July 21, 2026

Common Sense at BRIDGES 2026: Scaling AI Inside a Government Agency

Adam and Spencer traveled to New York City for BRIDGES: The Public Sector AI Summit, hosted by Starbridge. Andrew Ngui, Chief Digital Officer of Kansas City, moderated a panel bringing together practitioners from across the public sector to discuss what it takes to move AI from pilot to production inside a government agency.

Joining Adam on the panel were Jonathan Williams-Kinsel, CIO of the City of Long Beach; Jesse Marks, Governor's Deputy Chief of Staff for State Agency Operations and Cabinet Affairs for the State of Colorado; and Louis Svehla, Director of Communications for Peachtree Corners. The conversation covered how agencies can build toward resident outcomes, the gap between AI pilots and production-ready systems, and why real transformation requires vendors who understand the complexity agencies are actually navigating. Adam pushed the group to look beyond AI theater and isolated solutions, arguing that end-to-end transformation requires close partnership and vendors willing to engage with the full complexity of what agencies are managing.