Vermont’s New AI Economic Taskforce: How the State Plans to Use Artificial Intelligence to Boost Small Business and Government

Who’s Running the Taskforce and Why It Matters

Neale Lunderville will chair the group. He’s worked under both Republican and Democratic governors, and currently serves as president and CEO of Vermont Gas. That bipartisan credibility matters here.

Membership spans serious institutional weight — including the secretaries of the Vermont Agency of Digital Services and the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, alongside leaders from multiple economic sectors.

This isn’t a tech committee. It’s an economic one. That framing tells you everything about Vermont’s intent.

The Core Argument: AI as a Small Business Equalizer

Lunderville made the case plainly: AI could give Vermont’s small businesses and rural communities a genuine competitive edge — but only if the state moves quickly and thoughtfully.

His example is concrete and compelling. Small manufacturers using AI to draft requests for proposals could cut a 20-hour process down to five hours. That’s not a marginal efficiency gain. That’s a structural advantage for businesses that can’t afford large operations teams.

For rural communities where resources are thin and talent is spread across wide geographies, that kind of leverage is transformative.

What Vermont’s Government Is Already Doing With AI

The state isn’t starting from zero. The Agency of Digital Services pointed to two live examples of AI already in use:

• ChatVT — Vermont’s own AI assistant tool for state use
• An invoice processing tool that automates routine financial workflows

Beyond official tools, real-world adoption is already happening at the staff level. State communications workers are using AI to draft internal messages. Senior officials are using it to aggregate and summarize international news. These aren’t pilot programs — they’re daily workflows.

The taskforce is essentially being asked to formalize and accelerate what’s already happening organically.

Municipal Government: The Overlooked Opportunity

One of the most underreported angles here is the municipal layer.

Vermont towns often run on volunteer selectboards and part-time clerks. These are people doing serious civic work with minimal resources and even less time. Lunderville sees AI handling the “low-value work” at this level — routine documentation, summarization, scheduling, communications.

“We’ll see better government that way,” he said.

That’s a practical, grounded vision. It’s not about replacing people. It’s about freeing them to focus on decisions that actually require human judgment.

Three Strategic Priorities Beyond Government Operations

The taskforce isn’t only focused on internal government efficiency. Its broader mandate covers three interconnected priorities:

1. Economic acceleration — helping Vermont businesses compete in an AI-driven economy
2. Small business competitiveness — giving smaller operators access to tools and knowledge that level the playing field
3. Community resilience — ensuring rural and underserved communities aren’t left behind as AI adoption accelerates

These aren’t abstract goals. They’re a direct response to the risk that AI widens the gap between well-resourced urban businesses and smaller rural operators — a gap Vermont can’t afford to ignore.

What This Means for AI Tool Adopters Right Now

If you’re a founder, marketer, or operator watching this space, Vermont’s move signals something broader: state governments are becoming active participants in AI adoption strategy, not just passive observers.

The tools being referenced — AI drafting assistants, invoice automation, news aggregation agents — are already available to anyone. Lunderville himself built a dozen AI apps and agents using accessible tools, including one that crawls municipal websites for housing development updates.

The barrier to entry is lower than most people think. What Vermont is doing is building the institutional knowledge and policy framework to make adoption systematic rather than accidental.

The 90-Day Clock Is Already Running

The taskforce has a tight timeline. Five recommendations in 90 days is a deliverable, not a suggestion. That urgency is intentional.

Vermont is a small state with limited resources. But that constraint can be an advantage — faster consensus, tighter feedback loops, and less bureaucratic drag than larger state governments face.

Watch what comes out of those first recommendations. They’ll likely reflect use cases that are immediately replicable by other states, municipalities, and small businesses operating in similar resource-constrained environments.

The real story here isn’t just Vermont. It’s the signal that AI adoption is moving from corporate boardrooms into town halls, selectboard meetings, and small manufacturer back offices.

The tools are ready. The question is whether the strategy is. Vermont just decided to find out.