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Cities already have eyes on the streets and vehicles moving through neighborhoods every day: waste trucks, maintenance vehicles, emergency vehicles, code enforcement vehicles, park vehicles, and more. What if those vehicles could also identify problems, spot risks, and feed real-time insights back into city decision-making systems, making those mobile assets more intelligent? Cities don’t need to wait for fully autonomous vehicles to benefit from artificial intelligence (AI)

The Public Sector Shift: AI Enters the Sensorimotor Phase While generative AI transformed digital information, Physical AI (Embodied AI) is moving into its "sensorimotor phase"—shifting from predicting outcomes on screens to executing autonomous actions in the physical world. For city leaders, this represents the next major wave of municipal efficiency, moving automation directly into the physical infrastructure of urban spaces. Public Sector Use Cases The physical nature of

Why Arizona should focus on quantum sensing, hardware, and industrial deployment By Dean Duncan and Chris Lucero | The Connective At a Glance: Arizona's Quantum Opportunity Quantum is becoming a driver of economic growth, not just a research topic. The first commercial opportunities are emerging in sensing, photonics, advanced hardware, secure communications, and precision measurement. Arizona already has a strong foundation in semiconductors, optics and photonics, aerospace

Learn how the Town of Gilbert successfully adopted AI with Axon Draft One through strong governance, pilot testing and cross-department collaboration.

On February 26, Arizona state leaders, municipal partners and industry experts gathered together for the Arizona Public Sector AI Symposium, at the Tempe Center for the Arts . Members of The Connective smart region consortium facilitated important discussions around how AI can impact city planning and operations, and benefit constituents and government employees now and in the future. Discussions at this first-of-its-kind event demonstrated how Arizona is becoming a nationa

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming part of everyday city operations. Rather than focusing on long-term speculation, many cities are already taking practical steps to apply AI in ways that improve services, support staff, and inform better decision-making. For Arizona cities and towns, looking at how peer cities are already using these tools can help local leaders better understand where to start, where to improve, and what to prioritize. At the 1st Annual Ariz

Aerial View of Phoenix One of the most practical places to begin your new smart city journey is with an oft overlooked asset right over your nose: streetlights. For cities looking to plan or expand their smart city strategy, streetlights represent one of the largest infrastructure networks in the city that comes prebuilt, wired and ready for deployment. But beyond the basic function of illuminating our way, these poles form an important backbone for smart city technologies.

Chris D. Lucero is a 30-plus-year technologist with deep experience spanning emerging technologies, systems engineering, and secure digital infrastructure. After a long career at Intel, where he served as Director of Emerging Technologies and Strategy, Chris has worked across product design, industrial IoT, cybersecurity, and large scale systems that move from concept to production. He is also the founder of Luminos Innovation, has served as CTO for an Arizona cybersecurity

Technology is accelerating at breakneck pace and as user experiences continue to improve, residents expect the same from their government services. But tech alone can’t modernize public services. Human-directed, visionary leadership helps steer digitization strategies that create meaningful results. As we’ve seen with the federal appointment of online accommodations platform Airbnb’s co-founder Joe Gebbia as the first U.S. Chief Design Officer , as well as with Arizona’s cre

This year, the European Union (EU) announced a major initiative towards progress in smart city developments throughout the region. “The...

Explore some of the exciting ways Arizona cities are working together to share knowledge and advance tech-driven initiatives in city planning and management.

Artificial intelligence is disrupting the traditional software as a service model by making bespoke software cheaper and more accessible...

key insights and takeaways from CONNECTED 2025, where Arizona's civic leaders showcased collaborative innovation for smarter, more resilient cities.

To sufficiently take advantage of Digital Twins in urban management, regional collaboration must be a consideration.

Here’s a look back at some of the most notable AI developments in Arizona cities and globally over the past year and future developments to.

What if cities could make it easier for citizens to find civic resources on their devices? Enter the metaverse.

Learn about CONNECTED 2024, our flagship event. We're steering Arizona to a more connected and innovative future.

In the quest to redefine the urban landscape, the journey towards smart cities has become a pivotal arena for innovation, collaboration,...

Read key takeaways from The Connective's recent AI for Local Government Workshop. Learn from Greater Phoenix AI experts and industry leaders

GovTech recently featured an exciting program from Goodyear, Avondale, and Surprise. Named WeRIDE, this initiative offers a...