S2E7 - Nadia Hansen - What Government Gets Wrong About Buying AI

In this episode of the GovAI Podcast, Noam Maital and Dustin Haisler are joined by Nadia Hansen, Global AI Go-to-Market Leader and Industry Advisor for Public Sector at Salesforce and someone with the rare distinction of having sat on both sides of the table.Before joining Salesforce, Nadia served as CIO for Clark County, Nevada, where she led digital transformation for 2.3 million residents, managed a $100M+ technology budget, and oversaw 200 staff across 140 locations. Four years ago she made what she calls a counterintuitive move, leaving senior public sector leadership to advise sales, product, and marketing teams on AI go-to-market strategy for state and local government.They explore why so many AI pilots get stuck in "purgatory," why undefined KPIs and unbaselined processes are the real culprits, and why agencies that ban AI only create more risk through shadow usage. Nadia shares what vendors consistently get wrong when selling to government, why outcomes matter more than products, and how to think about governance, data, and trust as agentic systems emerge.The conversation also digs into the future of software in the age of AI, from vibe coding and faster MVPs to whether vertical solutions survive, and the human skills, like writing and creative thinking, that Nadia believes will matter most.This podcast is brought to you by Darwin AI, a platform built for state and local government to help agencies adopt and manage AI responsibly.