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

Virginia is turning policy ambition into municipal practice: Gov. Glenn Youngkin's first‑in‑the‑nation “agentic AI” pilot is built to prune regulatory red tape across state agencies (Virginia Mercury coverage of Youngkin's agentic AI pilot), VDOT is testing AI for cost estimation and pavement management to tame soaring construction prices, and Virginia Beach is already using award‑winning FloodVISION‑AI - with 4K, infrared web cameras that translate visual flood depths into near‑real‑time water measurements - to lower sensor costs and speed emergency decisions (Virginia Beach FloodVISION‑AI program details).

For government teams looking to move from pilot to practice, practical upskilling matters: the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp teaches workplace AI tools and promptcraft in 15 weeks to help public‑sector staff apply these exact technologies responsibly (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus and overview).

“This might be a reminder to us all that as we're dealing with this technology that we always, always, always keep humans in the loop,” said Del. Cliff Hayes.

Virginia Beach is an ideal launchpad for AI-driven government work because the city already combines subsea bandwidth, carrier-neutral colocation and pro-data-center policy into a single "digital port" ecosystem: a compact local market (5 facilities totaling about 238,100 sq ft and roughly 9 MW of capacity) sits within easy reach of world-class transatlantic cables, while city and state incentives and power readiness smooth the path for latency-sensitive edge compute and real‑time services.

Transoceanic systems like MAREA (200 Tbps), BRUSA and Dunant deliver ultra‑high capacity and low latency for cloud and AI workloads - MAREA alone moves data at speeds that dwarf household connections - while carrier‑neutral hubs and new builds (PointOne, Globalinx, Telxius) create on‑ramps for government agencies to run models and process sensor feeds close to users.

That mix - dense fiber, growing colocation space, lower equipment tax rates and active expansion projects - means municipalities and contractors can prototype AI tools, shift compute to the edge, and cut turnaround times without waiting for distant hyperscalers.

“Globalinx has been a driving force to establish Virginia Beach as the premier digital port on the East Coast,” said Virginia Beach Deputy City Manager Amanda Jarratt.

In Virginia, the combined agentic + generative AI tool moves municipalities from insight to action: generative models draft summaries, reports or suggested next steps from streams of data (think permit PDFs or 4K infrared flood‑camera feeds), while agentic agents plan, break goals into sub‑tasks, call APIs and execute workflows across systems - coordinating robots, databases and people to carry them out with human oversight when needed.

That means faster, cheaper handling of multi‑step processes Virginia governments face every day - insurance claims, permit approvals, video analytics for flood response, or cross‑agency logistics - by turning context into real‑time decisions and automated follow‑through rather than one‑off outputs (see UiPath overview of agentic AI capabilities and use cases and IBM primer on how AI agents orchestrate goals and tool calls for examples).

In short, generative AI supplies the creative, contextual thinking and agentic AI supplies the muscle to act, adapt, and learn - so local teams can shrink backlog and cut red tape without losing human control.

“laying the groundwork for a comprehensive ecosystem where users can build, govern, and deploy AI agents seamlessly.”

Building on early pilots and data‑center readiness, Virginia is turning agentic and generative AI into concrete savings for government contractors and municipalities: the Commonwealth reports streamlining 26.8% of regulatory requirements and cutting guidance‑document verbiage by 47.9%, measures the administration says translate to more than $1.2 billion in annual savings and roughly $24,000 shaved off the cost to build a new home - real numbers that change budgeting conversations for contractors and permit offices alike (Virginia Governor's Office release on regulatory reductions (July 2025)).

Executive Order 51 launches a first‑in‑the‑nation agentic AI pilot that will scan statutes and rules, flag contradictions, benchmark Virginia against other states, and produce heat maps to show where red tape can be pared back - speeding decisions, reducing consultant bills, and lowering compliance overhead for businesses that work with government (NextGov inside look at Virginia's AI-driven regulatory pilot and Vulcan Technologies).

The tool is designed to recommend edits and surface priorities, while agency staff remain the final arbiter - so cost‑cutting happens with human oversight and legal review.

“The ‘Virginia Model' has become the gold standard for regulatory reform nationwide…leveraging artificial intelligence technology to supercharge regulatory streamlining work,” said Reeve Bull, Director, Office of Regulatory Management.

Keeping humans in the loop is baked into Virginia's AI playbook: Executive Order 30, signed January 18, 2024, charges the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) with AI Policy and IT Standards, education guidelines, law‑enforcement rules, and an AI Task Force, and it explicitly extends expectations to third‑party vendors and contractors; the governor's announcement also earmarked $600,000 for state AI pilots to test these safeguards (Virginia Governor EO 30 AI executive order press release).

The standards require agencies to justify AI as the optimal tool for positive citizen outcomes, document model‑level details (inputs, outputs, algorithms, datasets), add mandatory disclaimers when AI affects people or businesses, and prioritize data minimization, accuracy controls, and lifecycle TEVV (test, evaluation, verification, validation) informed by NIST guidance - measures designed so humans remain the final arbiter even as workflows automate more tasks (Woods Rogers overview of Virginia AI Executive Order 30).

For government companies in Virginia Beach, that means any AI deployment for permitting, flood response, or citizen services must pass both technical and human‑oversight gates before reaching production.

“This might be a reminder to us all that as we're dealing with this technology that we always, always, always keep humans in the loop,” said Del. Cliff Hayes.

