Top 10 AI Prompts and Use Cases and in the Government Industry in San Bernardino
Last Updated: August 27th 2025

Too Long; Didn't Read:
San Bernardino government can use AI across 10 priorities - public safety, permits, traffic, health, benefits, transit, records, education, energy, and admin - to cut costs and time (e.g., Copilot cut dev timelines ~30%; SBVCTSS reduced travel ~22%, stops ~47%) with governance, audits, and workforce training.
San Bernardino's county and city agencies face the same pressure as other California jurisdictions to do more with less - AI can boost public safety, speed permit processing, optimize traffic, and power 24/7 citizen support while freeing staff for higher‑value work, but only if adoption is paired with clear rules and oversight.
Research on local government AI governance stresses transparency, human review, and risk mitigation - see CDT's guidance on how counties and cities are advancing AI governance - and industry overviews highlight concrete benefits like smarter dispatch, fraud detection, and traffic optimization for state and local agencies (CompTIA).
Practical workforce upskilling matters too: programs such as Nucamp's Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus teach prompt writing and tool use so public servants can pilot safe, accountable AI projects that improve services for San Bernardino residents without sacrificing privacy or equity.
Bootcamp | Length | Early Bird Cost | Registration |
---|---|---|---|
AI Essentials for Work | 15 Weeks | $3,582 | Register for the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp |
“You want your firefighters not to be focused on buying gear, but on fighting fires.” - Santiago Garces
Table of Contents
- Methodology - How We Chose These Prompts and Use Cases
- Social Welfare - Fraud Detection & Benefits Integrity (San Bernardino Department of Social Services)
- Public Health - Disease Tracking, Triage & Misinformation Response (San Bernardino County Public Health)
- Emergency Services - Call Classification & Predictive Response (San Bernardino Fire Department & 911 Dispatch)
- Transportation - Traffic Optimization & Autonomous Shuttles (San Bernardino Transit Agency)
- Document Automation & Digitization (San Bernardino County Clerk/Recorder)
- Citizen Engagement - Chatbots & Virtual Assistants (City of San Bernardino Customer Service)
- Public Safety & Domestic Security - Predictive Policing & Surveillance Analysis (San Bernardino Police Department)
- Education - Personalized Learning & Automated Grading (San Bernardino Unified School District)
- Infrastructure & Energy - Solar Forecasting & Wildfire Risk (San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services)
- Administrative Efficiency - Code Generation & Personnel Management (San Bernardino County Human Resources & IT)
- Conclusion - Practical Next Steps and Governance Checklist for San Bernardino
- Frequently Asked Questions
Check out next:
Follow a simple practical roadmap for San Bernardino government that moves from pilots to scaled, safe AI services by 2025.
Methodology - How We Chose These Prompts and Use Cases
(Up)Selections for prompts and use cases were grounded in what San Bernardino is already doing and what expert guidance recommends: prioritize projects that deliver measurable operational impact (San Bernardino's Digital Counties profile shows wins from CRM analytics, drone/GIS work, real-time translation and a GitHub Copilot rollout that cut development timelines by roughly 30%), favor cross‑agency, data‑driven solutions consistent with a holistic data strategy highlighted by Joel Golub, and screen proposals against responsible‑AI checklists such as the Local Progress/AI Now recommendations that call for vendor transparency, staff involvement, and public reporting - especially important given that only about 21 of ~22,000 U.S. cities and counties had public AI use policies.
Practical filters applied to every prompt: clear resident benefit, testable fairness and accuracy metrics, minimal privacy exposure, and an executable staff training plan (echoing San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools' AI readiness resources for educators and administrators).
Methodological Criterion | Evidence from Research |
---|---|
Local pilot & measurable impact | Digital Counties 2025 San Bernardino County AI and Data Initiatives - CRM, Copilot, GIS, translation |
Holistic data strategy | Joel Golub holistic data strategy for cities and counties |
Responsible governance & transparency | Route Fifty report on responsible AI adoption for local governments - vendor disclosure, hearings, workforce input |
Workforce & education readiness | San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools AI resources for educators - training, roadmaps, tool guides |
“A lot will depend upon how courts interpret the breadth of the preemption language in the reconciliation bill if it should pass. But the powers underlying several of the proposed areas of action in the report should remain even if preemption occurs.”
