California has entered into a cooperation agreement with Anthropic to open Claude's artificial intelligence assistant to state-wide government agencies and extend the same benefits to local governments. Under the arrangement, state agencies and municipal and county governments can use the tool at a 50-percent discount, while receiving technical support from staff training and developers.
Coverage extended to local governments
The scope of this cooperation is broader. Unlike other government AI contracts that are sector- or project-specific, this arrangement is for all state agencies in California and includes local government use scenarios. Claude will also be the first AI productivity tool open to all state agencies in the new shared service portal for technical services in California.
Documents processed and passenger service landed
According to official presentations, State government staff can use Claude to draft and summarize documents, analyse information and handle routine administrative matters. This type of work usually takes up a large amount of public time, so the state government sees it as a focus for efficiency enhancement.
According to California Governor Newson, the goal of the Government ' s introduction of AI is not to replace public servants, but to help employees manage their affairs more quickly, to improve problem-solving efficiency and to improve public service outcomes.
The DMV and the health services are already using it.
In fact, California had tried Claude on a number of projects. Reports indicate that the state used Claude to support the “Engaged California” platform and was involved in the development of the AI tool Poppy, which was built within State government employees.
Currently, the State Technical Services and Emergency Services Office is also using Claude for network security, including scanning state government codes and helping to repair loopholes. CAMVA uses it to improve client services and reduce waiting times; CHSS is also using it to optimize internal processes.
Newson continues to modernize government.
This cooperation is also part of the Government ' s efforts to modernize the public sector. AI has been listed as one of the key tools in an executive order previously signed by Nüssen requiring state agencies to identify and implement efficiency measures.