This episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast explores how strong data governance is the key to unlocking AI’s full potential in the public sector. Recorded live at Tyler Connect, the conversation features Franklin Williams, president of Tyler’s Data & Insights Division and deputy CTO. He shares how effective governance — from data inventory to accountability — enables better decision-making, supports trustworthy AI, and empowers both people and systems. Tune in for practical insights on building a strong data foundation for the future of government technology.
In this episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast, we explore how strong data governance is essential to unlocking the full potential of artificial intelligence in the public sector.
Recorded live at the Tyler Connect conference in San Antonio, this insightful conversation features Franklin Williams, president of Tyler’s Data & Insights Division and deputy chief technology officer. Franklin explains how effective data governance — covering data inventory, quality, access, and accountability — lays the groundwork for trustworthy AI and better decision-making.
We dive into the most common data challenges public sector agencies face today, the practical steps to take when building a governance program, and how those efforts can empower both human users and AI systems alike. From data stewardship to responsible access controls, this episode offers valuable guidance for any organization preparing for the future of government technology.
Tune in to learn how cleaning, cataloging, and securing your data today can help unlock transparency, operational insight, and innovation tomorrow.
This episode also highlights “Resilient by Design: How Technology Supports Government,” our free e-book that explores how public sector agencies can strengthen their resilience in the face of disruption. From cloud infrastructure and automation to secure payment systems and crisis response tools, the e-book features real-world examples of how technology helps governments maintain continuity and serve their communities more effectively.
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Franklin Williams: The good news around data governance is that a lot of the investments that we’ve seen our clients have been making for years around these types of programs are exactly what you need from an AI perspective.
Josh Henderson: From Tyler Technologies, this is the Tyler Tech Podcast, where we explore the trends, technologies, and people shaping the public sector. I’m your host, Josh Henderson. Thanks for joining us. In this episode, we’re talking about the role of data governance and powering the next generation of government technology.
As AI becomes more integrated into public services, the quality and accessibility of data matters more than ever. And joining me on the show is Franklin Williams, president of the Data & Insights Division and deputy chief technology officer here at Tyler. We recorded this conversation live at Tyler Connect 2025 in San Antonio. And together, we explore why strong data governance is essential to unlocking the promise of AI, the practical steps agencies can take to improve their data, and how those efforts lead to better decisions and stronger outcomes.
Let’s get right into it.
Franklin, welcome to the Tyler Tech Podcast. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.
Franklin Williams: I am too. I’m excited to be here.
Josh Henderson: Great. Now let’s start with the big picture. Why is data governance such a critical priority for governments right now, especially with the prevalence of AI and other new technologies on the horizon?
Franklin Williams: I think one of the biggest reasons is because at the end of the day, your AI is only going to be as good as your data. It’s only going to be able to be as good as the data it can resend over, the data that it can find, and then the data that it can access as well.
And so, at the end of the day, making sure your data is clean, it’s up to date, it’s authoritative, and most importantly, it’s discoverable is one of the main reasons why people are so focused on this, particularly in the age of AI.
Josh Henderson: And now governments often have massive amounts of data spread across a number of different systems. We’re here at Tyler Connect 2025. I’ve heard from a lot of clients who have helped themselves solve those problems, but some who may still be in that maybe facing those challenges. But what are some of the most common challenges you see when it comes to the state of public sector data today?
Franklin Williams: There’s a bunch. I think one of those you kind of hinted at just now, which is that, ultimately, like, we see a lot of data that’s siloed.
Data that’s siloed in different systems and data that’s trapped within those systems. And if you think about it, the problems that the public sector faces, they don’t stop at just one system. If the public sector is going to solve any of these gnarly problems, any of these connected these true connected community scenarios, they really need data from all of the different systems that they have.
From, you know, all the way from public safety to jail to release all, you know, probation just throughout the entire life cycle. They need to be able to access data across all of that. They need to be able to access data across all their systems to determine whether or not the outcomes that they’re spending money or the programs they’re spending money on have the outcomes that are associated with it, the outcomes that they want to see. And that data today just lives in so many disparate systems with so many different barriers to getting access to those systems that it makes it very, difficult for our decision makers to get access to the information and to make any decision that cuts across any of these systems.
Josh Henderson: Yeah. Accessible data, definitely huge. And you’ve made a strong point before, and that is that AI is only as good as your data. So, can you explain why good data governance directly impacts how effective artificial intelligence can and could be?
Franklin Williams: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think one of the best analogies that I’ll use is that there’s a lot of places where, what is good for a for a human is very good for, you know, AI. Like places where all the things that go in a good data governance.
