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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | AUGUST 11, 2025 17 to regulate it at a state level," he said. The man who has so far led the effort in the legislature to both regulate AI in Connecticut and to make sure the workforce is ready for it is State Sen. James Maroney (D-Milford). And he is concerned that this state is falling behind. "I think a lot of other states around us have seized the opportunity much better than we did, in terms of the invest- ments that New York state and Massa- chusetts have done in AI," he said. "I think we still have an opportunity to be a leader in responsible AI innovation." 'At scale' Maroney's second attempt to regu- late the use of AI for businesses once again failed in the legislature in the 2025 session over the threat of a veto from Gov. Ned Lamont. But a measure did pass that makes a start on funding AI education in the state. The legislation earmarked $500,000 for the Connecticut Online AI Academy run by Charter Oak State College, as well as $25,000 for AI training at the Boys and Girls Club of Milford and $75,000 for three Boys and Girls Clubs' AI training pilots in the state. The state budget included $200,000 to create a curriculum and resources around AI for K-12 schools. There's also $1.5 million over two years for the Connecticut AI Alliance to procure computing power to increase access to artificial intelligence technology for both higher education and small businesses. "I think we need to focus on small businesses because large businesses are going to figure this out on their own," Maroney said. He points to a 2024 Work Trend Index Report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, which showed that 66% of business leaders said they wouldn't hire someone without AI skills, and 71% said they'd rather hire a less experienced candidate with AI skills than a more experienced candidate without them. "We need to do mass reskilling and upskilling of the employees in Connecticut," he said. On the success side of the ledger, Maroney points to the online academy established by Charter Oak State College, which became the first state program in the nation to work with Google on developing a general AI skills curriculum. "It's no longer about, 'oh, AI is going to get you a job', it is, 'you need AI skills in order to have a job,'" said David Ferreira, the provost of Charter Oak. "We wanted to make sure everyone has that opportunity." The college has been running the five-week online course free for state residents since January of this year. "We have waiting lists every month," said Nancy Taylor, Charter Oak's director of workforce development. "We have about 2,000 students who have come through the course already. We thought when we launched it in January, we'd have about a thousand for the entire year. So, we've had huge demand." The course covers ethical and safety aspects of AI use, and teaches students how to most effectively interact with large language models — a skill that's called "prompt engineering" — contextualizing the assignments toward their specific job or personal goals. The college uses Google's curriculum as its textbook and software, and then adds an instructor. Ferreira says that aspect is key to students' success. "When you do just a self-paced version, national studies have shown that it's only about a 5 to 15% comple- tion rate," he said. "But when you add an instructor, the completion rates go up to around 80%." Charter Oak has also done follow-up surveys with students who complete the course to track how comfortable they became with integrating AI into their work. "About 8% used it every day prior to the course on a regular basis. After five weeks, it went up to 44%," Ferreira said. Building on their success with individuals, the college is now working to develop courses for small busi- ness and nonprofits to implement AI. They're looking to work with chambers of commerce to try to offer the course as widely as possible. "Honestly, if we can do this at scale, which is what we are planning to do, that'll put Connecticut at the forefront," Ferreira said. A recent jobs report from the World Economic Forum found that 39% of existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated by 2030, and the report cited AI and big data as the fastest-growing skills. In all, the report anticipates that 59% of the world's workforce will need to be reskilled in the next five years. Ferreira points out that in Connecticut, that would be more than a million people. "We talk about the 70,000 unfilled jobs in Connecticut, and that's important, but if we're not planning for the 1 million that are going to need to be reskilled within the next four and a half years — if you don't have that as a key cornerstone of your economic development plan for a state, you only have about a quarter of your economic development," he said. Need for coordination "Here in Connecticut we have quite a bit of momentum, but the momentum is not fully directed or guided," said Vahid Behzadan, an assistant professor at the Univer- sity of New Haven's college of engineering and co-founder of the Connecticut AI Alliance (CAIA). CAIA was established in March of this year, bringing together universities, government representa- tives and industry groups to position Connecticut as a premier hub for artificial intelligence. "We aim to act as a nexus that connects resources, needs, experts and talent to facilitate economic devel- opment, workforce development and innovation in the AI space," he said. Coordination on this effort in high- er-ed is vital, according to Behzadan. "We are working on making sure that academic institutions are connected with each other, learning opportunities are promoted not just locally, but across the state," he said. "And not just for college students, but for anybody who's looking to learn about … the basics of artificial intelligence." Behzadan says Connecticut has to focus on two opportunities: developing the core AI engineering workforce, those who create, innovate and maintain AI systems; and ensuring that professionals in every industry sector are aware of how those tools can be leveraged in their area of expertise. He says the disruptive potential of AI — that jobs bloodbath — should not be dismissed. "The more we automate prob- lem-solving, it's natural to assume that fewer human problem-solvers would be required, but that's in the very long run," he said. "In the meanwhile, AI is here and those who leverage it are going to benefit from it a lot more than those who don't." Rob Stone is the general manager of intelligent automation and analytics at Windsor's SS&C Technologies. Contributed Photo SE RIES | CT'S ECONOMIC COMPE TITIVENES S David Ferreira Vahid Behzadan Nancy Taylor James Maroney Here's how one CT nonprofit is experimenting with AI By Harriet Jones hjones@hartfordbusiness.com "I think that we are just barely, barely beginning to understand the power it can have," said Patricia Wilcox. She's vice president of stra- tegic development at Klingberg Family Centers in New Britain, a 300-person social services agency that's still considering how to implement artificial intelligence throughout its processes. Wilcox herself has taken several courses through Charter Oak State College, and she says many of Klingberg's employees are also dabbling in the technology. "I know of people who've used AI for writing grants, for sched- uling, for creating documents like a program handbook, and maybe for steps in creating presentations," she said. But that kind of piecemeal, indi- vidually driven adoption contains pitfalls, particularly for an organiza- tion that deals with sensitive client data. Klingberg provides services to children and families including group homes, a large special-ed school, foster care and adoption, and an after- school treatment program, among other services. "People in our agency are very well- trained in HIPAA and in confidentiality, and I think they would know that they shouldn't put client information in AI," Wilcox said. "But we are just starting the process of thinking, what policies and procedures do we need to both ensure safety and to ensure confi- dentiality and to guard against the mistakes AI makes." The other pressure she's dealing with is sales calls. "Everywhere you look, somebody's Patricia Wilcox trying to sell you something about AI now," Wilcox said. Specifically, she's being pitched AI software that will record, transcribe and summarize client therapy sessions, creating progress notes for clinicians. "What should you look for if you're trying to think about whether to buy a program?" she asked. "Everybody's trying to jump on this bandwagon, and the programs are probably various degrees of sophistication at this point." Wilcox is considering an agen- cy-wide partnership with Charter Oak State College to answer some of her questions, and to provide comprehensive and standardized training for her staff. Such a partnership might provide a model for how the college can scale up the training it wants to provide for small- and medium-sized enter- prises in the state.