Applied research at Harvard's Bloomberg Center for Cities on how American city governments are deploying AI, and the frameworks that help them do it responsibly.
US city governments face intense pressure to adopt AI, but little grounded evidence about what actually works. Between vendor promises and governance risks, city leaders need a clear-eyed map: where is AI genuinely improving service delivery, and where are the risks hiding?
Working under Professor Stephen Goldsmith's Data-Smart City Solutions program, I mapped how cities are using AI across permitting, transportation, waste and water management, and community engagement:
The research produced strategic frameworks adopted by city decision-makers to navigate AI adoption, and built relationships across the North American city government network. It also completed a personal arc: from procuring smart-city hardware in Gujarat to shaping how governments deploy the next generation of urban technology responsibly.