09-02-2026PACESETTERS 2026

How the Kansas Department of Labor has implemented AI to make it easier to file for unemployment

Amber Shultz, secretary of Labor, has led technological change at the agency—making it easier for employees to assist more people.

[Source images: Kansas Department of Labor, Adobe Stock]

Until a couple of years ago, the software running the state unemployment insurance platform in Kansas hadn’t been updated since the 1970s. Customer service agents had to keep five screens open at once while trying to help people filing for unemployment compensation; one of the tools was so old that it wasn’t even possible to use a mouse, and agents had to type commands into a command line. At night, the whole system had to shut down for batch processing, so if someone who’d lost their job tried to submit a claim at 9 p.m., they’d be frustrated to find that it wouldn’t work.

The system finally got a revamp at the end of........

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