AI: Atlanta Intelligence?

Hey y’all, 👋🏽 Mirtha Donastorg here, leading this week’s edition of Georgianomics.

It’s been a busy time for businesses in Georgia, including:

✈️ Delta unveiling revamped service for its highest-tier seats

🏎️ Porsche giving a first look at its latest super sports car

🐔 What distillers and chicken farmers say about GLP-1s

But first up, an exclusive look at artificial intelligence in Atlanta 👇🏽

1. ONLY IN GEORGIANOMICS: Atlanta is AI-friendly 🤖

Were y’all at Avant South or Venture Atlanta last week? If you were at the former, maybe you heard Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens talking about ways he and the city are using AI.

“I don’t think AI would be better at governing than I will be,” Dickens said during a fireside chat with his senior technology adviser, Donnie Beamer. “But I believe that a government official empowered by AI can be better than one that doesn’t use AI.”

Dickens said he wants Atlanta to be the nation’s capital for applied AI. He then teased some upcoming announcements as the city “plants that flag.”

I caught up with Beamer to get more details on how exactly the city is using AI and what applied AI looks like.

Beamer said founders of two AI companies the city works with told him, “Atlanta’s been one of the more kind of pioneering and better to work with municipalities in terms of AI and technology adoption.”

When most people think of AI, their mind likely turns to chatbots and large-language models. But for city leaders, Atlanta could be the place where AI tools that make infrastructure, operations and manufacturing more efficient are adopted.

“So if you wanted to fry chicken faster or fly planes and schedule them more efficiently, all of that stuff, right? There’s somebody to buy here,” Beamer said.

As of now, Atlanta officials are using AI across policing, infrastructure and operations, according to Dickens and Beamer:

• The Atlanta Police Department uses automated license plate readers from Atlanta-based Flock Safety. APD’s use of the tech was recently scrutinized.
• A Department of Watershed Management tool identified 61 leaks last year before they became full-blown eruptions.
• Procurement uses a tool to help draft requests for proposals.
• City employees have access to Microsoft Copilot.

(Of note: The City Council tried to rein in the use of AI for creating visuals this summer after a series of bizarre images were posted to the city’s official social media. Then, earlier this month, a council member introduced legislation to prevent the city’s potential use of automated killing machines.)

In the works are at least two projects around AI in permitting and non-emergency calls, according to Beamer.

Atlanta is using a tool from Oracle to help transform its permitting process, he said. One day, residents who dial the city’s 311 help line could eventually talk to an AI agent rather than a human, according to Beamer.

“I think that’s something that will hopefully expand hours and coverage,” he said.

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2. Stat of the week: $300 million 📚

Georgia has become a preferred destination for the multibillion-dollar, AI-fueled data center industry.

But who’s paying the price? Georgia’s schools do in part, a new report has found.

Because of sales tax breaks to OpenAI, Microsoft and other tech giants now building “hyperscale” warehouses in communities across the state, districts this year will give up roughly $300 million from sales tax exemptions.

🔍 READ MORE: Georgia’s building boom for data centers comes with a cost for schools

3. What to do with old, obsolete offices 🏙️

Converting obsolete offices into housing seemed like a no-brainer after COVID-19.

It’s a strategy cities have employed for generations, retrofitting buildings with good bones into a better use. From Chicago to New York City, many buildings are living their second or third lives.

But for many large conversion projects in Atlanta, progress has stalled.

The AJC’s Zachary Hansen spoke to more than 15 commercial real estate experts, developers, architects and government officials who say the trouble boils down to simple economics — the math is fraught and it’s only getting more challenging.

🔍 READ MORE: Turning Atlanta offices into homes is harder than it looks.

4. Dress for Success’ expansion 👗

For many years, the nonprofit Dress for Success Atlanta has worked to help women in need with suits, shoes and accessories for job interviews.

As part of a series of expansions, the organization in July renamed itself Dress for Success Georgia and set out on a broader mission. Its goal: to expand its reach to other parts of the state and serve women all along the career ladder.

🔍 In this week’s AJC Her+Story, Kelly Yamanouchi spoke with the organization’s president about the moves that have helped it expand.

5. On the beat 🔎

💰 Invest Atlanta approved the final incentive for affordable housing at Amsterdam Walk. Final vote was 5-1.

💹 Emory University’s Goizueta Business School has launched a new Center for AI in Finance.

☀️ The solar panels Qcells makes at its Dalton facility will soon have more domestic content thanks to a new manufacturing partnership.

🛠️ Universal Technical Institute, a trade school with locations in 11 states, has opened a new campus in Smyrna, its first in Georgia.

⚙️ Atlanta-based Pye-Barker Engineered Solutions has rebranded to HAE Industrial.

6. GLP-1s and chicken farmers 🐔

The Beige Book, a publication from the regional Federal Reserve Banks, is admittedly not a sexy name, but it often has juicy tidbits about the economy directly from the people experiencing it.

Case in point — economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta recently talked to a large distillery and brewery, and chicken farmers, and noted an interesting emerging trend: Southeast businesses are reporting that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are beginning to influence consumer purchasing behavior.

📉 From the distillery: Long-term demand forecasts may be shifting downward partly from the growing use of GLP-1s.

📈 From the poultry farmer: GLP-1 drugs could drive “strong, lasting demand for proteins like chicken and beef for the foreseeable future.”

But GLP-1s aren’t just changing consumers’ appetites around food. Their popularity has increased the desire for a reportedly more effective weight-loss peptide that’s still in clinical trials. That has led some Georgia med spas and wellness clinics to openly promote and dispense a knockoff drug, an AJC investigation found.

7. More top stories 📰

🍔 Blanton’s and Wagyu burgers: Delta Air Lines is unveiling new offerings for its Delta One cabin in an effort to make its highest-tier seats even more luxurious.

🏀 A first for Home Depot: Atlanta’s home improvement giant is doing something it’s never done before — sponsoring an NBA team. Y’all can probably guess which one.

🤑 The sheriff of Wall Street: The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission visited the Metro Atlanta Chamber to talk about the future of capital markets.

📺 CNN’s AI partnership: The cable TV giant has signed an agreement with Google to license its content.

🚢 $2.3 billion container terminal: The Georgia Ports Authority has gotten federal approval for its biggest project to date.

8. Moving on and up 🪜

• City of Hope Atlanta has named Melissa Childress as president.
• The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta announced a new president and CEO: Lauren Koontz, who has been leading the YMCA of Greater Atlanta for the past seven years.
• The Truist Foundation has named Betsy Conway as its new president.
• The Anti-Defamation League Southeast has named three new board members: Matt Bronfman, principal and CEO of Jamestown; Melissa Golden, a communications and marketing executive; and Scott Struletz, general manager in corporate sales at Delta Air Lines.