AI for the Commonwealth
Through a paid internship, UMass Amherst computer science undergrads apply cutting-edge generative AI to solve challenges for Massachusetts institutions and communities.
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For employees of the Human Resources department at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS), finding the information they needed to do their jobs was a time-consuming and, at times, frustrating process. Lengthy and complex internal policy documents, procedures, and guidance were “scattered across SharePoint libraries, internal websites, and other file systems,” which created a “real bottleneck in their day-to-day workflows,” according to Dev Mehta, a recent graduate of UMass Amherst’s Manning College of Information & Computer Sciences.
To streamline these workflows, Mehta and his partner, Bhavya Agarwal—both undergrads at the time—built an AI-powered chatbot to help HR employees get clear answers to their questions with references back to the original documents. “Through a conversational interface, staff could simply ask a question in plain language and receive a helpful answer with links to dig deeper if needed,” Mehta describes. “We also built in a feedback feature so future developers can continue improving the model’s responses to specific questions over time.”
Mehta and Agarwal developed this chatbot over the spring and summer of 2025 through AI for the Commonwealth (AI4CW), a 16-week paid internship in which UMass Amherst computer science undergraduates apply cutting-edge generative AI to solve challenges for Massachusetts institutions and communities. In 2026, more than 200 students applied for this competitive internship, which is jointly run by the UMass Public Interest Technology (PIT) initiative and the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, in partnership with the Massachusetts EOTSS. In addition to the invaluable experiential learning it offers students, the program serves as an accelerator for state adoption of generative AI and helps develop a skilled talent pipeline for the state. It was launched in 2024 as part of a broader state initiative, known as the Massachusetts AI Hub, to make Massachusetts a national leader in artificial intelligence innovation.
“We’re helping students develop a public interest mindset and learn how to apply their technical skills to serve the common good,” says Donna Baron, executive director of PIT.
Finding Innovative Solutions to Real-World Problems
Since 2025, 28 students—all sophomores and juniors—have participated in the internship program. During the spring semester, participants enroll in a group independent study that covers business acumen, human-centered design, and technical software engineering topics. Teams of two to four students are paired with project sponsors—clients including Massachusetts government agencies, a regional planning commission, and UMass offices—and work directly with them to apply course concepts to real projects. This engagement ramps up in the summer, when students work 32 hours each week with their sponsors. Some project examples include:
- a chatbot for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs that brings all permit data into one easy-to-use interface;
- a chatbot that provides real-time training support and guidance to new call center staff at the Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA); and
- a tool that helps caseworkers at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) process and prioritize Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) complaints more efficiently.
The students take a human-centered design approach and follow an agile project management workflow typical of software development projects, which helps keep their projects on track and allows them to learn as they go and adjust as needed, explains Emily Nutwell, who serves as faculty director for the program.
For Mehta and Agarwal, they began by meeting with HR leadership to fully understand the department’s problem, “mapping out its root causes and downstream effects before proposing any solution,” says Mehta. “After researching the space and pitching our approach, we spent the following month building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to show how the system would work in practice. We gathered feedback on that MVP, then carried those improvements into the summer.”
As they go through this process, students receive training and guidance from faculty members, peer mentors who completed the internship in prior years, and professionals brought in from companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft. These experts equip interns with comprehensive knowledge across diverse areas, ranging from privacy and cybersecurity to agile business management and business etiquette.
“There’s an incredible scaffolding of support from UMass and EOTSS,” remarks Baron.
For Mehta and Agarwal, this collaborative, test-and-refine approach, coupled with the internship’s structure and supports, paid off. “By the end … the tool achieved a 97 percent accuracy score, giving employees a reliable resource to reduce their workload and stress,” Mehta says.
Today, the product is actively being used to support employees in their work. “It's a great feeling to know that something I spent so long building is out in the real world making a difference for the commonwealth,” Mehta reflects. Even beyond its immediate use, the project is now serving as a benchmark for the development of newer products, which makes the whole experience even more rewarding,” he adds.
Real-World Learning
Through the AI4CW internship, Mehta says he received valuable technical and business training, improved his strategy and planning skills, and gained experience in collaborating effectively with both a team and a client.
“Some of my most valuable growth came from the people I got to work alongside. My peers in the cohort brought creative ideas and fresh perspectives that constantly pushed my thinking—many times we were all facing the same issues, and everyone was solving them in novel ways,” he says. “I also had genuinely fascinating conversations with representatives from AWS, Microsoft, and EOTSS about where AI is headed and what building responsibly in that space looks like.”
Nutwell adds, “Bringing the real-world context into focus is so valuable. The students must think deeply about how to implement AI in ways that are ethical and responsible, while always ensuring that a human is in the loop when making decisions.”
Moreover, in this real-world setting, there is no easy and clear known answer. “These are really complicated problems,” says Nutwell. “Students are having to make difficult compromises, considering a number of different factors. These are things that are hard to teach in a classroom.”
AI for the Common Good
Ultimately, those leading the AI for the Commonwealth program hope it helps more students to consider future careers in service of the common good.
“We want students to see that there are opportunities to use their computer science skills to serve the public. These are meaningful career pathways for many of our students,” says Nutwell. She notes that with a significant portion of the state workforce nearing retirement eligibility, the state is also eager to develop a talent pipeline. Three of the AI4CW interns from 2025, including Mehta, were hired by the state to continue on as AI interns working on their projects during the 2025–26 academic year.
Beyond AI4CW, PIT is working to facilitate the adoption of AI in municipalities, including a current project with Belchertown in Western Massachusetts.
Relatedly, Data Core, a program through the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, is partnering with nonprofits, government, industry, and others to develop AI solutions.
In the future, Nutwell hopes to expand student access to experiential learning opportunities such as AI4CW, as well as find ways to bring together interdisciplinary teams of students to leverage their different perspectives on real-world problems.
This story was originally published by the UMass Amherst Office of News & Media Relations.
