Indiana Is Going All-In on AI. Are You?
It’s Carb Day at the Brickyard. What most people don’t see is what it took to get here. Countless hours of engineering, testing, and refinement, long before the green flag drops. The teams that show up ready didn’t get that way by waiting. They prepared with intention.
That idea applies well beyond Turn 1.
Indiana Just Made a Significant Move
Governor Braun announced IN AI, a new statewide initiative focused on helping businesses grow, create jobs, and increase wages through the practical application of human-centered artificial intelligence. The initiative is expected to reach more than one million Hoosiers and engage thousands of employers statewide.
Indiana Secretary of Commerce David Adams said the initiative will prioritize Main Street businesses in all corners of the state, while also supporting large companies seeking to scale AI across their operations.
I appreciate the Secretary’s emphasis on application inside a business. Not an impressive conversation with a chat agent. Not a generated image or a marketing one-liner. Actual application. Workflow improvement. Real economic value for real businesses.
The Indiana Chamber called AI a growth multiplier for small business, saying the initiative “helps translate that promise into practical steps so that small businesses can become more competitive, more resilient, and better positioned to grow.”
We agree.
Where We Are Focused
At DTS, we are focused on applied integration of AI toward practical outcomes for small and mid-sized businesses. It is a tool to be harnessed. Driven well, it can carry you to the finish line faster than you ever imagined. But in a high-stakes race, mistakes have consequences.
"Driven well, AI will carry you to the finish line faster than you ever imagined."
Operations leaders are understandably both interested and confused. We hear business owners asking exactly the right questions. Where does this actually fit in what we do? What should we automate first? Who is accountable when something goes wrong? Those are not naive questions. They are the correct ones.
Automate the Right Things
The businesses that will benefit most from IN AI are not the ones chasing every new tool. They are the ones who get clear on which parts of their operation are slow, manual, and repeatable, and then go fix those first. Workflow automation. Reporting that currently lives in someone’s head. Data entry that happens twice because two systems don’t talk to each other.
One Indiana manufacturer already put this into practice, using AI to analyze thousands of documents and drawings. Their CIO described the result simply: “It frees people up to work on a lot more important things, things that really move the needle.”
That is the model. Start with a real problem. Build around your actual workflow. Put it to work.
Go Get Started
If you are worried about data quality before you begin, that concern is legitimate. It is also not new. Developers have been managing imperfect data for 30 years. AI does not change that reality. It does reward the businesses that take it seriously. But don’t let perfect stop you from starting.
Indiana is moving. This is your invitation to get in the race!
