TLDR: The Los Angeles city government is rolling out Google’s generative AI business tools to 27,500 computer-using staff. This initiative, announced on October 29, 2025, aims to revolutionize public communication by simplifying website content and offering multilingual support, while also enhancing internal productivity through automation of routine tasks. City CIO Ted Ross emphasized the necessity for all relevant employees to become proficient in AI technologies.
On Wednesday, October 29, 2025, the Los Angeles city government made a significant announcement regarding its technological advancement: all 27,500 of its computer-using staff will begin integrating Google’s generative AI business tools into their daily operations. This move, according to Ted Ross, the city’s chief information officer, was an inevitable progression. “We were always planning to expand and go big with it,” Ross stated in a video interview from a Google event in Washington, D.C. He further elaborated on the transformative potential, asserting, “In LA, I think it’s quite clear, AI is going to transform everyone’s work. So we need everyone to be fluent, we need everyone to be familiar, we need everyone to utilize these tools, because it will affect accountants and managers and analysts and secretaries, you name it.”
The city’s decision follows a successful small-scale pilot project where approximately 100 city staff tested Google Workspace with Gemini. Initial plans for the widespread adoption of this productivity suite focus on two primary areas: enhancing communication with residents and boosting internal worker productivity. Specifically, the city intends to leverage AI to rewrite website copy to a ‘ninth-grade level’ for improved clarity and to deliver content in various foreign languages, addressing the linguistic diversity of Los Angeles where over 200 languages are spoken. For internal operations, generative AI is expected to automate repetitive or text-heavy tasks, such as identifying funding opportunities by searching through grant documents.
While the city is optimistic about the broad applications of this technology, Ross also highlighted a clear boundary, stating his disinterest in using facial recognition for public safety purposes. The current training and digital offerings are exclusively for staff who regularly use digital devices, not the entire city workforce of approximately 50,000 employees.
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This initiative mirrors similar efforts in other states, such as Maryland. Katie Maffeo, CIO of the Maryland Department of Information Technology, shared an example where their state utilized Gemini tools to resolve a project management issue for clean water programs in just five weeks, a task that a vendor had quoted at $400,000 and an eight-month completion time. Both Los Angeles and Maryland underscore the critical role of training in their AI strategies, with Maryland hosting ‘office hours’ and ‘community of practice’ virtual meetings that have seen participation grow to about 150 attendees.
