When Michigan released its statewide AI and the Workforce Plan in May, it checked all the right boxes: future-of-work planning, equity considerations, industry alignment, and even ethical AI guidelines. What it didn’t do was check the mailbox at the county clerk’s office, or the township hall, or the city assessor’s desk.
Local governments were conspicuously absent from both the document and the planning table. Whether this exclusion was by design or oversight is unclear. What is clear is that this gap leaves the majority of public-facing services unprepared for a transformation that’s already underway. It’s in county offices, city halls, and township buildings where AI will either improve public services or quietly distort them, not in some Lansing policy room. In rural counties especially, local government represents a significant portion of the workforce that the state’s plan intends to prepare for an AI-driven economy.
As Director of the Digital Information Department for two rural counties, I see both the opportunity and the gap daily. State-level conversations about AI are advancing rapidly while local government struggles to keep pace. The challenge isn’t just that we’ll be left behind. It’s that we’ll be pulled along without the tools, training, or guardrails to use this technology responsibly.
Building Solutions from the Ground Up
That’s why we are launching DICE: the Digital Innovation Collaborative Exchange. It’s a grassroots shared-services initiative grounded in rural Southwest Michigan, designed to help local governments implement AI, automation, data analytics, digital communications, and GIS services now, not five years from now. DICE currently includes Van Buren and St. Joseph Counties but is designed for inclusion of other entities that want to collaborate rather than go it alone. We’ve decided not to wait for a miracle grant or a vendor sales pitch. Instead, we’re building a regional structure that can deploy smart tools responsibly, train staff critically, and provide services efficiently across jurisdictional lines.
We aren’t theorizing about this work. We’re automating workflows, training staff on AI tools, building shared websites, deploying analytics dashboards, and developing virtual communication assistants. These implementations are happening now, and each one generates both measurable savings and identifiable risks that policymakers focused on AI governance need to understand.
The Hidden Dangers of Uncritical AI Adoption
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: AI is already influencing decisions in local government, whether leaders realize it or not. In Van Buren County, we track AI staff access and usage weekly. The data reveals that 60-70% of our knowledge-based workers are already accessing generative AI sites regularly. Without proper training and critical wise-use protocols, this widespread adoption represents a significant risk to sound public decision-making.
Systems like ChatGPT and Gemini are trained not just to be useful, but to be agreeable. They’re optimized to sound confident and accommodating. The result is tools that can mislead staff, reinforce biases, and provide only comfortable portions of complex truths. When used without proper training, they don’t democratize access to insight. Instead, they create algorithmic echo chambers that flatter rather than inform. This represents a problematic foundation for public decision-making that affects real people’s lives.
This isn’t an argument for banning AI from local government. It’s a case for equipping local government with the policies, training, and shared resources to use it responsibly. That’s the DICE model: affordable, regional, human-centered modernization that prioritizes public service over profit.
What Michigan Can Do
So if Michigan is serious about building an equitable AI future, here’s what it can do:
Support regional collaboratives like DICE that serve local governments directly. These partnerships can pool resources, share expertise, and implement solutions at a scale that individual municipalities can’t achieve alone.
Include local government in the AI workforce planning strategy, not just universities and state agencies. Local governments employ thousands of Michigan workers who need AI literacy training and support. These public sector workers are often the first point of contact for the businesses and residents that the state’s AI strategy is designed to serve, making their readiness essential to the plan’s overall success.
Support AI literacy and critical use training as a basic element of public service education. We’re already implementing comprehensive AI literacy training that shows our staff how to best use AI, when to use it, and most importantly, when not to use it. This isn’t theoretical training but practical guidance based on real-world usage patterns. Public servants need to understand not just how to use AI tools, but when to avoid them and how to verify their outputs.
The Time for Action is Now
We don’t need another roundtable. We need field-tested implementation support. We need a strategy that recognizes that the future of AI in public service is being shaped in every county office, every city department, and every township board, not just in state capitals or corporate labs.
The state’s AI plan projects $70 billion in economic impact and 130,000 new jobs. But those benefits won’t materialize if local governments, which deliver most direct public services, are unprepared to participate in this transformation.
Let’s make sure those governments aren’t left behind by the algorithm. Let’s give them a seat at the table before it’s too late.