Social Welfare - Fraud Detection & Benefits Integrity (San Bernardino Department of Social Services)
(Up)AI can help San Bernardino's Department of Social Services catch fraud faster and organize mountains of case data, but lessons from the U.S. and abroad show the stakes: when algorithms are allowed to drive eligibility or benefits decisions they can produce “devastating” cuts - for example Arkansas' system reduced many care plans from 7–8 hours a day to 4–5 - and Michigan courts later required millions in reimbursements after erroneous fraud findings.
Studies of automated welfare surveillance in the Netherlands and Amnesty International's report on Denmark warn that opaque models, broad data collection, and proxy variables (like “foreign affiliation”) can turn a safety net into a surveillance apparatus that disproportionately targets marginalized residents.
For California counties that must protect both tight budgets and vulnerable people, the practical path is clear: use AI for triage, record‑sorting, and fraud‑flagging while preserving human review, public transparency, independent audits, and strict limits on automated eligibility decisions so technology augments caseworkers instead of becoming the final arbiter of who gets help.
These governance measures reduce the risk of chilling access to benefits and help ensure AI actually improves integrity without punishing the poor.
“This mass surveillance has created a social benefits system that risks targeting, rather than supporting the very people it was meant to protect.” - Hellen Mukiri‑Smith, Amnesty International
Public Health - Disease Tracking, Triage & Misinformation Response (San Bernardino County Public Health)
(Up)AI can make San Bernardino County Public Health far more nimble at disease tracking, triage, and beating back misinformation by combining traditional surveillance with novel data streams and human oversight: CDC's AI/ML guidance shows practical wins - from natural language processing to accelerate vaccine‑safety signal detection to MedCoder, which now auto‑codes nearly 90% of death records, and tools like TowerScout that pick cooling towers out of satellite imagery to speed Legionnaires' responses - while emphasizing fairness, de‑identification, and workforce upskilling (CDC AI/ML guidance for public health surveillance).
Global convenings reinforce the point that pandemic-era advances are ready for local use; the WHO Hub forum report highlights how AI‑driven surveillance and forecasting can shorten detection timelines and inform targeted interventions (WHO Hub forum report on AI-driven surveillance and forecasting).
Complementary research on hybrid deep‑learning models (DCNN‑LSTM) shows impressive outbreak‑prediction performance in tests, but these tools work best when paired with clear governance, human review, and strict PHI protections so predictions translate into safer, fairer public‑health action (DCNN‑LSTM outbreak prediction study (IEEE)).
Item | Purpose | Key Point |
---|---|---|
MedCoder (CDC) | Cause‑of‑death coding | Automates coding for nearly 90% of records |
TowerScout (CDC & UC Berkeley) | Detect cooling towers from imagery | Accelerates Legionnaires' outbreak response |
DCNN‑LSTM (IEEE study) | Disease outbreak prediction | Reported 99% accuracy on tested dataset |
Emergency Services - Call Classification & Predictive Response (San Bernardino Fire Department & 911 Dispatch)
(Up)For San Bernardino's Fire Department and 911 dispatch, AI-driven call classification and predictive response can turn chaotic, split-second moments into actionable intelligence - real‑time transcription and smart triage rapidly surface location, medical cues, and threat indicators so dispatchers can route fire, EMS, or law enforcement more accurately and free up time for de‑escalation and coordination; agencies already piloting live transcription report faster QA, better training, and searchable records that cut the time to find critical details (no more scrubbing through a 90‑second call to find a last‑minute address).
Practical applications for California PSAPs include automated call triage and routing, surge detection and geofencing to prioritize resources during mass incidents, pre‑populated responder briefs, and translation services for multilingual callers - while preserving human oversight for final response decisions.
