{"id":175437,"date":"2026-01-07T18:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/07\/caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T18:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:35:10","slug":"caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/07\/caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"Caltrans Officials, Early AI Users, Look to Expand Adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption\">Caltrans Officials, Early AI Users, Look to Expand Adoption<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption\">https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-01-07 18:23:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.govtech.com\">www.govtech.com<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is committed to expanding its use of generative AI after initial successful pilots.<\/li>\n<li>Marcie Kahbody, Deputy Secretary of Technology for CalSTA and Caltrans&#8217; CIO, emphasized the comprehensive effort to integrate AI, likening it to learning to swim in the ocean due to the department\u2019s extensive data management needs.<\/li>\n<li>Kahbody highlighted the creation of the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) position, previously held by Dara Wheeler, to oversee policy, governance, and cohesiveness in AI initiatives.<\/li>\n<li>Despite early pushback and reluctance, Caltrans&#8217; proof-of-concept projects and consistent engagement helped demonstrate AI&#8217;s value, leading to broader adoption.<\/li>\n<li>Recently, 18,000 out of 23,000 Caltrans employees received access to Microsoft Copilot, up from an initial pilot involving only 100 people. There&#8217;s been a reported saving of about two and a half hours a week using the AI tool.<\/li>\n<li>CalSTA Secretary Toks Omishakin has tasked the department with creating a GIS data hub to streamline data access across various agencies under the CalSTA umbrella, focusing initially on work zone safety.<\/li>\n<li>The department is also developing an internal chatbot to facilitate navigation through the multitude of internal websites Caltrans staff use.<\/li>\n<li>The adoption of these AI solutions is dependent on collaboration and insights from industry partners, focusing on practical applications and problem-solving.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caltrans Officials, Early AI Users, Look to Expand Adoption https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/caltrans-officials-early-ai-users-look-to-expand-adoption Publish Date: 2026-01-07 18:23:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":175438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/erepublic.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/e8c4626\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1000x486+0+90\/resize\/1440x700!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ferepublic-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F0c%2F8d%2F8662c77342eeb665fa3076adbd9c%2Fshutterstock-1998201926.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20,19],"class_list":["post-175437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-generative-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175439,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175437\/revisions\/175439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}