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Modern state IT requires connecting systems, people, and execution across government.
NASCIO’s 2026 State CIO Top 10 Priorities span AI, cybersecurity, cost control, modernization, digital services, accessibility, data, consolidation, identity management, and cloud services.
Those priorities echo what we’ve heard from state agencies: the technology challenge is rarely just choosing or implementing the right system. Success depends on agencies, local governments, vendors, nonprofits, and frontline partners working from the same information, coordinating across organizational boundaries, and adapting together as requirements change.
Across these priorities, the common thread is execution. States need the connective tissue that helps people and organizations put technology and policy into practice together.
Artificial intelligence is NASCIO’s top priority for 2026. For most states, the challenge is no longer whether to adopt AI, it’s how to move from isolated experimentation to consistent, governed use across agencies.
Publishing policy is only the starting point. Real adoption happens when practitioners have access to trusted guidance, practical use cases, and ongoing support as new questions arise in real time. Without that, AI efforts remain fragmented, with each team reinventing answers in isolation.
Just as important, AI systems need to reflect the reality of state government: nuance varies by jurisdiction, and generic answers are often insufficient or even misleading. That means AI must operate from approved organizational knowledge, not just public or generalized data. And leaders need visibility into how it’s being used: what people are asking, where guidance is unclear, and where additional support or clarification is needed.
Cybersecurity is not only a tooling problem. Whole-of-state security depends on distributing trusted guidance, maintaining situational awareness, training a distributed workforce, and reaching the right stakeholders quickly.
Doing that well requires more than disconnected email lists and document repositories. States need secure spaces where agencies can manage stakeholder networks, target communications, maintain current guidance, and coordinate work while preserving clear roles and permissions.
The infrastructure supporting that coordination must also meet the security standards state IT teams expect.
Modernization often replaces core applications while the work surrounding them remains stuck in spreadsheets, email chains, shared drives, and recurring meetings.
Successful modernization therefore requires improving the operating workflows around systems as well as the systems themselves. Communications, contacts, forms, meetings, knowledge, and coordination should work together rather than create another collection of disconnected tools.
That layer should also be deployable quickly, allowing agencies to improve day-to-day operations while longer-term transformations continue.
Digital services and accessibility extend far beyond central IT. Policies must reach web teams, program owners, procurement staff, and agency leaders across government. Questions need timely answers, and proven practices need to spread.
Doing this well requires a shared environment for guidance, peer problem-solving, meetings, resources, and ongoing communication, paired with visibility into participation and progress.
Georgia’s statewide accessibility work demonstrates the model, connecting more than 90 agencies around a common effort.
Budget pressure makes consolidation urgent. States often assemble separate tools for contacts, email, meetings, file sharing, surveys, discussion, and knowledge management, then spend staff time reconciling them.
Effective consolidation should reduce both licenses and operational fragmentation. Stakeholder records should connect to communications and activity. Meetings, documents, forms, and discussions should remain connected to the work they support. Trusted answers should be reusable rather than recreated through repetitive support.
The goal is not consolidation for its own sake. It is less administration and duplication, faster onboarding, and more capacity for mission-critical work.
Cross-agency initiatives often lack visibility into the people and organizations doing the work. Leaders may know what systems record, but not who is participating, where partners are struggling, or which guidance is actually being used.
Good coordination infrastructure should make that activity visible: which organizations are engaged, what questions are emerging, which resources are useful, and where gaps require intervention.
That network context complements enterprise data platforms and turns reporting into a byproduct of execution rather than a last-minute scramble.
State government is inherently decentralized. Agencies, counties, municipalities, providers, nonprofits, and vendors operate with different technologies, permissions, responsibilities, and reporting structures.
Effective statewide coordination must be designed for that reality. It should organize work around people and organizations across a network, not assume everyone belongs to the same enterprise environment. It should also preserve clear access boundaries while giving participants a common place to work.
For CIOs, that creates a repeatable foundation for initiatives spanning AI governance, cybersecurity, accessibility, emergency response, public health, and beyond.
NASCIO’s priorities ask state CIOs to modernize systems, govern emerging technology, reduce costs, strengthen security, expand accessibility, and improve digital services simultaneously.
Infrastructure alone cannot achieve those goals. States need to connect the people, knowledge, and work distributed across their networks.
If you’re a state agency looking for that connective tissue: secure, cloud-based infrastructure that turns enterprise strategy into coordinated execution— let’s talk.
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