Reboot Weekly: Fixing Benefit Backlogs, Making Labor Law Searchable, and Listening to Residents

Published on January 15, 2026

Summary

This week on Reboot Democracy, Beth Simone Noveck speaks with Dave Cole, New Jersey’s Chief Innovation Officer, about how the newly codified New Jersey Innovation Authority is using AI to reduce delays in Medicaid, SNAP, unemployment insurance, and Summer EBT while keeping human judgment central; Dane Gambrell’s latest Research Radar examines how AI is making decades of National Labor Relations Board decisions searchable and usable for workers and advocates navigating a fragmented labor law system; and in Global AI Watch, Nico Campbell shares an InnovateUS case study from Hillerød, Denmark, where AI-supported public engagement helped city leaders treat participation itself as civic infrastructure. Beyond Reboot, governments continue to test AI in high-stakes settings. From Utah’s AI-assisted prescription renewals and England’s use of AI to manage emergency care demand, to debates over AI surveillance in New York’s transit system. New policy briefs from India and Europe argue for treating AI infrastructure as a public good even as budget uncertainty threatens digital skills and inclusion efforts.

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Welcome to the Prompting Lab: A Practice Space for Public Sector AI Use – January 16, 2:00 PM ET

Prediction Isn’t Intelligence: How Predictive Models Really Work in Government – January 21, 2:00 PM ET

Using Generative AI to Improve Everyday Workflows for Public Professionals – January 23, 2:00 PM ET

AI for Governance

Using AI to Improve Public Services in New Jersey: An interview with Dave Cole

Beth Simone Noveck and Dave Cole on January 12, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

New Jersey has become the first U.S. state to codify an innovation office in law, establishing the New Jersey Innovation Authority and giving the state durable capacity to modernize public services. Backed by a Public Benefit Innovation Fund grant, the state is scaling practical AI tools to reduce delays in programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, unemployment insurance, and Summer EBT. The conversation highlights how AI is being used to automate repetitive back-end work—document processing, eligibility matching, and memo drafting, while keeping human judgment central.

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AI for Governance

Why Legislative Modernizers Need to Pay Attention to This New Wave of AI

Beatriz Rey on January 12, 2026 in Modern Parliament

A new generation of AI tools—such as Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Code, and Gemini 3 Pro—marks a shift from chatbots to systems capable of reasoning, planning, and executing complex institutional tasks. The piece argues these tools could transform legislative work by supporting large-scale legal analysis, automating routine drafting and tracking, enabling multimodal policy research, and reducing dependence on external vendors, opening new possibilities for efficiency, transparency, and modernization in lawmaking institutions

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AI for Governance

AI Being Used to Help Cut A&E Waiting Times in England This Winter

Hannah Devlin on January 28, 2026 in The Guardian

Hospitals in England are using an AI forecasting tool to predict peaks in A&E demand, helping NHS trusts plan staffing and bed capacity during winter pressures. Trained on historical data on weather, flu trends, and school holidays, the tool enables hospitals to deploy clinicians and free up beds more efficiently. Around 50 NHS organisations are already using the system, which is part of the UK government’s AI Exemplars programme, aimed at modernising public services and reducing bureaucratic strain on frontline staff.

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AI Infrastructure

Democratising Access to AI Infrastructure

Animesh Jain on January 29, 2026 in Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India

This white paper argues that access to AI infrastructure including compute, data, and models has become a core determinant of innovation and governance, yet remains highly concentrated. It outlines India’s strategy to democratise AI infrastructure by treating these resources as digital public goods and building on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Highlighting initiatives such as IndiaAI Compute, AIKosha, and state-led data exchanges, the paper calls for affordable compute, shared datasets, interoperable access layers, and sustained public-private collaboration to enable equitable and trusted AI development nationwide.

