Meeting: April 14, 2026
16 ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBER DAN HALL, MAYOR PRO TEMPORE ZWICK, AND
MAYOR CAROLINE TOROSIS
Request of Councilmember Hall, Mayor Pro Tempore Zwick, and Mayor Torosis that the Council direct Staff to update the City’s Responsible AI Use policy, direct the procurement of one or more enterprise AI systems, incorporate AI upskilling into staff training, and commit to a policy of workforce protection.
The City of Santa Monica has long been recognized as one of California's most forward-thinking and innovative municipalities. Today, that reputation demands engagement with one of the most transformative technological shifts in a generation: the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is no longer an emerging technology on the horizon. It is already reshaping how work gets done across every sector of the economy, and residents deserve a municipal government that meets this moment thoughtfully and responsibly. The question for the City is not whether to engage with AI.
The question is whether we shape its use deliberately, with strong values and resident and worker protections embedded from the start, or let it arrive without guardrails.
The Private Sector Has Already Moved
The pace of AI adoption in the private sector has been staggering. Generative AI is now regularly used in at least one function by 78% of organizations, up from 55% in 2024.1 38% of knowledge workers use generative AI in their daily work, and 65% of enterprises increased their AI budgets this year with a median year-over-year increase of 22%.2 The productivity gains are equally striking: research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis suggests generative AI may have increased aggregate U.S. labor productivity by as much as 1.3% since its introduction,3 a meaningful shift at macroeconomic scale.
The gap between organizations that embrace AI and those that do not is widening. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report finds that 86% of employers expect AI and information processing technologies to significantly transform their business by 2030.4 Government agencies that fail to adopt these tools risk delivering slower, costlier, and less responsive services than the residents and businesses of Santa Monica expect and deserve.
Despite this momentum in the private sector, a report from the Center for Democracy and Technology found that approximately 21 cities and counties across the 4 https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_Report_2025.pdf 3 https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/nov/state-generative-ai-adoption-2025 2 https://medhacloud.com/blog/ai-adoption-statistics-2026 1 https://www.netguru.com/blog/ai-adoption-statistics
16 ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBER HALL, MAYOR PRO TEMPORE ZWICK, AND MAYOR
TOROSIS
Responsible AI Use
nation have public-facing AI use policies.5 Santa Monica, which has already taken the important step of adopting a basic Responsible AI Policy, is positioned to go further and faster than nearly every city in the country.
AI as a Talent Strategy
Santa Monica competes with some of the most innovative employers in the world for public sector talent. Only 37% of public sector employees say their organization has a clear AI strategy, compared to 53% in the private sector, 6 a gap that signals to
prospective and current employees which organizations are investing in the future and which are not. Many employees who have access to AI still do not use it because they do not see how the tools apply to their work, underscoring the importance of active, structured training rather than passive access alone.
The labor market reality is clear: AI and big data are among the fastest-growing skill sets, and AI and machine learning specialists rank among the fastest-growing jobs globally.
7 A government agency that does not develop these capacities internally will struggle to attract the next generation of public servants and will risk losing the talented employees it already has to employers who offer more modern, dynamic working environments. In the City’s March 24 update to the Realignment Plan approved by City Council, positions were authorized to re-establish the Santa Monica Institute, City Hall’s learning and development program. Responsible AI use must be included in our curriculum for City employees.
Responsible Adoption Requires Worker Voice and Clear Protections Embracing AI does not mean replacing the people who make Santa Monica’s City Hall work. The City’s approach must be guided by a clear commitment: AI is a tool to enable and empower City employees, not to eliminate jobs or undermine the workforce. Some public agencies across the country are already using AI to handle routine data entry and processing, allowing limited human staff to focus on complex, high-empathy work8 – exactly the kind of reorientation that makes government jobs more fulfilling and more effective.
