Across government, public servants are being asked to navigate a period of real complexity under significant constraints. Technologies, especially AI, are arriving and being implemented in rapid succession, requiring public officials to continually learn, distinguish what is promising from what is not, and make careful decisions about what works for the public good.
The stakes (equity, trust, legality, and sustainability) are unmistakably public. At the same time, the day-to-day work of serving communities can’t be slowed.
Since its creation in 2023, InnovateUS’s training offerings have supported public professionals in making sense of change together, building capacity, and strengthening their ability to make informed decisions in practice. Not to chase trends, but to think carefully about how innovation can be used responsibly to improve how government serves people.
Within this broader learning system, our online live workshops play a distinct role: creating time and space to work through meaningful questions, develop new skills, learn from peers facing similar challenges, and build shared understanding, practical judgment, and confidence grounded in real public-sector work.
How This Season Took Shape: Listening to Learners and Partners
Our Spring 2026 workshop offering, which we’re presenting today, reflects insights from learners, partners, and experts on the challenges facing public service. We shaped this season by drawing on multiple sources of feedback. We collect learner expectations at registration, ask participants before each workshop what they hope to learn, gather immediate post-session feedback, and follow up again one month and six months later.
The goal is to understand what public professionals need to learn, why those needs matter in practice, how learning is applied on the job, and where barriers emerge when it is not.
We also draw on ongoing conversations with our more than 40 state, city, and public agency partners to understand emerging needs, constraints, and opportunities across government.
Across this feedback, a few consistent patterns stand out. Learners are cautiously optimistic and strongly value-driven. They see genuine potential for innovation, and AI in particular, to help them scale their work, reach more diverse audiences, and navigate growing volumes of data, documents, and public input.
At the same time, many feel stretched thin. Limited time and staff capacity remain the most significant constraints, followed by uneven technical confidence and the challenge of securing organizational and leadership buy-in.
What learners are asking for is practical, vendor-neutral guidance grounded in real-world government work. They are also clear about the boundary conditions: AI should strengthen trust, equity, and transparency, not replace human judgment. Across our more than 25,000 workshop participants, there is consistent demand for concrete AI use cases in government, guidance on moving from pilot to practice, and hands-on learning that supports real work.
Beyond specific tools, learners also want support with leadership and collaboration during periods of technological change, systems, and innovation. Across all of this, ethics, inclusion, and public trust are not add-ons; they are foundational.
Designing the Spring 2026 Season
These insights shaped how we designed the Spring 2026 workshop season. Rather than covering more ground, the focus is on going deeper: organizing learning around clear skill areas, grounding sessions in public-sector cases, and creating space for candid discussion of trade-offs, risks, and implementation challenges. Workshops are structured as connected conversations, allowing participants to build understanding over time rather than absorb information in isolation.
This season brings together returning and new faculty, along with public-sector practitioners, to support learning that is practical, reflective, and rooted in experience. Sessions are designed to be interactive and applied, with opportunities to practice new skills, learn from peers, and test ideas against the realities of government work.
The Spring 2026 workshop season runs from January through June and includes weekly sessions focused on some of the most pressing questions facing public service today. Throughout the season, participants will explore leadership and organizational change, public communication and trust, data and design to improve services, and the responsible use of AI in government.
Areas of focus include:
- AI governance and decision-making
- Human services, procurement and contracting
- Legal practice, transportation, accessibility
- Energy and environmental impacts,
- The role of public data as a foundation for innovation.
Throughout, workshops center on human judgment, public values, and real-world government practice.
What to Expect from InnovateUS Workshops
Across all series, workshops are designed for real work in real government settings. Sessions are free and open to public servants at all levels, and are led by experienced practitioners and subject-matter experts who understand the realities of public-sector constraints. The emphasis is on hands-on, plain-language learning grounded in real cases, not hype or abstract theory.
Participants leave with concrete tools they can use immediately, including frameworks, prompts, examples, and templates they can adapt for their own teams. Workshops are held live on Zoom to support interaction and peer learning, with recordings available for those who cannot attend in real time.
If you’re navigating questions about innovation, AI, and public service, whether you’re evaluating tools, redesigning services, communicating with the public, or leading change, these workshops are intended as a place to think, learn, and work alongside others facing similar challenges.
Questions, suggestions? Please, reach us at [email protected]
We look forward to learning together this spring.
Subscribe to InnovateUS updates or visit innovate-us.org for the full schedule.