Vendors like Motorola Solutions offer Smart Transcription for NG911 centers and studies of AI in dispatch stress that these tools should supplement, not replace, telecommunicators and require testing, cyber risk controls, and policy guardrails before rollout; for technical and legal benefits of transcription in 911 operations see coverage on auto transcription for 911 centers and broader AI-in‑dispatch guidance.
“It allows them to focus more on interacting with 9-1-1 callers and coordinating responses rather than having to manually enter information.”
Transportation - Traffic Optimization & Autonomous Shuttles (San Bernardino Transit Agency)
(Up)San Bernardino's transit future is already being wired for smarts: the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority's push to modernize the valley's coordinated signals - backed by Iteris' $2.5 million award to monitor the SBVCTSS corridors and help craft a countywide Smart County Master Plan - means cloud, AI, advanced sensors, and managed services will be used to smooth arterials, speed buses, and cut emissions across 24 cities (Iteris $2.5M smart county contract for San Bernardino signal coordination).
Decades of local signal coordination already show big wins - SBVCTSS timing work once trimmed travel times by roughly 22% and slashed stops nearly 47% - and layering AI and realtime IoT can add adaptive signal optimization, bus‑priority “green waves,” pedestrian‑aware timing, and even a path to integrating autonomous shuttles or AV corridors as part of transit planning (San Bernardino Valley Coordinated Traffic Signal System (SBVCTSS) Master Plan).
California pilots and university projects demonstrate the same playbook: fuse sensors, predictive models, and human oversight to cut congestion, protect vulnerable road users, and make transit more reliable for San Bernardino riders while preserving staff control and data governance.
Item | Key Fact |
---|---|
Iteris contract | $2.5 million to support SBVCTSS and develop a Smart County Master Plan |
Geographic scope | Master Plan covers San Bernardino County (24 cities); SBVCTSS serves the San Bernardino Valley |
Historic SBVCTSS outcomes | ~22% travel time reduction; ~47% fewer stops after coordinated signal timing |
“A Smart County project of this size will go a long way in making mobility safer, more efficient, and more sustainable in California.”
Document Automation & Digitization (San Bernardino County Clerk/Recorder)
(Up)Modernizing the Clerk/Recorder's workflow in San Bernardino means more than scanning boxes - it's about turning paper into searchable, governed digital records that speed title searches, speed public records requests, and harden county continuity plans: California's ERDS framework even lets a county establish an authorized Electronic Recording Delivery System for real‑estate instruments with DOJ certification and a Board resolution (San Bernardino ERDS regulations (Electronic Recording Delivery System)).
Courts and filers are already moving online - local eFiling guidance lays out practical limits (50 MB file sizes), turnaround norms (priority processing can be ~24 hours for oppositions), and best practices like sending courtesy copies for imminent hearings (San Bernardino eFiling FAQs and guidance for filers) - so digitization must integrate with court workflows.
County teams can outsource secure, HIPAA‑capable scanning, OCR, and indexing with on‑site or off‑site vendors to create searchable PDFs and automated workflows that cut the “archaeological dig” out of record retrieval; local providers advertise turnkey capture, OCR, and secure delivery for San Bernardino agencies (San Bernardino County document scanning and OCR services).
The payoff is tangible: seconds to find a record instead of hours, stronger disaster resilience, and staff freed to resolve exceptions rather than hunt for paper.
