Presented by Ping Identity & Carahsoft
Modernizing state government isn’t just about upgrading systems. It’s about upgrading the experience. That’s the philosophy Kristin Darby, Chief Information Officer for the State of Tennessee, brings to her role — a perspective shaped by a career across healthcare, finance, biotech, and insurance, and now focused on building government services that work the way Tennesseans actually live.
Darby describes state IT as something bigger than infrastructure. It’s an enabler of opportunity — for citizens, for agencies, and for communities across a diverse state. But she’s clear about the challenge: government is naturally organized vertically, built around agencies and programs. Citizens, however, don’t approach their needs that way.
A resident doesn’t wake up thinking, “I need to interact with three agencies today.” They think, “I need to renew my driver’s license,” or “I need a permit,” or “I need to update a professional license.” And increasingly, they expect to complete those needs in a single transaction, in a single experience, without friction.
That gap between how government is structured and how citizens experience government is where Darby sees the biggest opportunity. Tennessee’s goal is to design services horizontally — aligning them around citizen journeys, not internal silos. The technology challenge is making that possible on the back end, where systems, data, and workflows still sit in different agencies.
One reason Tennessee is positioned well to pursue that strategy is its governance model. Darby notes that Tennessee benefits from a consolidated approach to technology leadership — a structure that allows the state to look holistically across services and identify common patterns. Rather than building agency-specific solutions repeatedly, Tennessee can find commonality and implement shared solutions that improve speed, efficiency, and consistency across the enterprise.
That matters because modern citizen expectations are shaped by private-sector experiences. Tennesseans don’t compare government services to other government services — they compare them to their banking app, their healthcare portal, and the online tools they use daily. That consumer lens is becoming the new standard for public service design.
But Darby emphasizes that citizen-centricity is not an IT project. It’s a culture. It has to be present at the beginning of every service design effort, not added later. And if customer-centricity is a cultural foundation, cybersecurity is the other foundational pillar.
Tennessee has leaned into a whole-of-state approach to cybersecurity, and Darby ties that directly to citizen experience. The state can’t deliver seamless digital services without building trust — and trust is impossible without strong security. In her view, cybersecurity has to be woven through every design theme and every solution from the beginning.
That philosophy becomes even more important when discussing legacy modernization. Like every state, Tennessee has inherited agency-specific systems and infrastructure built over decades. Those legacy environments create silos — not just of technology, but of data and expertise. Historically, modernization often required replacing systems entirely before meaningful improvements could occur.
Darby argues that AI is changing that equation.
Rather than waiting for a perfect rip-and-replace moment, Tennessee can use AI as an enabling layer — redesigning how services are delivered over legacy applications while keeping systems stable, secure, and functional. In practice, that means newer front ends, newer user interfaces, and more intuitive service workflows — even when older systems still run behind the scenes.
This shift allows the state to leap forward in citizen experience without being trapped by the timelines and costs of full infrastructure replacement. It also supports a more realistic model of modernization, recognizing that in government IT, everything is not modern at all times. Modernization is continuous.
Darby also highlights the role of equity in this transformation. Tennessee is one of the most geographically and culturally diverse states in the country — from Nashville’s rapid growth and influx of early-career professionals to communities like Johnson City in the Appalachian region. Serving all Tennesseans requires more than just building modern digital tools; it requires ensuring access to those tools statewide.
The state’s broadband investments have laid a foundation for equitable digital service delivery. And now, Tennessee is building on that foundation with a strategy focused on democratizing access to secure and capable AI tools across the state.
Darby points to Tennessee’s TN.AI strategy as an example. The state wants large language model capabilities that can be customized to the needs of Tennesseans — aligned with local values and grounded in the state’s constitution. The goal is to ensure AI use cases reflect community-specific realities, whether the focus is education, workforce development, or other citizen services.
This approach recognizes that one-size-fits-all AI won’t work in state government. Tennessee’s vision is scalable accessibility paired with local relevance — AI tools that can reach everyone, but still feel tailored to the needs of different communities.
Delivering that vision depends heavily on the workforce.
Darby describes a transformation not just in technology, but in mindset. Historically, government IT has often been oriented around processing needs: completing forms, routing requests, executing procedures. Tennessee is shifting toward a design lens focused on citizen experience — asking what the citizen feels during an interaction, and whether the service outcome feels smooth, intuitive, and respectful of their time.
The state is also building a culture of empowerment and entrepreneurship, encouraging teams across agencies to think creatively about solutions. At the same time, Tennessee is standardizing where it can — identifying common processes that can be scaled quickly, while still allowing the last mile to be customized for different agency missions.
On the technical side, Tennessee is actively upskilling its workforce for AI. Darby points to an initiative called Focus Forward, which is designed to build AI readiness through training, new talent development, and organizational restructuring. Tennessee is also moving toward a product-based delivery model, delivering services in ways that meet Tennesseans where they are.
Darby acknowledges that talent competition is real — but she believes Tennessee has a unique advantage: mission and scale. People who want to work on emerging technology don’t just want a small pilot project; they want to see impact across large populations. State government offers that opportunity.
For Tennessee, the path forward is clear: citizen-centric design, security-first modernization, AI-enabled service transformation, and an empowered workforce ready to build government for the next era.
In Darby’s view, modernization is not optional. But the bigger point is this: modernization is not the goal. Better service is the goal — and the technology is simply the way Tennessee will deliver it.