Prompt engineering skills are holding back government AI adoption

State technology leaders are highlighting a critical skills gap in prompt engineering that’s limiting the effectiveness of generative AI adoption in government. Recent pilots across multiple states reveal that while AI tools show promise, their success hinges on employees developing specialized abilities to craft detailed, context-rich prompts that elicit high-quality outputs from AI systems.

The big picture: State governments are discovering that generative AI implementation requires more than just deploying technology—it demands a workforce capable of effectively communicating with these systems through properly structured prompts.

• Pennsylvania’s year-long ChatGPT Enterprise pilot with 175 employees across 14 agencies found that despite 85 percent reporting positive experiences, the technology “requires our employees’ expertise and judgment to be used effectively.”
• New York’s Office of Information Technology Services has identified prompt engineering as an emerging skill requirement for maximizing AI effectiveness in public service.

Why this matters: The difference between receiving generic, low-quality “AI slop” and valuable, tailored outputs often comes down to the quality of human-crafted prompts.

• Effective prompt engineers provide necessary context, dictate tone, and set output constraints to guide AI systems toward specific, useful results.

What they’re saying: State technology leaders acknowledge prompt engineering represents a significant learning curve for government workers.

• “There’s just a learning curve of learning how to prompt and interact with something new,” explained Harrison MacRae, director of emerging technologies at Pennsylvania’s Office of Administration.
• Jennifer Lorenz, executive deputy CIO for New York’s Office of Information Technology Services, noted: “Prompt engineering is something we’re seeing a need for. The way you conduct a search with AI, the more context you can give it the better the results will be.”

Where we go from here: While current state technology initiatives focus on training programs to build prompt engineering skills, experts predict this specialized knowledge may eventually become ubiquitous.

• Lorenz suggested that in approximately 10 years, formal training programs may become unnecessary as younger generations naturally develop these skills: “The younger folks, the people that are in school now, they’re learning this as a part of their everyday lives.”