So, making sure your data has a good inventory around it, that the data is clean, it’s kept up to date, it’s authoritative, it’s discoverable, it’s protected, it’s secured. Those are all the same things that a human needs, but they’re equally important to some of the new advancements that we’ve seen in artificial intelligence around, for example, agentic frameworks. These frameworks that reason over the data that’s in front of them, reason over the information to try to get to the right outcome. So, the models are getting good enough so that they can, if presented with the right information, presented with the right context, they can get to the right answer.
But if your data is trapped, if you don’t have good data governance, if you don’t have the right inventory, the right discoverability, the right controls, the right access to that, then the agents are going to struggle in the exact same way that a human would. And so, when we talk about what’s good for humans also benefits these AI systems, it’s really true because if the human can’t access it, you know, the smartest system in the world isn’t going to be able to either.
Josh Henderson: And now to start kind of from square one for agencies who are looking to prepare, what does creating a solid data governance program look like to you? You know, where should they begin, and what are some foundational elements they need to plan for?
Franklin Williams: Great question.
So, one of the places that we’ve always encouraged our clients to start with is to just basically get an inventory of what they have.
It can be in whatever tool. There’s great data inventory tools. We have some at Tyler, but it could also just be as simple as a spreadsheet. Get insight into what data your organization has holistically and just start and start to build a catalog around that.
Now with that in place, you could start to basically do some of the pieces that are important to being able to leverage that data. You can basically start to figure out how do we bring that into, you know, one single place for people to access, one simple place for people to discover? I can start doing things like tagging that information with metadata around it, so that people can easily find the information that they’re looking for. And then once we’ve done that, then you’re on to kind of the next piece, which is to make sure that the data is clean, it’s up to date, it’s authoritative.
Because again, the AI is only going to be as good as your data. If your data has a bunch of duplicates, if it has a bunch of things that it shouldn’t, well, the AI or the person is going to make bad decisions around it.
Josh Henderson: And I guess kind of to play on that a little bit, part of it also involves accountability.
And so, what does good data stewardship look like? And why is clarity around data ownership so important in your opinion?
Franklin Williams: Oh, it’s critical because, you know, in a large organization, you need to know who you can go to, you know, get questions answered about the data, who I can go to your I love the word you used around who’s accountable for this. Who’s accountable for making sure it’s correct, it’s up to date, it’s authoritative. And when something doesn’t quite look right, who can I, the consumer, go to to understand whether or not the content or the data that we have is actually can truly be trusted? And that’s kind of at the root of a lot of it.
It’s like you people who are consuming this data, they need to know that the data is trustworthy. It’s up to date. It’s authoritative. And a big portion of that is the organizational change that’s required to drive accountability for that into the right places.
Josh Henderson: Stay tuned. We’ll be right back with more of the Tyler Tech Podcast.
Jade Champion: You can’t always prevent disruption, but you can prepare for it.
Josh Henderson: That’s right. And in our latest e-book, we explore how government agencies are building resilience into their operations from cloud-based systems and automation to tools that improve response and coordination.
Jade Champion: You’ll discover real world examples like how an emergency app help residents in Louisiana stay informed and how secure payment technology supports service continuity during a crisis.
Josh Henderson: It also walks through six practical steps to help you assess risks, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen your ability to adapt.
Jade Champion: Download your free copy of “Resilient by Design: How Technology Supports Government“ at the link in the show notes.
Josh Henderson: Because every government needs a road map to resilience, and it starts with the right technology.
Now let’s get back to the Tyler Tech Podcast.
Now once agencies have built that strong data foundation, what becomes possible for the for them?
What kinds of capabilities and benefits can governments unlock when their data is well governed?
Franklin Williams: It’s really exciting.
Some of them are you know, it’s the first we see clients where it’s the first time that they’re able to have a three hundred and sixty degree view of what’s happening in their city, in their county, in some cases, in in their state.
So, we’re able to drive operational insights that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get because the data was siloed, it was separate, you couldn’t see that all in one place. So, we see city managers that are able to make better decisions. We see a lot of our clients be able to engage counsel, for example, in better ways because they can precisely answer here’s what’s happening in your ward or district or anything along those lines. And then the final piece that we see that is really neat is the transparency side of this.
We see we see a lot of clients build a wonderful program, not just for internal use, but for transparency and open data as well. And when you have great up to date authoritative data that residents can trust as well, well, you get some really powerful things there. Building trust with residents, residents can understand how the public sector is better serving the public, and they can ultimately get access to the information that they need as residents as well to understand everything from permits, crime rates, everything else that is near and dear to all of our hearts as residents.