Item | Key Point |
---|---|
ERDS | Authorized delivery/return of digitized real‑estate instruments; DOJ system certification + Board resolution required |
eFiling | 50 MB file limit; ~24‑hour priority for some filings; courtesy copies recommended for near‑term hearings |
Scanning & OCR | On‑site/off‑site capture, searchable PDFs, HIPAA‑capable workflows and secure delivery |
“[Our content management tool] is not just a scanning tool, but much more…to help the workflow and integrations, and help us achieve our goals in running the court system.” - Melissa Tuttle
Citizen Engagement - Chatbots & Virtual Assistants (City of San Bernardino Customer Service)
(Up)AI chatbots and virtual assistants offer San Bernardino a practical way to meet residents where they already go - online and by phone - by automating routine requests (permits, hours, simple 311‑style questions) while keeping human staff for complex cases; CivicPlus's municipal chatbot, for example, is built to crawl city content, run without code, and surface answers from multiple sources to cut repeat calls and surface gaps in online guidance (CivicPlus municipal chatbot product page), and the City's own online services and permits pages already centralize the forms and how‑to content a bot would draw from (San Bernardino Online Permits portal).
Design best practices for a San Bernardino rollout: connect the chatbot to the city's published contact directory so callers can escalate to live staff (City Hall: (909) 384‑7272, weekday counter hours noted on the city site), log every automated exchange for transparency, offer machine translation where needed, and use analytics to spot confusing pages - so a resident can get the exact permit link in seconds instead of sitting on hold, a small but memorable win that builds public trust.
Channel | Example / Info |
---|---|
City phone | (909) 384-7272 - Office hours Mon–Thu 7:30am–5:30pm; Fri 7:30am–4:30pm (City of San Bernardino contact page) |
Online permits | Centralized permit pages and forms for building, events, utilities (San Bernardino Online Permits portal) |
Chatbot platform | No-code, content‑crawling CivicPlus Chatbot to automate resident Q&A (CivicPlus municipal chatbot product page) |
Public Safety & Domestic Security - Predictive Policing & Surveillance Analysis (San Bernardino Police Department)
(Up)San Bernardino Police Department can responsibly harness decades of place‑based research - NIJ's overview traces the field from simple crime mapping to modern crime forecasting and shows how hot‑spot analytics can focus scarce patrol resources (NIJ overview of crime mapping and crime forecasting) - but local use must balance utility with clear safeguards.
Newer models can tile a city into fine‑grained spatial cells (roughly 1,000‑foot tiles in recent work) and forecast short‑horizon risk with striking accuracy, yet studies also reveal enforcement bias and unequal arrest responses across neighborhoods, so any San Bernardino pilot should combine multi‑density hotspot detection or SARIMA‑style forecasting with human review, transparent performance metrics, community oversight, and regular bias audits (University of Chicago study on algorithmic crime prediction and policing bias).
Civic trust hinges on treating predictions as risk signals - not verdicts - and following RAND and civil‑liberties guidance to pair analytics with evaluated interventions, data‑quality checks, and publicly reported outcomes so predictive policing reduces harm while improving situational awareness (Brennan Center guide to predictive policing and public policy).
“What we're seeing is that when you stress the system, it requires more resources to arrest more people in response to crime in a wealthy area and draws police resources away from lower socioeconomic status areas.” - Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD
Education - Personalized Learning & Automated Grading (San Bernardino Unified School District)
(Up)For San Bernardino Unified School District, adaptive learning and automated grading offer a practical path to personalize instruction without replacing teachers: research-backed pilots show platforms can close equity gaps and scale individualized practice while freeing educators to focus on higher‑value coaching and curriculum design.
Case studies summarized by Every Learner Everywhere document measurable wins - corequisite and adaptive redesigns, tutoring integrations, and faculty‑led rollouts - and one pilot (Indian River State College) reported pass rates jumping by about 20% after adding adaptive courseware, a vivid reminder that better alignment of practice and pacing can change outcomes quickly (adaptive learning case studies showing measured effectiveness).
Modern platforms - from Khan Academy and DreamBox to ALEKS and Pearson MyLab - use real‑time analytics to tailor pathways and surface at‑risk students, but success depends on strong instructional design, teacher professional development, transparent algorithms, and routine bias audits; see practical adaptive examples and platform features for districts evaluating pilots (adaptive learning examples and platform features for district pilots and adaptive learning implementation guidance for school districts).
