Research to Practice Brief Series

With the range of artificial intelligence (AI) tools under development for government comes varying viewpoints among government leaders. We administered a brief survey to a cross-section of New York municipal leaders to better understand their views on AI. We report on survey data from 52 leaders from across New York State, a large share representing rural towns and villages. Our analysis suggests that many municipal governments are already using consumer AI tools. We also find that openness to AI tools within municipal government may depend on the modality of use. Municipal leaders expressed moderate comfortability with using AI to provide information and access and greatly diminished comfortability with deploying AI within democratic processes of governance. We call for further research and collaboration with rural jurisdictions on AI to further inclusive technological design.