During this year’s Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo in Raleigh, NC, one topic garnered considerable attention: AI. Within many city governments, AI is past experimentation and has moved into production. In 2026, city IT leaders are prioritizing  safe, secure, and data-driven AI deployments that deliver measurable outcomes in mobility, public safety, infrastructure management, and climate resilience.

However, as cities move toward operational AI, challenges exist around data readiness, governance, and integration across departments.

This year’s Beyond the Beltway conference highlighted key strategic findings from IT leaders that signal where 2026 technology investments will be made and where to focus efforts for success. In 2026, state and local governments are at an inflection point: with rising expectations evolving alongside tightening budgets, staffing and timelines, success will depend on alignment of solutions to modernization requirements, workforce challenges and measurable ROI-driven outcomes.

According to data contained in a recent study from Pediatrics, the official scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the number of school shootings in the United States has increased dramatically every year since the 2017-2018 school year. At the same time, school mass shootings have become increasingly deadly. Given this trend and the risk posed by security threats to students and faculty, school districts are desperate to find solutions to improve school security.

Government agencies strive to lower the cost of products and services to save taxpayers money. They also aim to shorten “procurement administrative lead time,” or PALT—the time from identification of need to delivery of value—to expedite their missions without delay. 

Case work is the universal working style of government agencies. Everything from handling customer service inquiries to issuing permits to responding to weather events—in short, any workflow a public sector organization handles—is a “case” that requires a systematic approach from start to finish.

This is part of a podcast series where the Market Insights team provides insights and analysis on IT opportunities across the public sector. This episode features Yvonne Maffia, Senior Market Insights Analyst at TD SYNNEX Public Sector where she discusses how to leverage SLED Fiscal Year End Sales Opportunities. Listen to this podcast episode now.

TD Synnex Public Sector’s Chief Cybersecurity Technologist, Don Maclean sat down with Mark Guntrip, Senior Director of Security Strategy at Menlo Security, to discuss one of the latest emergent security threats.

2022 is ending, and it is time for U.S. public sector leaders to reflect on lessons learned while planning for the upcoming state and local government fiscal year-end. This year’s NASCIO Annual Conference highlighted the post-pandemic technology trends and challenges that are defining 2023 policy agendas and the future of technology acquisitions. The conference referenced the State Chief Information Officer Survey which assessed state CIOs’ thoughts on a wide array of topics that affect their roles as public sector technology and business leaders in today’s modern world.

The U.S. electric grid is critical infrastructure consisting of an ecosystem of communities, stakeholders, governments and economies. Most of the grid infrastructure was built decades ago and is unreliable. Bad actors know it. In 2015, Russian hackers carried out the first successful cyberattack on the nation's electricity grid, which was just one of an ongoing series of security breaches and attacks on US infrastructure and utilities.

Government organizations have a bad rap for being inefficient. But with outdated technology and limited spending, they aren’t exactly set up for success. And the expectations from stakeholders are high, with funding provided primarily by taxpayer dollars.