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San Jose Mayor bets on ChatGPT, pushes AI adoption with speeches and surveillance
Mayor Mahan is leading by example. He openly admits to using ChatGPT for speechwriting and budget prep. His philosophy: "Be transparent, try new things, and fix what doesn’t work."
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In a bold move to modernise public services, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is championing the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools in day-to-day city governance. His message is clear: embrace AI not to replace public workers, but to eliminate drudge work and elevate the quality of services for the city’s 1 million residents.
AI writing speeches
The city has already invested $35,000 on 89 ChatGPT licenses and is in the process of training 1,000 employees — nearly 15% of its workforce — to leverage AI in their roles. The applications are wide-ranging - drafting speeches and budget documents, responding to resident complaints, optimising bus routes, assisting with criminal investigations using vehicle-tracking cameras, reported AP news.
Mayor Mahan is leading by example. He openly admits to using ChatGPT for speechwriting and budget prep. His philosophy: "Be transparent, try new things, and fix what doesn’t work."
“You still need a human being in the loop,” Mahan cautions. “You can’t just kind of press a couple of buttons and trust the output.”
The initiative is already delivering results. Andrea Arjona Amador, head of San Jose’s electric mobility programs, used ChatGPT to draft a 20-page grant application that ultimately secured $12 million for EV chargers. The AI tool helped her synthesise large volumes of data and streamline her writing process.
Growing Trend
San Jose has so far avoided the pitfalls other governments have experienced — such as AI “hallucinations” that produced false information, in some cases leading to resignations. Mahan stresses the importance of human oversight, not blind automation.
The trend is catching on. Across the bay, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie recently announced plans to give 30,000 city workers access to Microsoft Copilot.
As public sector AI adoption grows, San Jose's experiment may well become a blueprint for other cities — combining innovation with guardrails and a transparent mindset.
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