect sensitive records, and monitoring dashboards that track accuracy and case escalations so human review is routine - not optional.

Technical focus areas should therefore be: data governance (inventories, metadata and shared APIs), NLP‑driven customer service, predictive maintenance for infrastructure, and low‑code integration patterns that let smaller municipal IT shops scale solutions without huge budgets.

Invest in workforce skilling tied to these tools (the federal Data Skills Training Program toolkit is a useful model), run controlled pilots that measure cost and service gains, and use state examples as a guide - chatbots like Georgia's “George” handled millions of interactions and proved the case for scale while exposing the need for strong oversight and testing (TopDoerr AI municipal use cases, federal case studies and data skills toolkit, state chatbot examples and lessons learned).

A vivid benchmark: scaled, well‑governed chatbots can turn months of paperwork and phone queues into near‑instant answers, freeing staff to focus on complex, human decisions.

“I think that [the pandemic] prompted the need to be able to really swiftly and consistently give information to people about government services, and then, as we've seen, a rise in interest in citizen or customer experience,”

Building a government-ready AI workforce in Puerto Rico means pairing hands-on technical skilling with leadership and process changes already underway: PRITS is partnering with the OIG to develop dynamic training programs that span risk management, secure‑infrastructure design, and awareness for technology leaders and staff (PRITS and OIG Puerto Rico cybersecurity partnership and training programs), while the Civil Service Reform is shifting hiring and career pathways toward skills-based talent management - running pilots that use AI to streamline recruitment for more than 200 roles and pilot a platform to match candidates to government jobs (Puerto Rico Civil Service Reform skills-based recruitment and AI pilots).

That combination - technical curricula for cyber and data hygiene, targeted reskilling for analytics and low‑code integration, and redesigned HR systems - creates a pipeline that helps agencies move from isolated AI pilots to staffed, governed services; a vivid benchmark: PRITS' digital tools like CESCO Digital reached over 2.3 million users (about 80% of residents), underscoring how quickly digital capability can scale when staff skills, governance and citizen-facing design align.

Priorities for implementation include role-based training for managers, joint exercises between IT and program teams, and measurable competency milestones so AI adoption improves service delivery without sacrificing security or accountability.

“Information security is not just a technical responsibility but a leadership responsibility. It is crucial that government technology leaders fully understand the magnitude of their role in protecting information and the security of systems supporting government operations.”

Puerto Rico's 2025 events calendar is turning into a practical runway for agency leaders, vendors, and civic technologists to swap pilots, procurement lessons, and policy playbooks - starting with ICMA's 10th Experience Puerto Rico conference (Aug 17–19, 2025) in San Juan and Carolina, which spotlights AI, smart cities, tourism and economic development and invites local government staff across the U.S. and Latin America to learn concrete ways to apply AI across sectors like housing, transport and infrastructure (ICMA Experience Puerto Rico conference details and agenda).

Beyond ICMA, a steady stream of specialized AI meetings - like the October and November conferences listed for Carolina and San Juan and a December machine‑learning event - creates repeated touchpoints for skills exchange, vendor demos, and recruitment of bilingual technical talent (Puerto Rico AI conferences calendar 2025 - conference listings and dates).

For agencies looking to pilot chatbots, emergency‑ready messaging, or bilingual preparedness content, these gatherings are the fastest way to see tested use cases, recruit partners, and return with playbooks staff can put into production; explore practical resource examples such as bilingual hurricane preparedness prompts to inform citizen‑facing deployments (Bilingual hurricane preparedness AI prompts for Puerto Rico government deployments).

Puerto Rico's 2025 AI rules are carving out concrete civic protections across elections, gaming and cybersecurity: Senate proposals would amend the Electoral Code to require disclosure when campaign communications are partially or fully generated by AI and impose penalties for undisclosed false AI‑generated content, while gaming rules would bar operators from harvesting bettors' behavioral data for predictive profiling to protect fair play - both measures sit alongside an AI Officer, an AI Advisory Council, a public registry of AI‑using businesses and a PRITS‑run real‑time auction‑monitoring app that together aim to boost transparency and oversight (Puerto Rico 2025 Senate AI legislation overview).