Vulcan Technologies - a scrappy startup that won Virginia's pioneering agentic‑AI contract - is a live case study in how small teams can move fast on big government problems: backed by Y Combinator and praised after taking first place at a YC preview day, Vulcan undercut firms like Deloitte by “a factor of 10” to land the Commonwealth work and is deploying an “Intelligent Legal Ontology Engine” that centralizes statutes, regulations and case law into a single database while using an agentic scraper to spot additions, deletions and contradictions; a concrete example the team cites is catching when a statute sets a $200 fine but an agency is actually enforcing $300, a discrepancy the system flags so staff can act quickly.

Leaders say the tool aims to cut reliance on consultants, speed implementation of elected policy, and scale to other states - read NextGov's inside look for more context and see Vulcan's news on the contract and YC milestones for background.

“the tool can implement policy goals instantly by enabling elected officials to actualize the public will and bypass delays, consultants, lawyers, and red tape.”

Virginia's experiment with agentic AI has become a national signal flare: statehouses and even federal efficiency offices are watching how a lean, YC‑backed team like Vulcan can centralize statutes, spot mismatches, and undercut traditional consulting costs to speed policy implementation, and some are now building their own versions of the playbook.

Policymakers in other states are “striking out on their own” to write their own AI rules and governance programs rather than wait for federal action (SC Daily Gazette coverage of states creating AI privacy regulation), while procurement and reform groups are openly consulting with Virginia vendors - South Carolina's DOGE, for example, plans a fall launch of a statute‑reading tool and has tapped advisors who worked on Virginia's rollout (NextGov inside look at Virginia's AI-driven pilot).

At the same time, states are formalizing AI inventories, risk frameworks and oversight programs so deployments scale with guardrails in place (Forvis Mazars article on state AI governance programs), meaning Virginia's model is influencing both the tech vendors bidding for government work and the legal checks new adopters insist on - so what began as a Commonwealth pilot now reads like a template other governments can copy, audit, and improve, with the memorable image of scripts of law being parsed in minutes instead of months driving home the “so what?” of faster, cheaper public administration.

“the tool can implement policy goals instantly by enabling elected officials to actualize the public will and bypass delays, consultants, lawyers, and red tape.”

Government contractors and vendors in Virginia Beach should start small and strategic: first take an inventory and assess current AI maturity so goals map to real needs - see the Virginia Beach Information Technology departmental performance plans for AI maturity assessment and roadmap guidance (Virginia Beach Information Technology departmental performance plans (AI maturity guidance)).

Next, pilot with proven local assets rather than inventing from scratch - plug models into the city's FloodVISION‑AI and StormSense network (4K infrared cameras deployed in 2022 at Pinewood Road and 32nd Street translate night‑time images into near‑real‑time water depths and lower sensor costs while feeding VIMS and the USGS NWIS) to validate accuracy and integration patterns (see Virginia Beach FloodVISION‑AI program details and StormSense integration Virginia Beach FloodVISION‑AI program details and StormSense integration).

Build clear success metrics up front, measure and evaluate continuously, and codify lessons into the AI roadmap; for teams that want a step‑by‑step adoption checklist, Virginia Beach's municipal guides and downloadable roadmaps offer practical next steps to move from pilot to production.

Virginia Beach faces real, tangible risks as municipal AI systems scale: chief among them is algorithmic discrimination in consequential areas like hiring, housing, or benefits, plus legal uncertainty about what counts as a “high‑risk” system and who bears responsibility if things go wrong - concerns Virginia's legislature tried to address with the High‑Risk AI Developer and Deployer Act (H.B. 2094) that would impose duty‑of‑care rules, impact assessments, and documentation requirements for developers and deployers (Virginia High‑Risk AI Developer and Deployer Act (H.B. 2094) summary).

At the same time, the Commonwealth has layered human‑in‑the‑loop expectations into policy with Executive Order 30 and VITA's AI standards, and it points teams toward NIST/ISO risk frameworks as a practical compliance path (Virginia Executive Order 30 and VITA AI standards overview).

That mix - technical guardrails, documented impact assessments, and explicit oversight - aims to turn a vivid fear (a biased decision affecting someone's life) into a traceable audit trail; the legal landscape remains fluid (the bill was later vetoed), so Virginia Beach is prioritizing conservative risk management, clear consumer notices, and alignment with recognized standards while pilots continue.

Virginia's next chapter will hinge on keeping momentum and pairing ambition with guardrails: Executive Order 51's first‑in‑the‑nation agentic AI pilot and the new Virginia Has Jobs AI Career Launch Pad show how Richmond is marrying operational gains with workforce development, while lawmakers are actively weighing benefits and risks - from streamlined regulations to the policy questions raised by chatbots (Virginia Executive Order 51 agentic AI regulatory pilot, Virginia Has Jobs AI Career Launch Pad announcement, Virginia Mercury coverage of chatbot risks and oversight).

For government companies in Virginia Beach, that means scaling pilots that demonstrably save time and money while investing in people who can govern, validate, and operate those systems; practical training - like bootcamps focused on workplace AI and promptcraft - becomes the bridge from promising prototype to trusted production, helping public‑sector teams turn AI's speed into reliable service without losing human control.

“This might be a reminder to us all that as we're dealing with this technology that we always, always, always keep humans in the loop,” said Del. Cliff Hayes.