Episode 28: We Built a Government Budget System Live with AI
In Episode 28 of Anthony and Greg on Intelligence (AGI), Anthony Moggio and Greg Prost do something different:
They build live.
No rehearsals.
No pre-built demo.
No edited examples.
Using a real municipal budget document from Orion Township, Michigan, they demonstrate — in real time — how modern AI tools can transform raw financial data into polished, interactive public-facing tools and GFOA-ready budget frameworks in minutes.
What starts as a simple exported budget file quickly becomes:
-An interactive resident budget dashboard
-Visual tax dollar breakdowns
-Searchable fund trends
-Department summaries
-And a framework aligned with GFOA Distinguished Budget Award criteria
The episode showcases one of the biggest misconceptions about AI:
that it’s only useful for simple tasks.
Instead, Anthony and Greg demonstrate how AI can:
-Interpret complex financial structures
-Organize information into meaningful narratives
-Generate polished reports and presentations
-Identify missing components in professional standards
-And dramatically reduce the time required for high-level government work
But they also emphasize something critical:
AI is not replacing expertise.
It’s amplifying it.
The human role still matters:
reviewing outputs, validating assumptions, ensuring accuracy, and understanding the context behind the numbers.
The conversation also expands into broader topics:
-Why most local governments still don’t have AI policies
-How “shadow AI” is already happening inside organizations
-The growing infrastructure race between major AI companies
-And why compute power may become one of the most important resources of the next decade
Perhaps the biggest takeaway:
The barrier to creating sophisticated tools is collapsing.
Tasks that once required consultants, developers, expensive software, or months of labor can now be prototyped and deployed at astonishing speed.
If you work in government, finance, operations, or leadership, this episode is a real-world look at how quickly AI is reshaping professional work — right now.
Subscribe for grounded, practical conversations on how AI is actually changing the world.