Artificial Intelligence [AI] education and training now available to New York State's workforce

On April 6, 2026, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) education and training to the entire New York State workforce, fulfilling a bold and forward-looking 2025 State of the State pledge that ensures over 100,000 state employees can use AI responsibly to better serve New Yorkers. This expansion makes New York the largest state in the nation to securely provide this emerging technology to its entire state workforce.

“We are putting New York at the forefront of the AI revolution, ensuring that the journey forward is safe and responsible,” Governor Hochul said. “I’m excited to fulfill our vision of embracing innovation, upskilling our employees and better serving New Yorkers.”

Today’s action builds upon the success of the recently completed AI training pilot program managed by the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS), which extended AI training and AI Pro, a secure generative AI assistant tool, to more than 1,200 users across eight state agencies.

Pilot results revealed:

• 75 percent of pilot participants saved time using AI Pro
• 90 percent felt their understanding of AI improved following the pilot program
• Participants generated over 170,000 prompts during the pilot period
• 86 percent of users want to continue using AI Pro after the pilot

AI training is offered to state employees in partnership with InnovateUS, an online platform governed by a coalition of public sector learning and innovation leaders. InnovateUS has trained over 200,000 public sector learners across 50 states and cities and in 80 countries. The two-part training is specifically designed to teach NYS employees about responsible AI use as a public sector employee.

Accompanying the training is the AI Pro generative AI assistant, developed by ITS and powered by Google Gemini, which will provide State employees with a secure environment to hone their AI skills, and unlock ideas about how AI could help agencies problem-solve and deliver even more for New York.

 

These new AI training resources, including the AI Pro tool, will be provided to the 50+ state agencies and entities ITS supports, while the AI training will be offered to all state workers. Responsible AI training will be required for agencies that elect to use AI Pro.

 

New York State Chief Information Officer and Director of ITS Dru Rai said, “Governor Hochul has been a national leader without peer when it comes to leveraging technology to enhance productivity in government, improve service delivery and create efficiencies so state agencies can better serve the public. We are thankful to have incredible support for this groundbreaking initiative and know that responsible AI will bring us limitless possibilities to enact positive change, while giving our employees an opportunity to grow their own skills for the future.”

 

InnovateUS Founder Beth Noveck said, “By equipping its workforce with practical AI and digital skills through InnovateUS, New York will be positioned to deliver better, more efficient and responsive services for its residents. At InnovateUS, we look forward to continuing to support Governor Hochul and our New York partners to harness the potential of AI to serve the public.”

 

Google Public Sector Customer Engineering Managing Director Elizabeth Moon said, “Equipping New York State employees with both the skills and tools to use AI responsibly is critical to unlocking this technology's potential to drive efficiency and innovation, enabling the public sector workforce to better serve New Yorkers. ITS's AI Pro, powered by Gemini, underscores Google Public Sector's commitment to supporting New York State’s digital transformation. We applaud Governor Hochul’s focus on setting an example for how government can embrace technology to build a better future.”

 

Assemblymember Steve Otis said, “Governor Hochul’s announcement today marks a vitally important next step to advancing responsible and knowledgeable use of AI tools by state agencies. Artificial intelligence tools bring great benefits and risks. Providing training programs will help support state employees and provide a framework for quality control protections essential to responsible AI use. Governor Hochul, the Legislature, and our team at the Office of Technology Services continue to make keeping up with the evolution of AI a priority.”

 

Praise for the AI Training Pilot Program

Last Fall at the Governor’s direction, ITS initiated an expansive AI training pilot program with more than 1,200 participants across eight state agencies, including the Department of Labor (DOL), the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES), the Department of Health (DOH), NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR), the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), the Office of General Services (OGS), the Division of Human Rights (DHR) and the Division of the Budget (DOB).

 

Participants represented a range of roles and professional experience levels, including workers from administrative, communications, policy, legal, service delivery, operations and technical functions. 41 percent of pilot users entered the pilot program with no prior experience using generative AI tools, and 87 percent of users had received no prior training in generative AI. Overall confidence using generative AI rose by 36 percent following the pilot program.

 

Pilot participants outlined numerous cases where AI Pro streamlined their work and facilitated decision-making, including crafting executive summaries and policy briefs, translating complex topics into easily digestible language, summarizing large reports and consolidating duplicative documents, and facilitating the creation of data dashboards, among other uses. Throughout the pilot and with all uses of AI Pro, careful human oversight was emphasized.

 

Users found that using AI Pro often allowed them to spend more time focusing on high-level, complex, and high value tasks.

 

Governor Hochul’s Innovation Agenda

Governor Hochul’s commitment to advancing New York’s leadership in AI builds on her broader agenda to expand cutting-edge technology development in the Empire State. Governor Hochul launched the historic Empire AI initiative, a $500 million partnership of New York’s leading public and private universities who have come together to establish a state-of-the-art AI computing center at SUNY’s University at Buffalo. Empire AI is already facilitating statewide innovation, research, and development of AI technologies.

