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

As Winston‑Salem government companies look to cut costs and boost efficiency, North Carolina's state pilot with OpenAI offers a nearby blueprint: the 12‑week program used ChatGPT with public data to find unclaimed property and speed up financial reviews (North Carolina Treasurer AI pilot announcement).

Local reporting showed about a 10% productivity bump and dramatic time savings - some 20‑minute tasks completed in 20 seconds - illustrating concrete “so what?” benefits for municipal workflows (WRAL report on NC AI pilot productivity).

The pilot stressed strict limits on private data and responsible use, guidance Winston‑Salem agencies can adopt while upskilling staff through targeted training like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp: practical AI skills for the workplace, which teaches prompt writing and practical AI skills for day‑to‑day government operations.

“Innovation, particularly around data and technology, will allow our department to deliver better results for North Carolina. I am grateful to our friends at OpenAI for partnering with us on this new endeavor, and I am excited to explore the possibilities ahead.” - Treasurer Brad Briner

North Carolina's statewide push into generative AI - led by the Department of State Treasurer's 12‑week pilot with OpenAI - offers a practical template Winston‑Salem agencies can study and adapt: the March announcement lays out goals like using ChatGPT with public records to spot unclaimed property and analyze local government financial data (North Carolina Treasurer OpenAI pilot announcement), and an independent evaluation released in August documented clear wins such as an early ~10% productivity bump, average daily time savings of 30–60+ minutes, and dramatic examples like 20‑minute tasks completed in 20 seconds (North Carolina Treasurer OpenAI pilot report and evaluation summary).

For Winston‑Salem municipal teams the “so what?” is immediate: recoverable assets, faster audits and clearer public communications - provided strict privacy limits and staff training are baked into any rollout.

“Innovation, particularly around data and technology, will allow our department to deliver better results for North Carolina. I am grateful to our friends at OpenAI for partnering with us on this new endeavor, and I am excited to explore the possibilities ahead.” - Treasurer Brad Briner

Winston‑Salem doesn't need to start from scratch - nearby communities and counties are already piloting practical tools that save staff time and improve resident service: Wake County's AI playbook highlights 24/7 AI‑powered chatbots and university partnerships to embed AI across health, education and public services (Wake County AI playbook (WRAL)), while the Town of Morrisville pairs a formal Smart Morrisville plan with an active open‑data program that handles nearly 82,000 annual API calls across 16 datasets to streamline information access for both citizens and employees (Morrisville open data program success story (OpenDataSoft) and Town of Morrisville Smart Morrisville plan (official site)).

Regional summits and panels reinforce one clear play: combine chatbots, shared open datasets, and vendor/community partnerships so Winston‑Salem can reduce routine phone and email volume, speed audits and free staff for higher‑value work - a practical, low‑risk path from proven pilots to local impact, not abstract hype.

“We want to use technology to enhance the lives of our citizens and the performance of our staff. That means becoming a data-driven, community-focused town. Data will drive everything in the future, so we want to make it available for everyone to use.” - Billy Whitehead, Smart City Program Manager

Winston‑Salem government teams can realize quick wins by applying proven AI patterns already used across North Carolina: deploy generative‑AI chatbots like the NCDES “Felix” to give 24/7, step‑by‑step help for claim filers and cut routine call volume (NCDES Felix generative AI chatbot press release); automate intelligent document processing and completeness checking to ensure permit applications, benefit claims or invoices arrive ready for review (AI excels at verifying required fields and formats, reducing preventable denials) (AI in care management and claims processing study); and use correspondence engines to draft clear, empathetic letters and notices so staff spend minutes - not tens of minutes - on repetitive writing (one provider's engine drafted over 65,000 determination‑letter sections and cut nurse drafting time from 6:35 to 3:28) (NCDES modernization with generative AI on AWS).

Complement these tools with human‑in‑the‑loop review, strong privacy guardrails, and iterative dashboards so insights from chatbot logs and summaries feed back into simpler forms and faster processes - a single, well‑timed automation can turn a daily bottleneck into a ten‑minute victory for staff and residents alike.

“Using innovative, user-friendly technology in the form of the Felix chatbot, we feel should enhance the user experience and aid in getting unemployment benefits into the hands of our neighbors that deserve them.” - Assistant Secretary M. Antwon Keith

For Winston‑Salem agencies moving from pilot to production, the technical foundation should prioritize layered cloud security and strict data control: deploy models inside a VPC with PrivateLink and VPC endpoints, use security groups to limit traffic, and enforce fine‑grained IAM and resource policies so only approved roles and services access training and inference data; Amazon's Bedrock guidance walks through creating KMS symmetric keys, encrypted S3 buckets, and VPC endpoints for secure fine‑tuning workflows (Amazon Bedrock security best practices for fine-tuning models).

Maintain end‑to‑end encryption (KMS at rest, TLS in transit), monitor jobs and provision throughput only after review, and adopt the AWS public‑sector checklist for public‑safety use cases - Nitro isolation, FIPS‑validated crypto, and CJIS‑friendly architectures - to keep sensitive records segregated and auditable (AWS public safety agencies AI data security guidance).

Think of it as a digital vault the city alone holds the key to: the combination of network isolation, encryption, access control and compliance makes it practical to unlock productivity gains without sacrificing resident privacy or legal obligations.

North Carolina's data‑center boom is both an opportunity and a checklist for Winston‑Salem agencies thinking about AI: the state's mix of tax incentives, growing power infrastructure and renewable commitments makes it attractive to hyperscalers, and major commitments like Amazon's multi‑billion dollar expansion in the state show how quickly capacity can arrive (Amazon North Carolina AI infrastructure investments).

