Last week, Governor Wes Moore placed a wager in front of the cameras in Annapolis. It’s not a chips-on-a-table situation, but it has the potential to influence Maryland’s labor market in five years. The state is working with RAISE US, a nonprofit organization supported by some odd bedfellows, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and even AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who is seated next to Sam Altman, to figure out how to keep Marylanders employed as AI transforms the definition of work.
It’s a risk because no one seems to know exactly what the next few years will bring, not even the people in charge of RAISE US. The group’s co-founder and former U.S. Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, put it plainly: America has spent years developing AI systems, but it has no real plan for the people those systems might replace. That’s a remarkably open admission from someone whose company is currently Maryland’s partner on that particular issue.
The deal’s specifics are still being worked out. RAISE US will assist in the creation of pilot programs, such as corporate retraining incentives, innovative ways to assist individuals changing jobs, and training that is based on what employers genuinely require rather than what appears appealing on a brochure. In addition to a fund for testing out ideas for career transitions and a program encouraging displaced workers to pursue entrepreneurship, there is talk of extending the state’s Service Year Option into healthcare and education. On paper, it seems promising. It’s another matter entirely whether it survives contact with real budget cycles and unemployment offices.
Observing how little of this is truly new money is noteworthy. In less than a year, Maryland has made three or four announcements pertaining to AI. There was the collaboration with Anthropic in November, which was centered on government modernization and child poverty. Next, a $4 million workforce investment in life sciences and cybersecurity education. The internship program at Lighthouse Industries in February comes next. Raise us now. In a press release, each one sounds significant. Together, they begin to resemble a governor attempting to maintain control over an uncontrollable story.
Michael Boyce, Moore’s senior adviser for responsible AI, is another person worth keeping an eye on. He joined the position in late May following positions at the Biden White House and the Department of Homeland Security. The state has completed “the zero-to-one building” and is currently attempting to move “from the one to ten,” Boyce told Maryland Matters.The nice consultants adore this neat phrase, but it also alludes to the fact that a large portion of Maryland’s AI infrastructure work has up until now been quiet and internal, largely unseen by the people it is meant to assist.
The real risk in this gamble may be that invisibility. As of last fall, approximately 43,000 state employees reportedly had access to Google’s Gemini assistant, with roughly one-third of them being active users. For a tool that the administration appears keen to expand, that is a modest adoption rate. RAISE US’s pilot programs may be well-designed but underutilized, which would be a failure in and of itself if the workforce-facing aspect of AI policy advances at a similar rate.
Former Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, a co-chair of RAISE US, described the collaboration as nonpartisan work carried out at the state level rather than through federal mandates. There is a component to that. Maryland’s economy depends on government contracting, cybersecurity, and life sciences, all of which are already experiencing subtle signs of automation pressure, so there are good reasons to take immediate action. However, no one in Annapolis has yet to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether RAISE US can truly move quickly enough to matter.