The recently completed AI Training pilot was part of a series of initiatives announced as part of the Governor’s 2025 State of the State to ensure equitable growth of the AI industry in New York, including training students for AI-enabled jobs, funding NY AI startups, supporting small businesses with AI adoption and tracking the potential impact of new technologies on the workforce. These programs followed recommendations released by the Governor’s Emerging Technology Advisory Board, co-chaired by IBM CEO Arvind Krishna and Girls Who Code CEO Dr. Tarika Barrett.

 

At the Governor’s direction, ITS wrote and issued the first-ever statewide policy, Acceptable Use of AI Technologies, which now serves as a roadmap for state agencies to adopt AI thoughtfully, safely and responsibly, while optimizing efficiencies and delivering quicker and better results for their constituents.

 

Most recently, Governor Hochul launched the FutureWorks Commission to advise on policy and private sector interventions which protect the economic security of workers while harnessing the economic benefits of AI. The Commission will work to identify real-time data strategies for monitoring AI’s impact, and identify policy and private sector interventions to ensure New York’s workers, families and small businesses, not just large corporations, stand to gain from the potential benefits of AI.

 

The Governor’s innovation agenda has catalyzed major public and private investments, transforming New York’s economy and creating good-paying jobs of the future. GlobalFoundries recently announced an $11.6 billion investment to expand its chip manufacturing campus in New York’s Capital Region, creating 1,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs. In 2022, Micron announced a 20-year, $100 billion investment to create a megafab campus in Central New York, creating 50,000 new direct and indirect jobs and unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars in community benefits.

 

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Administrative Law Judge recommended that the appointing authority terminate an employee found to have falsified an entry into the patient’s medical records.

New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings Administrative Law Judge [ALJ] Astrid B. Gloade recommended termination of employment of a respiratory therapist [Respondent] who left a patient’s ventilator on standby mode for 30 minutes, thereby depriving the patient of oxygen, and then falsified the entry in the patient’s medical records concerning the event. 

The employer [Appointing Authority] alleged that the Respondent had engaged in misconduct by failing to switch a patient’s bedside ventilator from “standby” to “active” mode and then made a false entry in the patient's medial record.

Noting that Respondent admitted in a written statement that she failed to switch the patient’s ventilator from standby to active, the ALJ found that Respondent’s action constituted misconduct. 

Respondent also failed to offer any evidence to rebut the Appointing Authority's allegation that she falsified the information reported on the patient's ventilation flow sheet. Accordingly, Judge Gloade found that the Appointing Authority had established that Respondent had knowingly misrepresented her activities with respect to the event. 

Although Respondent was a long-time employee and had no prior disciplinary history, the ALJ determined the termination was the appropriate penalty "given the egregious nature of the proven misconduct" and Appointing Authority’s significant interests in providing competent care to patients and ensuring the accuracy of patient records.

Click HERE to access Judge Gloade findings and the penalty recommended be imposed by the Appointing Authority.

Deceased employee estate denied representation and indemnification by the employer because the individual's actions were not undertaken as part of his regular duties

In this CPLR Article 78 action Petitioners challenged the determination of the Orange County Executive that the Estate of a deceased Orange County, New York employee [Deceased] was not entitled to defense or indemnification by the County in an action pending in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York.

The County Executive's found that the Decease's acts did not involve the performance of his "regular duties", a determination that was sustained by Supreme Court, Orange County. Petitioners then appealed the Supreme Court's ruling.

The Appellate Division said the issue of whether a county employee's act was "committed within the scope of his [or her] public employment and the discharge of his [or her] duties" is a factual question. In the words of the Court, "Orange County Local Law 3 provides that the determination as to whether a County employee was so acting and, thus is entitled to defense and indemnification, is to be made in the first instance by the County Executive."

The Appellate Division then noted that County Executive's "determination may be set aside only if it lacks a factual basis, and in that sense, is arbitrary and capricious".

In the instant action Appellate Division found that the County Executive's determination that the Deceased was not acting within the scope of his employment or duties with the Office of the Orange County District Attorney [OCDA] in connection with his conduct alleged in the federal action. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the Estate was not entitled to be "defended and indemnified" by the County.

In particular, the Appellate Division said the County Executive "rationally based his determination on the allegations of the complaint in the federal action and in the underlying federal indictment demonstrating that [the Deceased's] actions in investigating and prosecuting ... were not undertaken as part of [the Deceased's] normal duties as an OCDA prosecutor but rather were undertaken in connection with an illegal bribery scheme carried out with his friend ... purely for personal purposes, and which was actively concealed from the OCDA".

Click HERE to access the Appellate Division's decision posted on the Internet.

Selected items posted on the Internet during the week ending April 3, 2026

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New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli released the following State Government Accountability audits

Audits of the New York State Departments and Agencies listed below were posted on the Internet by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli on April 2, 2026.

Click on the text highlighted in color to access these audits.

