Original Broadcast 2/11/26
Presented by Ping Identity & Carahsoft
State government is in the middle of a major shift: residents now expect services to feel as easy and intuitive as the best private-sector experiences. In Episode 1 of State Gov Today, leaders from Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas share how they’re modernizing platforms, strengthening cybersecurity, and using data and AI to create services that work the way people actually live.
Across every conversation, a consistent theme emerges: modernization isn’t about adopting new tools for their own sake. It’s about designing government around outcomes — faster service delivery, better access, stronger trust, and platforms that scale statewide without creating friction for citizens or agency teams.
Designing Government Around How Citizens Actually Live
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Kristin Darby, Chief Information Officer, State of Tennessee
Kristin Darby explains why citizen-centric government isn’t something you add at the end of a project — it must be built into the design from the beginning. She describes how citizens don’t think in agency silos. They think in life events and needs, like 
renewing a license, applying for permits, or completing multiple transactions in one sitting. Tennessee’s challenge — and opportunity — is to build services around those real-life experiences, even when the state’s internal structure remains vertical and agency-based.
Darby also outlines how Tennessee is using AI as an enabler of modernization. Instead of waiting for every legacy system to be replaced, Tennessee can layer AI and improved user experiences on top of existing infrastructure. She emphasizes equity as a core principle, highlighting broadband investment and Tennessee’s TN.AI strategy as key efforts to ensure all Tennesseans — rural and urban — have access to secure AI-enabled government services.
Key Takeaways
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Citizen-centric design starts with how residents live, not how government is organized.
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AI can modernize services without requiring full replacement of every legacy system.
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Cybersecurity and customer-centricity must be foundational, not add-ons.
Digital Identity as the Foundation for Seamless, Secure Citizen Services
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Ames Fowler, Manager of Sales Engineering, State, Local and Education, Ping Identity
As governments modernize services and push toward seamless digital experiences, Ames Fowler explains why identity should be treated as the common thread across every interaction — not as an afterthought or an isolated login system. Fowler describes a citizen-centric journey as one that honors residents’ time, reduces friction, and protects identities, while still meeting the growing security challenges posed by sophisticated threats like AI-enabled fraud, bots, and deepfakes.
He emphasizes that not every interaction should require login. Instead, government services should request only the information needed for the task at hand, elevating security only when digital risk is present. Fowler describes modern identity strategies built around centralized identity directories, orchestration tools, progressive profiling, fraud prevention, and identity verification that supports continuous trust throughout an interaction.
Fowler also highlights the challenge of designing for modern communities. Citizens have different access needs, different devices, different levels of connectivity, and in some cases, limited documentation. He explains how identity systems must adapt to digital equity realities, offering multiple validation paths, including biometrics, digital credentials, and even trusted delegation for citizens who cannot easily validate identity themselves. Ultimately, Fowler says scaling digital identity requires leadership, coordination across agencies, and a mindset shift: identity is a program, not a project.
Key Takeaways
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Identity should be centralized and treated as the platform that connects citizen services across agencies.
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Security and convenience can coexist by applying contextual security and progressive profiling.
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Digital equity requires identity systems to support multiple validation paths, not one-size-fits-all solutions.
Modernization is No Longer Optional: A Citizen-Centric IT Strategy
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Dan Cronin, Chief Information Officer, State of Oklahoma
Dan Cronin describes Oklahoma’s modernization push as an effort grounded in prioritization and value realization. His focus is improving operational efficiency, reducing cost, and ensuring state IT delivers services at the best price point with the right technology. Citizen-centric government, he explains, is about making interactions smooth, intuitive, and easy to navigate, regardless of the complexity of the systems behind the scenes.
Cronin introduces a key theme in Oklahoma’s strategy: making complexity invisible. He explains that modernization is not just replacing legacy technology — it’s removing unnecessary steps, streamlining processes, and empowering teams to act faster without excessive bureaucracy. Cronin also highlights Oklahoma’s focus on building a strong data foundation so AI and analytics can scale across agencies and support better citizen services. Success, he says, will be measured in efficiency, speed, and visible improvement through 2028.
Key Takeaways
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Modernization is driven by value: better service delivery at the best cost.
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Making complexity invisible requires process simplification and empowerment, not just new systems.
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Data and AI readiness depend on building a scalable statewide platform.
Scaling Citizen Services with Data, AI, and Measurable ROI
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Anh Selissen, Chief Information Officer, Texas Department of Transportation
Anh Selissen explains that citizen-centric government begins with listening — not just to internal business needs, but to what the public actually needs from a transportation agency. For TxDOT, citizen experience is measured through real-world outcomes: reducing congestion, improving road safety, and modernizing operations that support infrastructure delivery across a massive state.
Selissen emphasizes that scalability requires discipline. Budget always matters, and technology investments must show measurable ROI. She advocates starting small through pilots and proofs of concept, defining success metrics with business partners, and scaling only when outcomes are proven. Selissen also explains how TxDOT’s AI success is rooted in data readiness. Over the past five years, TxDOT built an enterprise data platform as a single source of truth. That foundation allowed TxDOT to apply AI to standardized, clean datasets, enabling citizen-facing services like chatbots and operational improvements in safety, compliance, and traffic optimization.
Key Takeaways
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Scaling requires ROI, success metrics, and responsible expansion through pilots.
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AI success depends on clean, standardized, secure enterprise data.
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Citizen-centric transportation technology must focus on outcomes like safety and congestion reduction.