Infrastructure & Energy - Solar Forecasting & Wildfire Risk (San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services)
(Up)San Bernardino's emergency planners and energy teams can shrink one of the county's biggest “so what” problems - sudden solar dips during heat waves and wildfire smoke - by pairing improved solar forecasting with operational readiness; California Energy Commission EPIC research shows that high‑fidelity models blending local sensors, sky images and high‑resolution satellite data significantly cut intrahour forecasting errors for direct normal irradiance at utility‑scale solar farms, and tools like SolarAnywhere's FleetView are already being used to forecast output for more than 130,000 PV systems across California and into ISO planning.
At the system level, CAISO's 2025 Summer Loads and Resources Assessment notes that while resources look sufficient for many scenarios, extreme heat events and wildfires remain material risks - so San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services should integrate probabilistic solar forecasts into contingency playbooks, reserve planning, and cross‑agency situational awareness to reduce surprise outages when clouds or smoke move across a valley.
See the CEC EPIC solar forecasting report, CAISO's 2025 assessment, and SolarAnywhere FleetView for concrete models and operational examples.
Source | Key point |
---|---|
CEC EPIC high‑fidelity solar forecasting report | Blends local sensors, sky images and satellite data to improve intrahour DNI and POA forecasts for utility solar |
SolarAnywhere FleetView fleet forecasting for 130,000+ PV systems | Provides fleet forecasts for over 130,000 PV systems used in CAISO planning |
CAISO 2025 Summer Loads and Resources Assessment | Finds sufficient resources broadly but warns of risks from extreme heat and wildfires and recommends contingency measures |
“Identifying uncertainty requirements and utilizing requirements in grid operations for planning, reliability, and markets will continue to become increasingly important as the resource mix on the demand and supply side continue to decarbonize.” - Amber Motley
Administrative Efficiency - Code Generation & Personnel Management (San Bernardino County Human Resources & IT)
(Up)San Bernardino County Human Resources and IT can drive a quietly transformative wave of administrative efficiency by pairing generative code tools with process automation and a people‑first staffing model: AI‑assisted code generation accelerates application development and legacy modernization - freeing developers from boilerplate work - while document and workflow automation shave huge chunks of time from routine approvals and reports (one vendor reports as much as ≈46 hours saved per long‑form document), so HR and IT can redirect effort toward strategy, security, and change management (GovLoop article on AI code generation benefits and challenges; Iternal public sector administrative task automation metrics).
But speed must come with guardrails: the GSA AI Guide for Government outlines organizational patterns - Integrated Product Teams, a central technical resource, and governance layers - that help embed AI safely, recruit and upskill staff, and keep compliance, auditability, and model stewardship front and center (GSA AI Guide for Government: organizational patterns and governance).
The practical payoff is tangible: fewer paper bottlenecks, faster contract and onboarding cycles, and a county workforce that uses AI to augment judgment rather than outsource it - so a single saved week per complex report becomes a vivid measure of better public service.
Approach | Primary Benefit |
---|---|
GenAI code generation | Faster development, legacy modernization, reduced human error |
Document & content automation | Large time savings per output (e.g., ≈46 hours for long documents) |
Workflow automation / low‑code | Shorter approval cycles, better audit trails, cost savings |
Conclusion - Practical Next Steps and Governance Checklist for San Bernardino
(Up)San Bernardino's next steps should be pragmatic and sequential: begin with an AI inventory and risk‑classification so high‑impact systems (public‑facing chatbots, benefits triage, dispatch tools) get tighter controls, then lock in a governance structure - an oversight committee, clear procurement checks, and lifecycle SOPs for model testing, bias audits, and incident response - using policy templates and local examples as a starting point (see the 16 policy examples from Madison AI governance policy examples).
Pair those rules with security‑first controls - access gating, continuous monitoring, and adversarial testing - from a practical framework like the one outlined by Strobes AI governance framework for security leaders, and require vendor transparency plus human review rights for any high‑risk decision.
Finally, invest in workforce readiness so staff can operate, audit, and contest AI outputs - Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work syllabus and course details program is one actionable pathway - because governance succeeds only when policy, tooling, and people move together, turning abstract rules into day‑to‑day public‑service improvements residents actually notice.
