evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

AskCA — California's Claude-Powered Navigator for State and Local Government Services

United States of America · Sacramento · See the United States of America profile · See the Sacramento profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 62% 53/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

California's Office of Data and Innovation launched AskCA, an Anthropic Claude-based assistant that guides residents to services by life event rather than department. Born from the 2025 LA wildfires, it was tested with 140+ recovery leaders before its September 2026 pilot launch.

140+
Fire-recovery leaders and survivors in prototype testing
12
Job seekers tested
100+
General testers
AskCA — California's Claude-Powered Navigator for State and Local Government Services

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
California Office of Data and Innovation (ODI)
Period
2026–
Keywords
digital government, citizen services, employment services, disaster recovery

Context

After the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires destroyed more than 16,000 homes and businesses, survivors struggled to navigate disconnected state and local aid programmes. California's Office of Data and Innovation (ODI) built AskCA as a single natural-language entry point.

Activities

AskCA runs on Anthropic's Claude, organised around life events rather than agency names, accepting text or voice input, letting job seekers upload a resume for CalHR skills-matching, citing only verified government sources and storing no personal information.

Results

The prototype was evaluated with more than 140 fire-recovery leaders and Altadena wildfire survivors, 12 job seekers and 100+ general testers, with methodology support from U.S. Digital Response and independent performance evaluation by Stanford RegLab.

Conclusions

Governor Newsom opened AskCA for public pilot sign-up on 9 September 2026; as a week-old pilot, the evidence so far is pre-launch prototype testing, not measured impact.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Not disclosed; built on Anthropic's Claude API rather than a bespoke model.
Time to results
Short (< 1 year) — Prototype tested through 2026; public pilot opened 9 September 2026, with a CalHR skills-matching feature following 30 September 2026.
Staffing & skills
California Office of Data and Innovation, Department of Technology, U.S. Digital Response (testing methodology), Stanford RegLab (independent evaluation)

Conditions for success

  • Life-event organisation rather than agency-based navigation
  • No account required and no personal data stored, lowering the barrier to use

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful