From Vision to Velocity: What I Learned at AFI’s 2025 Vision Council

There are moments in local government when you can feel the ground shift. And not because of a new technology or a shiny building, but because of the people in the room. This past week in McKinney, Texas, at the Alliance for Innovation’s Vision Council, we experienced one of those moments.

An inspiring coalition of leaders came together inside McKinney’s stunning new city hall: city managers, CIOs, procurement innovators, finance directors, futurists, technologists, and partners from across the country (and the ocean!).

The megatrends reshaping life in our communities

Clay Pearson, Interim Director for AFI and Hauson Le, Strategic Foresight Manager, Alliance for Innovation, opened the day with a look at the megatrends reshaping life in our communities. Hauson’ didn’t waste time dressing it up. The world is accelerating, expectations are rising, and the public sector can’t afford to ‘wait and see’ anymore. 

‘Facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions are urgent.’ – Hauson Le, AFI 

The next step is to refocus our efforts on resident-defined cornerstone indicators – connection, belonging, and future confidence – and act on them. He closed by arguing that we can’t go back to normal. We need to use technology to deepen trust, listen before automating, and invite residents to co-create what comes next. 

The issues through a technologist’s lens

Then Dorothy Chou, Director of the Public Engagement Lab at Google Deep Mind, brought a distinct technologist's lens. As AI moves from simple tools to agents that act across workflows, cities must treat it like critical infrastructure and earn confidence through governance. ‘AI itself doesn’t create trust - it's your governance that does,’ she said. She stressed data sovereignty and fairness: cities must own and control their data and design AI for equity with edge-case testing, human oversight, and clear appeals. As she noted, systems that are ‘good on average’ can be catastrophic on the margins, so governance must safeguard both control and fairness.

Cities can act now with cooperative AI contracts

Todd Little, Executive Director, NCTCOG, spoke next. One of the most powerful moments of the whole day was watching Todd talk through the nation’s most comprehensive AI-focused cooperative contracts. He stressed that cities can use these contracts today, without reinventing the wheel for the 20th time. These awards, covering more than 70 use cases, don’t require cities to submit their own RFPs and they have options to procure from local businesses.

Millions of taxpayer dollars – and months of precious time – are wasted when every agency repeats procurement cycles others have already solved. NCTCOG and its co-op TXShare are already providing an alternative. Currently, the TXShare procurement platform supports 228 member cities, across 16 counties, and many more schools and special districts.

If we want to accelerate innovation in cities, we must accelerate the way cities buy innovative technology.

We also had the privilege of hearing from some extraordinary leaders in our field. Michelle Crandall shared important updates from ICMA, and Marcheta Gillespie walked us through NIGP Code’s new procurement helpdesk, an initiative that is going to make a meaningful difference for practitioners on the ground. We’re genuinely excited to partner with them, as well as with Anthony Jamison and the team at CivStart, to strengthen the ecosystem of support for local governments.

Mike Mucha from GFOA also offered a thoughtful overview of their emerging financial literacy initiative. For those of us who believe data should inform and not intimidate better governance, it’s a visionary step toward equipping communities with the tools they need to thrive.

Cities can act now with cooperative AI contracts

Michael Sherwood, of Nvidia, closed out the day’s agenda. His focus was on examples of live deployments of technology already making communities safer, more connected, more efficient. 

From traffic management to emergency response, from citizen services to wildfire detection, many have already moved beyond the pilot stage.

My key takeaways from the AFI Vision Council

Across the sessions, a clear blueprint emerged:

• Protect data sovereignty. If residents trust you with their data, treat it as sacred.
• Start small, design for scale. Perfection is the enemy of progress – and of learning.
• Break the silos early. AI doesn’t care about org charts. Residents don’t either.
• Build portability and interoperability from day one. No more tech dead-ends.
• Lead with transparency, openness, and clear guide rails. Trust is a strategy, not a slogan.

My co-founder Ron Holifield, a veteran of local government, always reminds us: Local government is at its best when it remembers its calling: to serve people, not process. He finished the day reciting the Athenian Oath, which is foundational to both local public servants and our team at Civic Marketplace. 

For the first time in a long time, the tools are catching up to that mission. But if this week showed anything, it’s that the future of local government doesn’t belong to the cities with the biggest budgets or the fanciest technology. It belongs to the cities with the courage to change. And based on the energy in McKinney this week, those cities are no longer the anomalies.

Huge thanks to the City of McKinney and City Manager Paul Grimes, for their hospitality - I remember when we were speaking on the table and Paul asked: 'How can we innovate?' And I replied: 'You already are!’

I can’t wait to see the progress folks will have made by the time the next AFI Vision Council comes around. In the meantime we’re continuing our learning and sharing journey, partnering up with the AFI for the next Tech Foresight Council meeting – join the TFC community here to find out about upcoming events.