AC26 | Session 04
From Chaos to Clarity: How the City of Seattle Transformed File Shares into an AI-Ready Data Governance Powerhouse
Target: State, Local, Public Institutions of Higher Learning
Focus: Records Management, Technology/Tools
Levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
GARA: "Digital Repository Management" OR "Records Considerations for Emerging Technologies" 
Overview

The City of Seattle faced a familiar challenge: decades of unmanaged data sprawling across file shares, with little visibility or control. Through its partnership with RecordPoint, Seattle transformed this legacy sprawl into a foundation for trusted, AI-ready governance. This session reveals the steps, lessons, and real-world results from Seattle’s journey, showing how automated classification, risk management, and governance insights turned an overwhelming challenge into strategic business value.

This session provides practical, actionable insights into how a public-sector organization can transform unmanaged, high-risk legacy data into a trusted foundation for AI innovation. Using the City of Seattle as a real-world case study, attendees will learn proven strategies, governance models, and implementation tactics they can take back to their own agencies.

Participants Will Gain
  1. A clear framework for modernizing legacy file shares (including assessing, classifying, and cleaning up decades of accumulated content).
  2. Practical techniques for implementing automated data governance (including automated classification, metadata enrichment, and risk detection that can scale IG without increasing staffing).
  3. Lessons learned from a large U.S. city’s transformation journey (what worked, what didn’t, and what to consider when starting similar initiatives).
  4. A defensible approach to preparing government data for AI (ensuring underlying data is compliant, trustworthy, and ethically sound).
  5. Skills for building the business case and demonstrating ROI (language, metrics, and talking points for leadership, auditors, and elected officials).
  6. Real-world examples of AI use cases for government (how Seattle leverages governed data today and what future AI-enabled services are planned).

In summary, attendees will leave with practical tools, proven approaches, and an inspiring real-world example showing how data governance is not just compliance work (it is the essential foundation for digital transformation and AI-enabled government service delivery).

Presenters
Andrea Bettger
City Records Management Analyst (Sr.), City of Seattle
Andrea has been a Records Analyst with the City of Seattle since 2002. She previously worked in archives and records management with the Oregon Historical Society, Lummi Indian Business Council, and the City of Portland. Bettger was an active member of ARMA International (Greater Seattle Chapter) from 2003 to 2020 and served multiple roles including chapter president. She is active in NAGARA and currently serves as one of the local government representatives on the board. Bettger has a Bachelor of Arts in History from Portland State University and a Masters-in-History with emphasis in Archives and Records Management from Western Washington University.
Kris Brown
EVP Evangelism, Partners and Solutions Engineering, RecordPoint
Kris Brown is Executive Vice President of Solution Engineering at RecordPoint, where he helps organizations move from governance to growth. With more than 20 years in enterprise content and information management, Kris has led technology change across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. He brings deep expertise in the needs of highly regulated industries and how trust and transparency underpin successful data strategies. Today, Kris is focused on how data governance and AI come together, enabling organizations to protect sensitive information, meet compliance demands, and confidently unlock new innovation.