Those local steps mirror a nationwide patchwork - 48 states plus Puerto Rico introduced AI bills in 2025 - so disclosure‑first approaches are common, though some jurisdictions are testing prohibitions and stricter enforcement; experience elsewhere shows labeling rules are more likely to survive legal scrutiny than broad bans, and enforcement design (fines, injunctive authority, time windows before elections) can create new operational headaches for regulators and campaigns alike (U.S. state AI governance trends (June 2025), Analysis of 2025 election deepfake rules: disclosure vs. prohibition).

Cybersecurity is tied into the package via a proposed Cybersecurity Training Act that would require training for entities above revenue thresholds and ask PRITS to build curricula - a critical backstop given concerns about connectivity and grid resilience that could amplify AI risks - and the combined effect is a recipe for cautious innovation: vendors and agencies can pilot powerful tools, but they must bake in disclosure, data‑collection limits and explicit human review to avoid legal and civic backlash; imagine a political ad carrying a clear “AI-assisted” tag to help voters decide at a glance, rather than leaving manipulation to guesswork.

“We have been moving in the right direction in terms of connectivity thanks to programs from the Puerto Rico and U.S. federal governments, but there's still a long way to go, especially in rural areas.”

Start small, stay practical, and follow the new governance roadmaps: first align projects with PRITS and the Senate's proposed Government of Puerto Rico Artificial Intelligence Act - an emerging framework that creates an AI Officer, Advisory Council, a public registry of AI users, a Strategic Investment Fund for training, and sector safeguards for elections and gaming (see the bill summary Puerto Rico Senate Artificial Intelligence Act bill summary); next, inventory data and pick low‑risk, high‑impact pilots - hire a bilingual chatbot for citizen services, deploy an AI matching tool for recruitment, or test predictive maintenance on critical infrastructure - and measure outcomes so pilots can scale; leverage the hiring platform pilot as a benchmark (the new platform processed over 12,000 applications for 256 job postings and helped agencies hire in days, not months, with an average of 13 business days in one office) to design workforce and recruitment pilots (Puerto Rico government new hiring platform pilot results); prioritize the Cybersecurity Training Act requirements and PRSTRT's strategy recommendations to fund skilling and R&D, register any AI deployments as the law envisions, and build transparent disclosure and human‑in‑the‑loop checks from day one - one vivid benchmark: a live hiring pilot that cut months to days shows how quickly well‑governed AI can reshape public service if governance, training, and data readiness come first.

“We have been moving in the right direction in terms of connectivity thanks to programs from the Puerto Rico and U.S. federal governments, but there's still a long way to go, especially in rural areas.”

Puerto Rico's AI moment is now - agencies and vendors should treat the ASG RFI as both a signal and a roadmap: attend the informational session at Minillas Government Center (July 17), line up questions by July 22 and submit full responses by July 30 to shape future procurements for virtual assistants, predictive models and automation, while baking in cybersecurity and grid‑resilience concerns highlighted by recent DOE emergency actions after the island blackout (resilient deployments matter as much as capabilities).

Agencies should prioritize low‑risk, high‑impact pilots that prove bilingual chatbots, automated back‑office processing, and predictive maintenance can save time and reduce manual workload; vendors should surface public‑sector case studies, integration plans and security certifications so proposals move from RFI to contract.

Parallel to procurement, workforce skilling is non‑negotiable - practical courses that teach prompt design, tool use and safe deployment accelerate adoption without sacrificing oversight; see the ASG RFI details to participate and review the AI Essentials for Work 15-Week Bootcamp Syllabus for a ready training path for agency teams and partners.

“The world has changed, and the government must be at the forefront,” said ASG Administrator Karla Mercado.