By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
North Carolina's AI Leadership Council released a statewide artificial intelligence strategic roadmap last Tuesday, offering the state's most comprehensive policy framework yet for how government agencies, workers and residents should navigate the growing influence of AI across public life.
The roadmap, developed over roughly ten months following Gov. Josh Stein's creation of the AI Leadership Council through Executive Order 24 in September 2025, organizes 17 strategic goals into three broad categories: protecting residents from AI-related harms, preparing the workforce and broader public for an AI-driven economy, and transforming state government services through responsible AI adoption.
"Artificial intelligence is already changing how we work, learn, and serve the people of our state, and North Carolina must lead with urgency and care," Stein said in the announcement. "Together, we can make North Carolina a place where innovation and trust move forward together."
The document arrives as AI’s reach across industries, government services, and daily life expands. The roadmap acknowledges that shift. It states that AI creates genuine economic opportunities while simultaneously accelerating job displacement, enabling new forms of fraud and misinformation, and raising serious questions about bias, privacy and public accountability.
On the protection front, the roadmap calls for strengthened safeguards for workers, consumers and critical public infrastructure. From January through September 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 200 victim complaints related to AI-assisted scams targeting elderly residents, resulting in more than $1.9 million in losses.
The workforce preparation dimension may be the roadmap’s most urgent component.
By 2029, according to figures cited in the document, roughly half of all U.S. jobs are expected to be transformed by AI, with 92 million positions globally projected to be displaced by 2030. The roadmap aims to position North Carolina to respond to that disruption through a statewide reskilling infrastructure, building on existing assets like the 2025 establishment of the Council on Workforce and Apprenticeship within the NCWorks Commission and programs such as NC State University's AI Academy, which has already partnered with more than 100 industry organizations and prepared more than 2,000 individuals for AI-related careers.
"AI will play a major role in the future of work, business, and economic competitiveness," said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley. "This roadmap positions North Carolina to help workers build new skills, help businesses responsibly adopt new tools, and help communities prepare for the economy of the future."
On the government transformation side, the roadmap focuses on using AI to improve the delivery of public services while putting governance structures in place to ensure that adoption is both transparent and accountable.
NCDIT Secretary and State Chief Information Officer Nate Denny framed that challenge in terms of public trust.
"This is not just a technology plan. It is a plan to build public trust," Denny said. "People are relying on AI to interact with information, government services, and one another. That means North Carolina has a responsibility to put the right governance, safeguards, training, and transparency in place so AI is developed responsibly, deployed thoughtfully, and used in ways that improve lives."
Duke Energy's 2025 Integrated Resource Plan projects that total net load across its two North Carolina systems could increase between 16 and 60 percent over the next 15 years, a sharp contrast to the 7 percent increase the state saw over the previous two decades. Data centers, which serve as the physical backbone of AI systems, account for a significant share of that projected demand growth.
In response, Stein established an Energy Policy Task Force to manage rising electricity demand while maintaining affordability and reducing carbon emissions. The task force released an interim report in February 2026 with nine preliminary recommendations aimed at balancing those competing pressures.
The council charged with producing the roadmap brought together stakeholders from the private sector, state government, education, and labor, reflecting an effort to ground the document's recommendations in the practical realities facing different parts of the state's economy. Each of the 17 strategic goals includes an implementation plan and timeline, with primary owners identified for each recommendation.
The release also coincides with a new legislative development. Earlier this Summer, the General Assembly established the North Carolina AI Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of legislators focused on AI policy and emerging technologies, suggesting the roadmap may find a receptive audience in the legislature as specific proposals move toward implementation.