That advantage comes with tradeoffs - hurricanes and local grid strain mean projects must build hardened sites, battery storage and renewable backstops, and denser AI workloads are driving new cooling and power strategies such as liquid cooling and on‑site renewables (Rise of data centers and infrastructure impacts in North Carolina).

The market is tight - dozens of facilities already operate in state and capacity is precious - so colocation options, workforce pipelines and careful demand management matter; North Carolina lists some 87 data centers totaling roughly 772 MW of capacity, a useful planning baseline for municipal IT teams weighing local hosting versus cloud colocation (North Carolina data center market facts from Baxtel).

For Winston‑Salem the practical “so what?” is clear: plan for resilient power and sustainable cooling now, because AI‑scale workloads can mean tens of thousands of GPUs under one roof and a very different energy profile than traditional IT.

“These investments are building the backbone for the next generation of generative and agentic AI. We're combining state-of-the-art infrastructure with long-term regional partnership models to build not just data centers, but economic engines.” - David Zapolsky

Agentic AI offers Winston‑Salem a next step beyond chatbots and scripted automations: systems that break down goals, coordinate across records and tools, and take low‑risk, repeatable actions so staff can focus on judgment‑heavy work - think an autonomous “caseworker” that triages benefit claims, or an agent that scans years of council minutes and assembles a FOIA redaction checklist for human review in minutes, not days (see Sky Solutions' overview of agentic capabilities and Hyland's workshop examples).

These agents promise measurable efficiency gains - faster eligibility checks, continuous regulatory monitoring and faster crisis coordination - but they also expand the attack surface and demand new governance, security and transparency measures, a point underscored by Belfer's policy brief on infrastructure and risk.

For Winston‑Salem teams the practical path is clear: unify and curate data, pilot low‑risk agentic flows with human‑on‑the‑loop controls, and require explainability, audit trails and interruptibility before scaling so productivity wins arrive without sacrificing public trust (Sky Solutions primer on agentic AI capabilities for the public sector, Hyland guide to integrating agentic AI in government workflows, Belfer Center policy brief on agentic AI infrastructure and risk).

“Every customer owns their data, their insights, and being clear about it is super important.” - Rohan Vaidyanathan, Vice President of Content Intelligence, Hyland

For Winston‑Salem to earn and keep public trust while reaping AI's efficiency gains, municipalities and government companies need clear, cross‑functional governance, routine vendor due diligence, and a visible training pipeline so staff move from anxious to capable quickly; practical resources like Winston's seminar on building corporate AI playbooks outline how to form agile governance committees and acceptable‑use rules (From Policy to Practice: Building Corporate AI Playbooks and Workflow - Winston), while Womble Bond Dickinson's “AI Governance Imperative” frames the checklist - risk assessments tied to NIST/OECD standards, human‑in‑the‑loop review, and continuous policy recalibration - that keeps experiments from becoming legal or privacy nightmares (AI Governance Imperative: Risk and Compliance Checklist - Womble Bond Dickinson).

Pair those guardrails with hands‑on workforce development - short workshops like Wake Forest's Implementing AI at Your Organization teach risk, data governance and change‑management skills - and create a prompt and vendor playbook so staff can safely scale day‑to‑day automations; when governance is practical and visible, citizens see faster service without losing control, a tradeoff as tangible as turning a 20‑minute form review into a two‑minute check while keeping the legal and ethical lights on (Implementing AI at Your Organization Workshop - Wake Forest University).

“We're building out our governance and we have a process for assessing AI,” she said. - Christine J. Lee, Chief Privacy Officer, Unilever

Begin with a tight, evidence‑backed sequence: run a short AI opportunity audit to map 3–5 high‑volume tasks and a 90‑day plan (many local consultants recommend a two‑week checkup to surface quick wins), then move a single, measurable workflow into a time‑boxed pilot - mirroring the state Treasurer's 12‑week OpenAI pilot - to prove value and refine privacy guardrails (Winston‑Salem consultant two‑week AI checkup and pilot playbook, North Carolina Treasurer OpenAI 12‑week pilot).

Seek seed support from local research partners - apply for translational awards like Wake Forest's CAIR Collaborative Innovation in AI (up to $40,000 for a 12‑month project) to cover integration and human‑in‑the‑loop tooling - and partner with Winston‑Salem institutions to build inclusive training so staff move from wary to capable (Wake Forest CAIR Collaborative Innovation in AI award details).

Tie each pilot to clear metrics, audit trails and an “interruptibility” checklist so wins scale without surprising residents, turning incremental automation into sustained hours reclaimed for higher‑value public work.

“Artificial intelligence will define not only the future of our workforce, but also how we live and learn.” - WSSU Chancellor Bonita J. Brown

Measuring ROI in Winston‑Salem starts with disciplined, small bets that are easy to track: pick two or three high‑volume workflows, define time and cost baselines, and use a structured cost‑benefit framework - like the McIntyre & Liew ROI model for U.S. AI use cases - to quantify savings and rank priorities (McIntyre & Liew AI Cost‑Benefit ROI Model on SSRN).

Evidence shows organizations with visible AI strategies are far likelier to capture value - Thomson Reuters reports firms with AI plans are twice as likely to see AI‑driven revenue growth and that professionals could save approximately five hours per week on average - so pair measurable pilots with training and governance (Thomson Reuters report on AI adoption and professional impact).

Guard against the common trap of pilot graveyards by treating AI as a transformation challenge - invest in data, change management and cost controls - and accelerate adoption with pragmatic partners and skills programs; for staff who need hands‑on prompt and workflow training, consider Nucamp's practical Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (15‑week practical AI training) to turn early wins into repeatable ROI.

“AI is not just a tech problem, it is a change problem.” - Grace Chin (CDOTrends)