Bootcamp | Length | Early Bird Cost | Registration |
---|---|---|---|
AI Essentials for Work | 15 Weeks | $3,582 | Register for Nucamp AI Essentials for Work |
“The future of secure AI is not just about building smarter machines, it's about building smarter rules around them.”
Frequently Asked Questions
(Up)What concrete AI use cases can San Bernardino government agencies adopt first?
Priority, high-return pilots for San Bernardino include: 1) chatbots and virtual assistants for citizen engagement and permit routing; 2) document automation and OCR for Clerk/Recorder workflows and eFiling integration; 3) AI-assisted call classification, live transcription, and triage for 911/Fire dispatch; 4) traffic signal optimization and bus-priority systems for transit corridors; and 5) fraud-flagging and record triage for Social Services. These were chosen because they deliver measurable operational impact, minimize privacy exposure when properly governed, and align with existing local projects (e.g., SBVCTSS signal coordination and CRM/Copilot rollouts).
How should San Bernardino balance AI benefits with risks like bias, privacy, and mistaken automated decisions?
Adopt a layered governance approach: perform an AI inventory and risk classification to identify high-risk systems; require vendor transparency, human-in-the-loop review, routine bias and accuracy audits, and public reporting for predictive or high-impact tools; limit automated eligibility or punitive decisions (e.g., welfare eligibility) so AI only triages or flags for human review; implement data minimization and PHI/PII protections for health or benefits uses; and use independent audits and community oversight for policing and surveillance analytics. These steps reflect guidance from CDT, Local Progress/AI Now, and federal/state best practices cited in the article.
What measurable outcomes and evidence support these AI projects for local agencies?
Examples and evidence noted include: SBVCTSS coordinated signal timing that reduced travel times by ~22% and stops by ~47%; GitHub Copilot rollout claims cutting dev timelines by roughly 30%; MedCoder automating nearly 90% of cause-of-death coding; university and pilot studies showing strong outbreak-prediction performance for hybrid models; and vendor/industry reports of large time savings (e.g., ≈46 hours saved on long-form documents via automation). These metrics guided selection by prioritizing projects with clear, testable operational impact.
What governance and operational checklist should San Bernardino use when starting an AI pilot?
A practical checklist: 1) inventory systems and classify risk; 2) establish an oversight committee and procurement checks; 3) require vendor disclosures and model documentation; 4) define human-review gates and refusal/appeal processes; 5) set accuracy, fairness and privacy metrics and testing protocols; 6) run limited pilots with adversarial and cyber testing; 7) log and publish outcomes and audits; and 8) invest in workforce upskilling and SOPs for lifecycle management. This sequence follows the article's recommended stepwise approach and templates from governance resources.
How can San Bernardino prepare staff and the workforce to safely use and oversee AI tools?
Invest in hands-on upskilling programs that teach prompt engineering, tool use, and auditing workflows - examples include Nucamp's AI Essentials program. Combine training with integrated product teams, central technical resources in IT, and change-management plans so staff can pilot, test, interpret, and contest AI outputs. Pair training with clear SOPs, bias-audit playbooks, and vendor-managed transparency to ensure staff can operate AI responsibly without sacrificing service quality or equity.
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Ludo Fourrage
Founder and CEO
Ludovic (Ludo) Fourrage is an education industry veteran, named in 2017 as a Learning Technology Leader by Training Magazine. Before founding Nucamp, Ludo spent 18 years at Microsoft where he led innovation in the learning space. As the Senior Director of Digital Learning at this same company, Ludo led the development of the first of its kind 'YouTube for the Enterprise'. More recently, he delivered one of the most successful Corporate MOOC programs in partnership with top business schools and consulting organizations, i.e. INSEAD, Wharton, London Business School, and Accenture, to name a few. With the belief that the right education for everyone is an achievable goal, Ludo leads the nucamp team in the quest to make quality education accessible