The 12-week pilot program between the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer (DST) and OpenAI found millions of dollars in potential unclaimed property that could soon be on its way back to North Carolinians. The partnership was formed to see how artificial intelligence could be used to help improve government services. After three months, DST’s initial findings show operational efficiency has been improved in key areas of our department, allowing us to better serve the people of North Carolina.
“Our team set out to find out how we could modernize our department, while still providing top notch service to folks across the state,” said State Treasurer Brad Briner. “We work with huge amounts of data in everything that we do, and the majority of it is public information. As this pilot program wraps up, we are thrilled to say our divisions were able to take that publicly available information and utilize ChatGPT in ways that resulted in tangible and measurable improvements to their daily workflow.”
The Unclaimed Property Division, commonly known as NC Cash, implemented ChatGPT into their searches over the past 12 weeks. During our initial analysis, we have been able to more efficiently identify and contact business entities that may be holding unclaimed property. This means that, with the help of OpenAI, we were able to identify companies that likely possess unclaimed property that should be turned over to DST so those properties can then be connected to their rightful owners. Preliminary findings show that the scope of these unclaimed properties could total in the millions of dollars.
DST and OpenAI have now teamed up with North Carolina Central University’s (NCCU) Institute for Artificial Intelligence to conduct an independent, third-party analysis of the pilot program. All three organizations will be collaborating on a fuller report in the coming weeks detailing the successes and challenges of the program.
“This partnership is a powerful example of how AI can help government better serve the public,” said Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer. “Treasurer Briner and his team are pointing the way forward — showing how tools like ChatGPT can unlock greater efficiency and support public servants who are tackling complex challenges on behalf of their communities.”
About Department of State Treasurer
Our mission is to preserve, protect and sustain the state’s pension and healthcare plans, generate investment returns in excess of comparable public pensions, properly account for and report on all funds that are deposited, invested, and disbursed through the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer, assure the financially sound issuance of debt for state and local governments, maintain the state’s “AAA”bond rating, and provide exemplary service across all divisions of the Department.
Our vision is to sustain and advance the performance and efficiency of the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer, always focusing on our loyalty and duty of care to participants.
About OpenAI
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that as AI advances, it benefits everyone. We're building AI to help people solve hard problems because by helping with the hard problems, AI can benefit the most people possible—through more scientific discoveries, better healthcare and education, and improved productivity. We’re off to a strong start, creating freely available intelligence being used by more than 400 million people around the world, including 3 million developers. We believe AI will scale human ingenuity and drive unprecedented economic growth and new freedoms that help people accomplish what we can't even imagine today.