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AI Infrastructure

European Public AI – Policy Brief

Dr. Alek Tarkowski and Dr. Felix Sieker on January 13, 2026 in Bertelsmann Stiftung

This policy brief argues that as AI becomes core European infrastructure, reliance on non-European firms threatens strategic autonomy, democratic governance, and the social model. Published with Open Future, it proposes “Public AI” as a public digital infrastructure organized around the common good. The authors call for universal access to compute and data, mission-driven public goals, democratic control, open European foundation models, and a shared data commons to counter growing dependency risks.

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AI and Labor

The NLRB Has a Data Problem. One Lawyer Is Using AI to Fix It

Dane Gambrell on January 13, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

The National Labor Relations Board publishes tens of thousands of decisions each year, but fragmented, poorly searchable systems make labor law difficult for workers and advocates to access. Labor lawyer Matt Bruenig built NLRB Research, a free, AI-powered database that consolidates more than 116,000 NLRB and court documents into a single searchable platform with AI-generated summaries and citation links. The tool lowers barriers to legal knowledge, enabling faster research, better enforcement analysis, and real-world wins for workers navigating complex labor rights.

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AI and Labor

Budget Uncertainty Could Hamper State and Local Tech Skills Development

Kaitlyn Levinson on January 7, 2026 in Route Fifty

State and local governments face growing challenges in preparing workers for an AI-driven economy amid budget uncertainty and the cancellation of more than $2 billion in federal Digital Equity Act funding. Digital inclusion and skills programs, critical for building AI readiness and workforce mobility, are now at risk, particularly in underserved communities. Experts warn that without sustained investment, states may deepen the digital divide and miss opportunities to modernize public services and labor markets. Some states are turning to ARPA funds, private donations, and flexible broadband funding to fill the gap.

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AI and Public Engagement

Global AI Watch: Hillerød, Denmark Is Crowdsourcing Its Way Through a Traffic Jam

Nico Campbell on January 14, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

Facing worsening congestion and no space to build new roads, Hillerød, Denmark turned to residents for solutions. Using a digital participation platform with built-in AI tools, the city gathered more than 1,400 online and offline contributions on mobility and traffic. AI helped cluster themes and draft summaries, while officials retained transparency by reviewing original inputs. The process reshaped political assumptions, revealing strong public support for biking and transit, and positioned participation itself as civic infrastructure for solving complex urban problems.

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Governing AI

Utah Becomes First State to Let AI Prescribe Medication

Ece Yildirim on January 7, 2026 in Gizmodo

Utah has launched a first-of-its-kind pilot allowing an AI system to renew prescriptions for 190 commonly used medications for patients with chronic conditions, excluding drugs with high abuse potential. The program, developed with health-tech startup Doctronic, aims to reduce costs and ease clinician workload by automating routine renewals, with early results showing high alignment between AI and human clinical decisions. Supporters argue the approach could expand access and efficiency, while critics warn of risks tied to errors, bias, system gaming, and unclear regulatory boundaries between state medical authority and federal oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.

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AI and Public Safety

MTA Explores How to Use AI to Monitor Thousands of Cameras in Transit System

Jose Martinez on January 8, 2026 in The City

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is exploring the use of AI to analyze live video from more than 15,000 cameras across New York City’s transit system to detect weapons, unattended items, or potential safety risks such as stampedes. While officials frame the effort as a way to enhance public safety and reduce manual monitoring, civil liberties groups warn of privacy risks, false positives, and the dangers of predictive surveillance. The inquiry reflects growing interest and controversy around AI-driven security in public transportation.

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AI and Education

What States Get Wrong in Their AI Education Guidance — And How They Can Fix It

Ulrich Boser and Tasha Hensley on January 5, 2026 in The Learning Agency

As generative AI spreads through classrooms, 34 states and Puerto Rico have issued AI-in-education guidance, but none yet offer a clear model. This report from The Learning Agency argues that state guidance is heavy on frameworks and light on practical support. Key gaps include weak vetting of AI edtech, limited teacher training and infrastructure, insufficient state capacity, vague approaches to AI-enabled cheating, and shallow treatment of student data privacy. The authors urge states to move beyond checklists and provide concrete tools, funding, and hands-on support for districts navigating AI adoption.

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