As AI adoption grew across the City of Fishers, Indiana, the city took a proactive approach to understanding and governing its use. With Darwin AI, Fishers gained visibility into AI activity, established safeguards around real-world usage, and built a foundation for responsible innovation without slowing employees down.
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As AI began showing up across everyday tools and employee workflows, the City of Fishers, Indiana chose to understand and govern that usage rather than try to stop it. With Darwin AI, the city gained visibility into AI across its environment, established guardrails around real-world usage, and created a foundation that lets employees explore AI while IT maintains oversight.
The City of Fishers, Indiana is a community of roughly 100,000 residents northeast of Indianapolis with a long history of embracing technology and innovation.
That mindset has shaped its approach to AI. Rather than treating adoption solely as a technology initiative, Fishers has brought together IT, cybersecurity, leadership, and employees to build an approach focused on responsible experimentation, education, and governance.
Fishers didn't begin its AI journey with a large-scale rollout. In fact, Director of Information Technology Tracy Gaynor was initially hesitant about AI, and still approaches it with caution.
“I was hesitant about AI, and I still have concerns. But our users weren't waiting for me to resolve them. The responsible thing was to get engaged and help shape how we use it.” — Tracy Gaynor, Director of Information Technology, City of Fishers
While IT was still evaluating the risks, employees had already begun experimenting with AI to work more efficiently. They weren't trying to circumvent policy. They were trying to solve problems and get more done.
That created a fundamental challenge for the city: restricting access wouldn't necessarily stop AI use. It could simply push that activity outside IT's visibility.
“If we make it so hard that employees can't do their jobs, we'll only drive shadow AI. Users are like water. They'll find the path of least resistance.” — Tracy Gaynor, Director of Information Technology, City of Fishers
Fishers needed a way to understand what was already happening while giving employees a responsible path to use the technology.
As Fishers began developing its AI program, governance quickly became a priority. The city introduced training, developed policy, evaluated tools, and began identifying use cases across the organization.
But those efforts depended on understanding what AI was actually present in the city's environment.
Darwin gave Fishers visibility beyond standalone tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot. The team began identifying AI capabilities embedded inside existing software and SaaS applications, including technology they hadn't previously realized contained AI.
That visibility helped Fishers build its governance program around actual usage rather than assumptions.
“A lot of the AI usage out there can fly right under the radar. They're not even necessarily using dedicated AI tool sets...really it required peeling back the layers and understanding what was going on in the environment to be able to do the governance.” — Sean Totten, Chief Information Security Officer, City of Fishers
For the team, visibility became the prerequisite for determining what should be allowed, what presented unnecessary risk, and where employees should be directed toward approved alternatives.
Once Fishers could see what was being used, the next challenge was deciding what to do about it.
The city didn't take an all-or-nothing approach. Instead, IT and cybersecurity evaluate tools based on factors such as how data is handled, where it is stored, what safeguards are in place, and whether the AI capability is now fundamental to an existing platform.
Employees are then directed toward approved tools that the city can license and control. Riskier tools without a clear business need can be blocked, while employees are given safer alternatives for accomplishing the same work.
That approach reflects a broader philosophy behind Fishers' AI program: enable employees first, while putting the controls around them necessary to protect the organization.
“We're here to enable you, but enable you safely...I'm protecting the organization, I'm protecting the citizens, our public, but I'm also protecting you as a staff member.” — Sean Totten, Chief Information Security Officer, City of Fishers
AI governance at Fishers isn't limited to a policy employees acknowledge once.
Access to AI tools requires supervisor approval, training and policy acceptance before a license is assigned.
Darwin gives IT an additional layer of oversight after that process is complete, helping the city understand whether employees are actually using AI and whether that usage aligns with the expectations they agreed to.
“An employee can acknowledge the policy and still try to paste sensitive data into a tool. Darwin shows us whether that's happening. That's an important safety net for IT. We appreciate the controls Darwin provides.” — Tracy Gaynor, Director of Information Technology, City of Fishers
Governance becomes an ongoing operational process rather than a static document.
With governance in place, Fishers has been able to shift its attention from whether employees should use AI to where the technology can actually improve government operations.
The city has collected roughly 300 potential AI use cases from across the organization. More than 100 were straightforward enough that employees could begin addressing them with access to an approved AI tool.
Other opportunities are larger and more complex, spanning data analysis, operational decision-making, custom applications, and eventually agentic workflows.
For Fishers, that progression is intentional. The first phase focused on training, policy, governance, and identifying quick wins. The next is focused increasingly on data readiness and more advanced AI applications.
“Before you connect AI to anything, get your data right. It drives everything that matters: security, results, and whether you can stand behind what the tool produces.” — Tracy Gaynor, Director of Information Technology, City of Fishers
The result is an IT organization that isn't simply policing technology. Departments are increasingly bringing difficult operational problems to the technology team and asking what might now be possible.
“Departments are coming to us in ways they didn't before. The organization is saying: let's be data-driven, let's be proactive.” — Tracy Gaynor, Director of Information Technology, City of Fishers
Fishers' experience shows that AI governance doesn't have to mean choosing between security and innovation. By starting with visibility, establishing clear guardrails, training employees, and giving them approved ways to experiment, the city has created a foundation for AI adoption that can evolve alongside the technology.
As Fishers moves toward more advanced AI and agentic workflows, the same principle continues to guide its approach: understand what's happening, protect what matters, keep humans in the lead and accountable for the decisions AI informs, and enable employees to use technology responsibly.
Schedule a demo to see how Darwin AI helps state and local governments gain visibility into AI usage, enforce guardrails, and build a foundation for responsible AI adoption.
