Greetings from sunny Philadelphia and the 2026 OPEN MINDS Technology & Analytics Institute. What has dominated the discussion the past couple days is where we are at with the adoption of technology in general – and artificial intelligence (AI) in particular – in the health and human service field. For the executives here, the question is how they ‘compare’ to their competitors in the use of AI, and their success in using AI to improve performance.

Certainly, we all take comfort in knowing where we are and where we’re going. It’s like bright red dot on a map at a shopping mall; knowing YOU ARE HERE anchors us in the now and provides direction for later.

But on the map of AI…