House Communications & Technology Committee discusses Pennsylvania’s AI Pilot Program, a first in the nation
Rep. Joseph Ciresi May 9, 2025 | 11:49 AM
HARRISBURG, May 9 – The newly formed House Communications & Technology Committee today held an informational meeting with Governor’s Office of Administration Emerging Technologies Director Harrison MacRae on Pennsylvania’s first-in-the-nation program with OpenAI, exploring how artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT could enhance productivity and improve customer service to the commonwealth’s residents.
“It’s clear that AI is going to have a significant impact on Pennsylvanians’ lives and thanks to this first-in-the-nation collaboration between the commonwealth and Open AI, we’ve learned key lessons about how integrating AI into the workplace will empower employees,” committee Chair Joe Ciresi, D-Montgomery, said. “It’s both clear from the testimony today that AI can enhance employee performance in improving outcomes and operations, but is no replacement for employee experience and judgement, which are needed to evaluate and refine ChatGPT’s output.”
Following the September 2023 Shapiro Executive Order that established a comprehensive framework for AI governance in Pennsylvania, the commonwealth in January 2024 launched a year-long pilot program with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise to explore the benefits of generative AI in the workplace. The Office of Administration collaborated with leading generative AI experts and researchers from Carnegie Mellon University Block Center for Technology and Society throughout the pilot.
Throughout the program, 175 commonwealth employees used ChatGPT for various tasks, including: research, summarizing information, coding/Excel, problem solving, image generation and writing assistance.
“The pilot gave us valuable insights that we are using to guide further exploration and adoption of generative AI tools,” MacRae said. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate with state employees to understand how gen AI can help them be more productive and efficient in their work serving the people of Pennsylvania.”
According to MacRae’s testimony, participants’ positive experiences with ChatGPT included improving their final work product, reducing task complexity and decreasing the time spent on tasks. The participants’ negative experiences included struggling with generating images, citing sources and extracting information from PDFs.
The pilot program concluded in March 2025, with the plan to continue to refine and expand AI integration in government operations.
“This meeting is the first of many that this committee will have on AI this session, and I look forward to learning about the challenges and opportunities that AI brings with it,” Ciresi said. “It’s clear that artificial intelligence will eventually have a significant impact on both our lives and how government operates, and the insights gained from this pilot program will be of great help to our committee as we tackle this important issue of AI.”