BATON ROUGE – Louisiana residents may see changes in calling the state health department or using its website if it turns to artificial intelligence to save money.

The department is examining how it can implement AI over the next few years to make residents’ experiences more efficient and reduce spending, Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Bruce

Greenstein said at an AI symposium at LSU.

The first and largest deployment, should the department proceed with it, would be in its call centers.

Running the two centers costs over $40 million a year. Greenstein said using AI to answer calls could reduce costs by up to 25%.

That would save the state $10 million a year while still preserving an option to talk to a human employee.

When the department was seeking information about an AI call option, Greenstein said, there was an overwhelming response from possible providers.

Greenstein, who has worked in both the public and private sectors, said he is also interested in using AI to help residents maneuver the department’s website. It houses information on an array of topics from SNAP benefits and Medicaid to oyster harvesting.

“Navigating our web properties becomes challenging if you’re looking for very specific information,” Greenstein said in an interview after the symposium on Friday. “So having chatbots to help people navigate our system is something we’re also considering.”

The department must respect the sensitive clinical information it deals with, Greenstein said, while keeping up with technological advances.

He said he is interested in creating protections in collaborations with healthcare professionals to codify patients’ rights to privacy.

Some rights would include a consent requirement if patient information were to be run through an AI database. Another would be a notification of changes, especially if a process is losing human interaction entirely.

“So on the AI side, because we're in kind of the new frontier, what I suspect is that we'll proceed extra cautiously where the robot takes the place of decision-making for the human,” Greenstein said. “But we'll have more kind of slack in the system to experiment on the administrative task side.”

Greenstein critiqued other states’ restrictions on AI and said he did not see issues with Louisiana’s implementation yet.

“We are not seeing something that I’m deeply concerned about thus far,” he said. “And within state government, we’ve been taking a cautious but forceful approach forward in analyzing the opportunities but not making any decisions without having a proper amount of security concerns addressed or just thoughtful analysis.”

Gov. Jeff Landry released an executive order in October mandating governmental AI use to be “responsible, ethical, beneficial and trustworthy.”

The order restricts the state government’s use of AI platforms from “free software, especially those created and operated by nation states like the Communist Chinese Party.” He specifically named China’s DeepSeek AI model.

Speaking on a panel at the LSU symposium, he said the extra attention on an AI system that non-AI systems do not receive clogs the decision-making process and “distorts the development or use of AI in the future.”

He said the bureaucratic process can take a long time because of a government agency’s lack of understanding of the technology and slow contracting processes. He also attributed delays to consumers who want AI to assist them being unsure of how to communicate their desires.

“I will be promoting the use of it thoughtfully and cautiously,” Greenstein said, “and I will be sure to make sure that we don’t sludge it to death and make sure that everyone uses it and we don’t because we’ve put too many demands on it.”

Greenstein said he is optimistic that AI would be helpful for improving Louisiana residents’ experience while cutting costs.

“When we have public interaction, AI agents will do an incredible job of upping our game,” he said.

Referring to the agency’s employees, he added: “And then I think maybe the regular people-people start to learn how to perform better along the way as well, which I think will do. So I think it'll be a win, win.”