Gartner presenter urges DuPage County to build AI guard rails, update procurement and transparency practices

Roland Rivera, a presenter from Gartner, told the DuPage County Technology Committee on June 16 that local governments must establish clear AI governance, risk controls and procurement clauses before expanding public-facing uses of artificial intelligence. Rivera framed AI as a broad set of technologies — including machine learning, deep learning, large language models and agentic AI — and said governments face a choice between moving quickly and exposing themselves to legal and operational risk or building guard rails first.

Rivera said governments should require contractual transparency and vendor validation of AI outputs, and he noted a growing public demand for labels that disclose when content is AI-generated. “I saw one the other day that said, ‘This page is produced by AI. It has errors,’” Rivera said, urging officials not to treat AI outputs as authoritative without verification. He recommended standardized digital signatures, omnichannel public education and vendor selection that favors transparent, responsible practices.

Rivera outlined several Gartner ‘‘predicts,’’ including a forecast that by 2030 surveys could show a decline in public confidence in government data programs because it is increasingly difficult to distinguish human and machine outputs. He also warned that agentic AI could account for a meaningful fraction of government work by 2029 and that underregulated AI-agent interactions may cause service failures unless human-in-the-loop controls and observability are in place.

On modernization, Rivera discussed AI-assisted software development (referred to in his remarks as “vibe coding”), advising pilot projects in noncritical environments and updating the software development life cycle to an agent development life cycle (ADLC) with documented guard rails. He said budgets will shift from capital purchases to subscription-based O&M expenditures and urged finance and IT to plan accordingly.

During questions, committee members asked how the county’s 2025 AI guidelines aligned with Rivera’s recommendations. Staff told the committee that many items have been considered but that a long-term strategy and updates to the guidelines remain in progress. Staff also said the county recently added a data security and accessibility exhibit to RFP and bid templates to strengthen procurements. Rivera and staff referenced federal executive orders and guidance; Rivera noted federal measures can flow down through grant conditions and that noncompliance may affect funding.

The presentation concluded with an agreement that Rivera’s slides would be distributed to committee members and that staff would continue work to incorporate relevant governance, transparency and procurement language into county templates.