Employees and their representatives should have a voice in how AI tools are introduced into their workplaces. Workers should know when AI is being used in processes that affect their employment or evaluations. And there must be an accessible 8 https://www.goapgtech.com/post/operational-ai-how-state-local-governments-are-scaling-in-2026 7 https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_Report_2025.pdf 6 https://www.gallup.com/workplace/702983/adoption-rapidly-growing-public-sector.aspx 5 https://cdt.org/insights/ai-in-local-government-how-counties-cities-are-advancing-ai-governance/
16 ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBER HALL, MAYOR PRO TEMPORE ZWICK, AND MAYOR
TOROSIS
Responsible AI Use
pathway to raise concerns when AI is being used in ways that feel unfair or harmful.
Santa Monica can model what responsible government AI adoption looks like: tools chosen with care, workers consulted and trained, human judgment preserved where it matters most, and equity built in at the outset.
Updating the City’s Policy Framework and Authorizing an Enterprise Account Across the country, state and local governments introduced 50 public sector AI bills or ordinances in 2025 alone, with risk management, transparency, and accountability emerging as the central areas of focus.9 An updated Responsible AI Use policy should address data privacy and security, appropriate use cases, human oversight of high-stakes decisions, and disclosure obligations, ensuring that Santa Monica's AI use is not only effective but trustworthy and equitable.
Additionally, many City employees currently lack access to secure, enterprise-grade AI platforms. Publicly available versions of tools like Open AI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, for example, may not provide the data privacy protections, administrative controls, or audit capabilities required for responsible government use, especially for sensitive data like personally identifiable information.
Authorizing the procurement of an enterprise account would provide City staff with a policy-compliant, institutionally governed platform through which to access these tools safely and consistently.
In order to train, enable, and upskill our City workforce and protect workers against replacement,
WE THEREFORE MOVE THAT THE COUNCIL:
1. Direct the City Manager to:
1.1. Review and update the City's Responsible AI Policy to reflect the current state of AI technology and usage by City employees, incorporate best practices for data privacy, security, transparency, human oversight, and accountability, and establish clear guidelines that enable responsible and innovative use by City employees at all levels, including explicit prohibitions on use cases the City deems high-risk, a defined list of data categories that may not be processed by AI systems without Council authorization, and a requirement that any AI-assisted decision affecting a resident's access to City services include a documented human review step, including explicit prohibitions on use cases the City deems high-risk 9 https://cdt.org/insights/state-legislatures-continued-their-focus-on-public-sector-ai-use-andexpanded-attention-to-risk-management-practices-during-the-2025-legislative-session/
16 ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBER HALL, MAYOR PRO TEMPORE ZWICK, AND MAYOR
TOROSIS
Responsible AI Use
and a requirement that any AI-assisted decision affecting a resident's access to City services include a documented human review step.
1.2. Evaluate and, subject to applicable procurement requirements, authorize the purchase of one or more enterprise AI platform accounts to provide City employees with secure, policy-compliant access to AI tools for use in their official duties. Any platform procured shall include contractual guarantees that resident and employee data will not be used to train vendor AI models, and shall provide audit log capabilities accessible to City administrators.
1.3. Develop and incorporate AI literacy and practical skills training into the City's reestablished Santa Monica Institute learning and development programs, and actively encourage the use of AI tools by employees at all levels and across all departments, consistent with an updated Responsible AI Policy and best practices to mitigate bias, recognize hallucinations, and protect resident and employee privacy. Priority enrollment in AI literacy training shall be offered to employees in roles identified as most likely to use AI, and training shall include instruction on employees' rights and the City's workforce protection commitments under an updated policy.
1.4. Establish a clear and enforceable commitment that AI adoption will be used to augment and empower City employees, not to reduce headcount or displace workers. Workforce impact shall be an evaluation criterion in any AI procurement process. Prior to implementing any AI system that would materially change the nature of work performed by a bargaining unit, the City shall fulfill its meet-and-confer obligations and provide an opportunity for meaningful employee input.
1.5. Ensure that AI systems used by City employees are evaluated for fairness, bias, and privacy concerns, especially in matters of public safety, law enforcement, and human resources. AI shall not be used as a primary or determinative factor in decisions affecting resident access to City services, code enforcement actions, hiring or promotion decisions, or public safety functions without explicit policy authorization from the City Manager and notice to Council and the community via public information item.
2. Direct the City Manager to make any appropriate and necessary changes to comply with the above direction.
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