Department of Health – Medicaid Program: Managed Care Payments to Unenrolled Providers (Follow-Up) (2025-F-21)

The 21st Century Cures Act mandated that managed care in-network providers, with certain exceptions, enroll as participating providers in the state Medicaid program by January 1, 2018. Through the screening and provider enrollment process, the Department of Health (DOH) gains some assurance of providers’ validity to provide Medicaid services. A prior audit, issued in June 2024, found that DOH did not monitor encounter claims to identify inappropriate managed care payments to providers who were not enrolled in Medicaid and found weaknesses in controls that led to over $1.5 billion in improper and questionable payments. DOH officials made some progress in addressing the problems identified in the initial audit report. Of the initial report’s 10 audit recommendations, two were implemented, five were partially implemented, and three were not implemented.

Department of Health – Medicaid Program: Recovering Managed Care Payments for Inpatient Services on Behalf of Recipients With Third-Party Health Insurance (Follow-Up) (2025-F-10)

The Department of Health (DOH) uses post-payment reviews to identify when a third-party health insurance (TPHI) carrier may be responsible for payments for services originally paid by Medicaid. The Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG) contracted with Health Management Systems, Inc. (a Gainwell Technologies company [Gainwell]), to perform these reviews and to pursue recoveries from TPHI carriers or providers. A prior audit, issued in September 2023, determined that DOH and OMIG lacked adequate oversight of the third-party liability recovery process. Gainwell had not billed TPHI carriers for the recovery of about $52.2 million in inpatient encounter claims that Medicaid managed care organizations paid as the primary insurance for recipients who, according to eMedNY (DOH’s Medicaid claims processing and payment system), had TPHI inpatient coverage. DOH and OMIG officials made minimal progress in addressing the problems identified in the initial audit report. Of the initial report’s eight audit recommendations, two were implemented, two were partially implemented, and four were not implemented.

Department of Health – Medicaid Program: Medicaid Payments for Early Refills of Prescription Drugs and Supplies (2024-S-16)

Through NYRx, New York State Medicaid’s Pharmacy program, the Department of Health (DOH) pays pharmacies directly for medically necessary prescription drugs and supplies provided to Medicaid members. Early refills are refills on prescriptions before the previous supply has been fully used. For the period from April 2023 through October 2024, auditors identified over 3.6 million claims totaling approximately $585.2 million for drugs and supplies refilled too early. While many claims were filled just a few days earlier than allowed by policy, nearly 43% of the findings had 20 or more excess supply days. Auditors identified multiple weaknesses in DOH’s edit logic that allowed these claims to be paid despite meeting DOH’s criteria for denial.

Department of Health – Medicaid Program: Claims Processing Activity October 1, 2024 Through March 31, 2025 (2024-S-26)

During the 6-month period ended March 31, 2025, the Department of Health’s (DOH) claims processing system, eMedNY, processed over 328 million Medicaid claims, resulting in payments to providers of over $46 billion. Auditors identified over $13.8 million in improper Medicaid payments. As a result of the audit, more than $3.4 million of the improper payments was recovered. The audit also identified 14 Medicaid providers who were charged with or found guilty of crimes that violated laws or regulations governing certain health care programs. In response to these findings, DOH removed 13 providers from the Medicaid program and was reviewing the ownership status of the remaining provider.

Homes and Community Renewal – Division of Housing and Community Renewal: Physical and Financial Conditions at Selected Mitchell-Lama Developments Located Outside New York City (Follow-Up) (2025-F-18)

The Mitchell-Lama Housing program was created to provide affordable rental and cooperative housing to middle-income families. A prior audit, issued in December 2023, found the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) did not adequately oversee the physical and financial conditions at the sampled developments. Management at those developments misspent funds and failed to provide a safe and clean living environment for the residents. Auditors identified issues with 164 transactions totaling $327,363 and, at two of five sampled developments, observed hazardous conditions such as water-damaged ceilings and rusty, loose railings. DHCR officials made some progress in addressing the problems identified in the initial audit report, implementing one audit recommendation, partially implementing four, and not implementing two.

Homes and Community Renewal – Division of Housing and Community Renewal: Physical and Financial Conditions at Selected Mitchell-Lama Developments Located Outside New York City – Sunnyside Manor: Unauthorized Bank Account (Follow-Up) (2024-F-24)

The Mitchell-Lama Housing program was created to provide affordable rental and cooperative housing to middle-income families. A prior audit, issued in July 2024, found that Sunnyside Manor’s Board held a checking account separate from the development’s operating account, with a balance of $14,888 as of March 31, 2022. Bank statements for the Board-held account showed numerous questionable debit card transactions. This Board-held account was not included on Sunnyside Manor’s general ledger and audited financial statements and appears to have received limited oversight. Division of Housing and Community Renewal officials have made progress in addressing the issues identified in the initial audit report. Of the initial report’s three audit recommendations, two were implemented and one was partially implemented.

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