Josh Henderson: And that said, AI also introduces questions about control and responsibility. How should government leaders think about access control and ensuring data and AI use remain responsible and aligned with public trust? Ultimately, that’s what we’re hoping for.
Franklin Williams: So, I think you hit on a really important part of any data governance program, and that is making sure that the access controls that you have around it are of critical importance. So, making sure before we even get to AI that we have the right layer or the right levels of, you know, privacy classifications, and then the right controls around that to make sure people don’t access what they shouldn’t. So, you know, does this data have PHI in it?
Okay. Well, that’s going to be governed by a particular set of rules. PII. Okay. Well, that’s definitely not going to our transparency portal.
But making sure you’ve got the right classification and the right access controls to back up that classification.
And then when we look at bringing in AI on top of that, well, there’s a couple of interesting and important pieces of that. So, one of which is in the same way that I’m making sure and I’m reviewing that humans have the right level of control, so too do I want to make sure AI has the right level of control. Like, I don’t want it to accidentally be able to go in some sort of backdoor and disclose information that it otherwise shouldn’t. Part of the responsible use of AI is to make sure that you have the right tests, the right evaluations, the right guardrails around it so that it doesn’t make something up, so that it doesn’t give the wrong answer.
And that’s where at Tyler, we really pride ourselves on doing that type of work ahead of anything that we release. Like, so it’s got to be everything that we ship from an AI perspective has to be grounded in a rich set of evaluations to get run so that when clients ultimately use it, they know they have a system that they can trust.
Josh Henderson: That’s great. And, you know, we try to make this podcast an informational podcast, but also an educational podcast. So, and a lot of this stuff can sound quite complex, especially to people who are unfamiliar with some of the technology that we are privy to on a daily basis. But what advice would you give to leaders who may feel intimidated or unsure about how to get started with data governance?
Franklin Williams: Oh, great question. So, we’ve seen a couple of things be successful with our clients. Some of it goes into accountability, like making sure that we have the right people in the room to bring these pieces together.
Some of it goes with starting in a very simple way, which is just like, let’s just get a list of what we’ve got. Let’s collectively build a spreadsheet of what we have and then start asking the questions around given this, what’s missing and given this, what are some of the outcomes that we want to drive?
But then at the end of the day, I think if folks are uncertain, I think what they really should start with is the why.
Start with the outcomes that we think a well data you know, well governed data program will deliver. And if they start there and they start looking at what they have and they start looking at some of the possibilities for their, you know, their city, their county, their state, I think they’re going to find a couple of things. I think they’re going to find better decision making, easier access to data, lower risks of data disclosure. They’ll see a number of benefits there that will make it very obvious in terms of like, here’s why we should do this.
And from there, it’s okay. Well, to get started, let’s start working backwards from there. Let’s get a list of what we’ve got. Let’s get the right people around that.
Let’s start organizing the right work streams. And then before you know it, we have a pretty powerful program that will lock some pretty powerful results for both your staff and your residents alike.
Josh Henderson: I think that’s some really good advice. So, before we wrap up the conversation, what’s the biggest takeaway you’d like public sector leaders to remember when it comes to preparing their data for AI and other emerging technologies along the way?
Franklin Williams: I think probably the biggest thing is that, you know, we talked a little bit about it. What’s good for humans is good for AI. And so, we also we talked to a lot of clients that are looking at this what’s happening in AI, and they’re wanting to know what to do to get ready.
And I think a lot of folks come to the conversation thinking that they need to do something like brand new to get ready, something that they’re not already doing. And the good news around data governance is that a lot of the investments that we’ve seen our clients been making for years around these types of programs are exactly what you need from an AI perspective. And so there what that means is that means that there’s already a bunch of wonderful best practices. There’s already a bunch of wonderful practices that are out there that people can reach for.
And if they go do that, then I’m very confident that they’re going to have something that benefits not just the humans that are working for them today, but the AI and the advancements that are coming with, you know, the agentic workflows or any number of the other capabilities that are on the horizon.
Josh Henderson: I think that’s a really great place to wrap things up. Franklin, thank you so much for joining me today.
We’ll definitely have you back on the show again soon.
Franklin Williams: I’d love that. Thanks.
Josh Henderson: As we heard today, preparing for AI in the public sector starts with something foundational, good data. From establishing ownership and building a trusted inventory to ensuring responsible access and use, data governance is key to unlocking innovation.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the topics discussed in today’s episode, check out the show notes for additional resources. We’d also love to hear your feedback. Fill out the listener survey linked in the notes or email us at podcast@tylertech.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast so you never miss an episode. For Tyler Technologies, I’m Josh Henderson. Thanks for listening to the Tyler Tech Podcast.