State leaders discuss AI tech at MGCCC Harrison County

HARRISON COUNTY, Miss. (WXXV)- State officials and employees got a firsthand look at artificial intelligence Friday.

The Mississippi Artificial Intelligence Network hosted Anthropic Day Mississippi on Gulf Coast Community College’s Harrison County campus.

The hands-on event gave participants practical experience with AI tools, including Claude, Claude Code, and co-work, while exploring how artificial intelligence can be used responsibility in government, education, workforce development, and industry.

Organizers say the goal is to help public employees better understand the opportunities and challenges AI presents as the technology continues to evolve.  Mississippi Artificial Intelligence Network Director Dr. Kollin Napier said, “Today is continued momentum for AI in the state of Mississippi through the Mississippi Artificial Intelligence Network. We have invited Anthropic, the company behind Claude or Claude AI, to come and share insights and practical applied usage that can be utilized by many of our public sector entities, state agencies, and state government officials in their day-to-day work.”

“So, this is a great opportunity to keep up-skilling and re-skilling our workforce and then also working with our educational leaders in preparing students for that next generation of the workforce, students in k-12 as well as post-secondary through our great community college system and universities. So, all of these leader’s today are representing a variety of different buckets in the state and so we want to ensure that they have their best foot forward as we go to train the trainer, educate the educator and more as the AI develops in the state of Mississippi.”