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- 4th Week of December Recap: TxDOT's AI Plans, San Antonio Tech, and Texas Regulation
4th Week of December Recap: TxDOT's AI Plans, San Antonio Tech, and Texas Regulation
Your Weekly Update on Texas AI Innovation
AITX Team
December 27, 2024
Hello everyone! AITX Team here with more updates this week.
If you鈥檙e new here, welcome! 馃憢 At AITX, we aim to:
Connect you with like-minded peers passionate about AI.
Provide a space for sharing ideas and receiving feedback on AI projects you鈥檙e building.
Share helpful tools and invaluable resources.
Before we jump into the regular news, a few housekeeping items:
December AITX Meetups:
Our upcoming meetups:
Austin Meetup: January 28, 2025 | sign up here!
To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX calendar here.
Check out our Community Directory:
We recently started a community directory where you can fill out your profile and find other members of the AITX community.
If you haven鈥檛 filled out your profile yet, please follow the link HERE and submit your information.
In this week鈥檚 edition you鈥檙e getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
1 Community Highlight
So let鈥檚 jump in!
UPCOMING EVENTS
When: Wednesday, January 8, 2025 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St 路 Austin, TX
What: Supercharging Customer Service with AI: Boost Efficiency & Personalization: A Playbook for Solopreneurs, Marketers and Businesses.
When: Wednesday, January 15, 2025 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM CST
Where: Oracle 2300 Oracle Wy 路 Austin, TX
What: Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and ML, food/drink, networking with speakers and fellow developers.
When: Friday, December 27, 2024 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM CST
Where: Austin Austin 路 Austin, TX
What: Join a friendly Tech dinner group in Austin TX for conversations about Tech AI & Startups and meet new friends every Wednesday and Friday.
When: Thursday, January 9, 2025 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St, 16th Floor 路 Austin, TX
What: 鈥媁elcome to Hack AI, a monthly mini-hack session for developers all over the Austin area to build cool stuff related to AI. We discuss Agents, Voice AI, Large Language Models, Computer Vision, and more!
When: Thursday, January 9, 2025 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM CST
Where: 701 Brazos St 701 Brazos St 路 Austin, TX
What: Join us for a social hour and mixer at the first Artists and the Age of AI Meetup of 2025! Enjoy complimentary refreshments and drinks while connecting with other artists, creatives, and technologists working in the arts, tech, and AI space.
COMMUNITY STORIES
TxDOT has announced a comprehensive AI strategic plan to enhance road safety and traffic management across Texas, featuring 230 potential AI use cases over the next three years.
Why it matters: This marks Texas' first major state-level deployment of AI for transportation infrastructure management
Need-to-know:
Strategic plan outlines 70 pages of AI use cases, best practices, and implementation guidelines
Technology will help monitor traffic flow, manage infrastructure, and improve railway systems
Developed collaboratively by TxDOT engineers, IT experts, and planners statewide
Implementation includes strict governance, accountability, and privacy standards
Learn more here.
San Antonio's largest companies are quietly integrating AI across their operations, from helping doctors detect cancer at University Health to fighting fraud at Frost Bank and automating tasks at Rackspace.
Why it matters: This widespread adoption shows how AI is becoming essential to business operations in Texas, even when customers don't see it.
Need-to-know:
University Health uses AI to detect cancer, predict ER admissions, and help with patient scheduling
Frost Bank employs AI for fraud detection and to assist customer service agents 24/7
Rackspace has launched FAIR (Foundry for Generative AI) serving 40 global customers
Companies are implementing strict governance and ethics councils to ensure responsible AI use
Learn more here.
State Rep. Giovanni Caprioloni has filed House Bill 1709, the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governments Act, to establish guidelines for AI development and oversight in Texas.
Why it matters: This marks Texas' first comprehensive attempt to regulate AI while maintaining its position as a technology leader.
Need-to-know:
Bill creates framework for ethical AI development and oversight
Focuses on responsible advancement of AI technology
Aims to balance innovation with proper governance
Positions Texas to lead in responsible AI development
Learn more here.
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COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT
This week we鈥檙e spotlighting Brian Atwood, CEO of Sindarin.
Sindarin is an Austin-based AI startup developing advanced conversational AI technology. Their platform features natural speech patterns and ultra-low latency response times for customer service applications.
The company offers a no-code configuration platform alongside API access for developers
You can connect with Brian here.
That鈥檚 all for now, folks!
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