June 29, 2026 - SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that the state has entered into a partnership with leading California-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic, a first-of-its-kind collaboration that will help support state workers and responsibly adopt AI to make state services more effective, user-friendly, and efficient.

Through the agreement, state agencies may access Anthropic’s AI productivity assistant, Claude, at a 50% discounted price, coupled with free workforce training as well as expert GenAI technical assistance and workflow input from Anthropic developers. The agreement also provides the same discounted offer for California’s local governments, including cities and counties.

Claude will help state workers with a wide range of tasks, including drafting and summarizing documents, analyzing information, supplementing day-to-day work and improving services for Californians.

“As a California company, we feel a real responsibility to our home state. We’re honored to expand our partnership with California’s agencies and to put Claude to work for the people who keep this state running,” said Kate Jensen, Anthropic’s Head of Americas. “Building AI responsibly and in service of people has been our approach from the start, and that’s exactly what this partnership puts into practice.”

“As state employees, our goal is to provide our fellow Californians with the best possible service,” said Government Operations Agency Secretary Nick Maduros. “To do that, we need to make sure our teams have access to the best modern tools, including Claude and other emerging technologies.”

California has already implemented some use of Claude in state government, including using the tool to facilitate Engaged California, a first-in-the-nation deliberative democracy platform announced by Governor Newsom last year, that helps provide Californians with a stronger voice in policymaking. Claude was also used in the state’s development of Poppy – a simple AI tool designed by state workers for state workers through pre-built, easy-to-use queries tailored to common state business needs, facilitating more reliable, trustworthy outcomes. CDT and CalOES are partnering to use Claude for cyber defense — Claude Security and Claude Code for scanning, triaging, and patching state code. Among the largest agencies, CA DMV is using Claude to improve customer service and lower wait times, and CA Dept of Healthcare Services, the largest Medicaid Agency in the country, is using Claude for internal workflows to better assist Medicaid recipients.

Making AI easily accessible for state employees

Claude is the first AI productivity tool that will be available to all State agencies though the California Department of Technology’s new Statewide Information Technology Shared Services (SITeS) portal. The portal centralizes AI tools in one place with transparent pricing around key business use cases — such as improving operational efficiency, enhancing data security, and optimizing state worker experience.  

“CDT is partnering with departments across the state to leverage the state’s purchasing power to make it easy to procure new tools, fast and for the best price,” said California State Chief Information Officer and Department of Technology Director Chris Given. “Our work on SITeS is just one way we are reducing barriers for state employees to gain access to the tools they need.”

Efficient, effective, engaged

This announcement adds to Governor Newsom’s ongoing strategies to make government more efficient by adding new technologies and working with California’s leading experts and innovators, with state employees. In 2025, the Governor signed an executive order directing every state agency to engage the entire state workforce in efforts to identify and implement novel efficiency measures, and established the California Breakthrough Group, which brings together some of the Golden State’s top executives to help guide this work. The order also created a new Governor’s Innovation Fellows Program, consisting of state staff with a mission of collaborating to address unique statewide challenges through innovative ideas.  Information about these efforts can be found at results.ca.gov.   

Building on California’s AI leadership

California has dominated AI innovation, with 33 of the top 50 private AI companies in the world based in California, and no state has taken more aggressive action to strengthen the safety, security, and consumer privacy of technology and online platforms. This partnership adds to California’s comprehensive approach creating commonsense guardrails while advancing innovation and responsible adoption for the public good.  

In 2023, Governor Newsom made California the first state to take action on Generative AI policy, announcing an executive order to both responsibly adopt this technology in state government and begin studying its risks. In response, California launched nation-leading pilots to use AI to enhance customer service, reduce traffic, and improve road safety. The Newsom Administration also established guidelines for public sector procurement and use of AI, published guidelines for State agencies to analyze the impact of AI tools on marginalized and vulnerable communities, published reports on building and supporting an AI-ready state workforce, and developed over 20 new AI trainings for state workers. 

The Governor convened world-leading academic experts to draft the California Report on Frontier AI Policy, providing the state with policy recommendations that helped lead to the Governor’s signature on the first state legislation nationwide, the Transparency in Frontier Technology Act (Senate Bill 53, Wiener) to help ensure that this technology moves forward responsibly. The law has since been replicated and modeled in similar laws adopted in other states. And last year, he launched the Innovation Council and the Emerging Technology Accelerator to partner with the nation’s leading experts to inform the state’s tech policy and collaborate on projects to modernize government service delivery.  

Last month, Governor Newsom signed an executive order that directs state agencies to build a framework for responding to potential workforce disruption and ensuring workers are not left behind as AI adoption accelerates. 

This adds to other protections signed by Governor Newsom to create strong protocols for child safety and protections against self-harm, crack down on sexually explicit deepfakes and require AI watermarking, protect performers’ digital likenesses, and prevent scams from AI-generated robocalls. In addition, it supplements the Governor’s March 2026 executive order, which strengthened civil rights and privacy in California’s procurement of AI technology and expanded California’s adoption of AI to improve government services.

Source: Office of the Governor