Original broadcast 2/11/26
Presented by Ping Identity & Carahsoft
At the Texas Department of Transportation, technology is not about novelty. It’s about outcomes.
That’s the perspective Anh Selissen, Chief Information Officer for TxDOT, brings to her work. With nearly three decades of public service experience, Selissen views citizen-centric government as something grounded in listening — listening to business needs, listening to internal customers, and most importantly, listening to what the public needs from a transportation agency.
For TxDOT, citizen experience isn’t limited to a website interaction. It includes the everyday realities Texans face: congestion, safety on the roads, traffic flow, and the reliability of the infrastructure that connects communities across one of the largest land masses governed by a single state agency.
Selissen describes the CIO role as fundamentally relational. A CIO cannot succeed in isolation, especially in state government. She emphasizes that she is a relationship builder, and she views collaboration with peers across government as a core leadership responsibility.
TxDOT is unique in Texas because Selissen is the CIO for a specific agency rather than the entire state. That structure makes coordination essential. Selissen explains how she works closely with the Texas Department of Information Resources and with other CIOs across government to share lessons learned and identify tools that have already proven successful elsewhere.
In her view, government technology leaders do not need to build everything independently. If another agency has already navigated a challenge, the smartest move is to leverage that experience rather than repeat the same trial-and-error process. Shared knowledge, shared services, and cross-agency relationships create synergy — and ultimately help the state as a whole.
That philosophy also shapes how TxDOT approaches scaling.
Scaling is one of the most common terms in government modernization, but Selissen insists that scaling must be disciplined. The state must prioritize investments based on what matters most to core business functions — and that prioritization always comes back to budget.
Selissen is clear: budget always comes into play. That’s why TxDOT evaluates every technology investment through return on investment and measurable outcomes. Before scaling a tool across the enterprise, TxDOT wants to know: will this be heavily used? Will it deliver tangible savings in time or money? Will it improve performance in ways that matter to the public?
Selissen describes the process as metering success. Projects must have clear metrics tied to outcomes. If the results show value, TxDOT can then scale. But scaling must also be appropriate. Not every tool needs to be deployed enterprise-wide. If only certain teams or divisions benefit, then TxDOT will scale selectively.
This disciplined approach becomes even more important in the age of artificial intelligence.
Selissen notes that TxDOT was the first state Department of Transportation to publish an AI-specific strategic plan. But before AI could be successful, TxDOT had to address a more foundational challenge: data.
AI cannot deliver value without good data. If data is fragmented, inconsistent, or unreliable, AI becomes another layer of complexity rather than a solution. Selissen explains that TxDOT spent the last five years building a comprehensive enterprise data platform — a single repository that serves as the agency’s source of truth.
This platform aggregates critical datasets from multiple systems across TxDOT and consolidates them into one environment for reporting and analysis. That consolidation matters for several reasons.
First, it improves reporting accuracy and usability. Instead of pulling information from many sole source systems, TxDOT can generate consistent reporting from a centralized platform. Second, it reduces operational risk. If every report is pulling directly from transactional systems, it can create latency, performance issues, and security concerns. Third, it supports visibility into data usage: TxDOT can better understand who is touching data, how it’s being accessed, and what security controls are needed.
This data foundation made AI adoption far easier. When AI became a priority, TxDOT was able to apply AI capabilities on top of a dataset that was already clean, standardized, and optimized.
That’s a crucial point for other agencies: AI strategy is often treated as a separate effort. But Selissen’s approach shows that AI success is largely determined by work done long before AI tools are deployed. Data modernization is AI modernization.
Once that foundation was in place, TxDOT could begin applying AI in ways that directly improve citizen experience.
Selissen offers several tangible examples. One major initiative is the deployment of chatbots across the agency. TxDOT has issued a call for chatbot use cases across divisions and districts, focused on highly requested information from the public. The goal is to implement many of these chatbots by next year.
The citizen-facing value is straightforward: when Texans visit TxDOT’s website looking for policies, manuals, or other guidance, they should not have to search endlessly or wait for a response. A chatbot can provide quick answers and reduce the time burden on both the public and agency staff.
This is a direct example of citizen-centric government: reducing friction and improving access to information.
But Selissen also highlights more operational and safety-related AI use cases. TxDOT is exploring AI to improve compliance, audit readiness, and fraud detection — reducing the time required to identify issues and protect public funds.
In transportation specifically, TxDOT is looking at AI for traffic safety and congestion reduction. That includes areas like pedestrian crossings, traffic signal optimization, and improving the speed and coordination of responders to reduce secondary crashes.
These are the kinds of AI applications that most directly affect citizens, even if citizens never interact with an AI system directly. If congestion decreases, if crash response improves, if traffic signals operate more intelligently, Texans experience the benefit in their daily lives.
Selissen emphasizes that these improvements are not driven by a desire to deploy cool technologies. They are driven by a focus on what will move the organization forward. Technology must have sound ROI. It must support the mission. It must deliver measurable public value.
That mindset reflects a broader trend in citizen-centric government: modern platforms are not the goal. Better outcomes are the goal. Modern platforms are simply the tools that make those outcomes achievable at scale.
In Texas, where the size of the state and the complexity of transportation challenges are immense, Selissen’s strategy is built around disciplined modernization. Build the data foundation. Measure value. Pilot and prove. Scale responsibly. And keep the focus on what matters most: safety, mobility, and service to the public.
Citizen-centric government, in Selissen’s view, isn’t an abstract principle. It’s the practical work of listening, prioritizing, and delivering results that Texans can feel every time they travel.