Innovation in New Jersey

A Q&A with Dave Cole, New Jersey State Chief Innovation Officer

Dave Cole has been Chief Innovation Officer for the state of New Jersey since 2024. In January 2026, the state codified into law the Office of Innovation (OOI) as the New Jersey Innovation Authority (NJIA), and Cole remained at the helm. The state is regarded as a national model for using technology to improve operations and deliver services more efficiently.

Among its accomplishments:

• Deploying — and recently upgrading — the NJ AI Assistant, a safe, powerful generative AI platform for state agencies
• Developing a free online state tax return tool that takes only about 10 minutes to complete
• Upgrading state call centers to reduce wait times and cut costs
• Helping more than 65,000 businesses start, operate and expand in the state through the Business.NJ.gov web portal

We talked with Cole about the role of innovation in New Jersey, what’s been achieved and what’s ahead. (The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.)

Now that the OOI is the NJIA, what’s changed?

It’s important that New Jersey has made permanent what has been proven to work: data-driven, human-centered, agile approaches that improve service delivery for the state’s residents, businesses and other institutions. With NJIA, the state is deepening its commitment to saving time and money for both state government and the 9.5 million people we serve. We need to solve problems differently in order to build trust in government, and NJIA is an example of how New Jersey is continuing to lead in that regard. This is the first time in the country that a state Cabinet-level digital services team has been codified in law, ensuring that we continue to uplift New Jerseyans through better government services that deliver measurable results. 

Innovation almost always has dual goals: improving customer experience and increasing efficiency. Can programs serve both?

A big focus of our work is to identify and undertake projects in which better customer experiences and increased efficiency can both rise. For example, when you build online tools that are simpler, shorter and in plain language — working alongside residents who will actually use them — those tools often produce fewer errors, which makes applications submitted through them easier to process. Another example: We use caller transcripts to help refine the options on call center menus so that people can more quickly get what they need, sometimes without even having to wait on hold for an agent. This costs less than paying for hold time and is a better experience for callers.

How can technical innovation help states cope with tight budgets?

Modern applications that use open-source software, common programming languages and cloud-based infrastructure are often much simpler and more cost-effective to maintain. When we look across agencies, we find cases where working together to share platforms is even more efficient than building per-agency solutions.

A good example is our call center modernizations. We’ve now modernized 14 busy call centers across the state. With new tools like automated callbacks, the modernized centers support up to 15% more callers who now get through to an agent, while also saving millions of dollars for agencies like the Department of Treasury and the Department of Labor and Dorkforce Development due to increased operational efficiency.

States with capacity in place are going to be the ones who navigate tight budgets best in the coming years. If you have the right experts and resources in place, you can find ways to be more cost-effective. For example, two years ago, our team built a generative AI assistant tool in a matter of weeks and at a fraction of the cost of off-the-shelf solutions.

In 2023, the state added a feedback form at the bottom of web pages that asked, “Did you find what you were looking for on this page?” When a visitor clicked “yes” or “no,” an open response box would appear asking them to briefly elaborate. GenAI is now helping organize the comments, identifying themes and generating a brief report, including representative quotes.

Tell me about the website feedback widget.

The widget has been added to about 16 high-traffic New Jersey government sites, including NJ.gov, business.nj.gov, unemployment insurance pages (claim status, appeals, ID verification), our Disability Information Hub and others. The tool has resulted in over 460,000 ratings and 100,000 comments that have improved information and services. For instance, this has helped us prioritize updated designs, such as a prominent search bar on NJ.gov, as well as highlighting the most in-demand services on that site. It has also helped us identify confusing or missing parts of some application forms, such as those needed for unemployment insurance. With the help of AI, we and our agency partners can surface and track common themes and issues that arise on an ongoing basis, pulling out key pieces of feedback that help us pinpoint issues and address them quickly.

How else are you using AI?

We’re exploring numerous use cases with our agency partners. For example, we’re testing out how AI can be used to validate and extract information from uploaded documents so that applicants can know within minutes — not weeks — whether they might need to correct or resubmit something. Another prototype involves extracting data from different kinds of files in bulk — like public comment submissions or research materials — to avoid the error-prone, time-draining manual tasks that prevent public professionals from focusing on higher-level work. Another use case involves combing through vast troves of documents to pull out the most important and relevant information for a standardized memo template that helps in decision-making.

Can you recommend innovation best practices for your colleagues in other state and local agencies?

We establish key metrics when we’re starting a project, determining how we’re going to measure the time and/or money we’re going to save for government and residents. Maintaining a focus on those metrics is crucial to show impact.

We build alongside New Jerseyans at every step of a project. We want to really know the problem and what people want and need before we even start. Then, we can start to craft solutions together and test those solutions with users along the way.

We believe strongly in demos with our partners as early as possible so that we can get early feedback, learn fast and continuously improve a solution. Iteration and collaboration is the best path to success and real impact.

In terms of operational best practices, we track all of our projects, meet weekly as a team, share out when we have milestones and try to stay nimble when resources need to shift from project to project. 

For general best practices in digital service delivery, check out the Digital Services Playbook and the Derisking Guide.

This article appears in our guide, “Rising to the Challenge: How State and Local Governments Use Technology and AI.” To learn more about how your state and local colleagues are using technology to address user needs, budget constraints, cybersecurity and other pressing issues, download it here:

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