AI for Government: How Darwin is helping public agencies govern and scale AI responsibly

Government agencies are racing to modernize how they serve citizens – and AI has quickly emerged as the greatest opportunity and the greatest risk in that transformation. The challenge isn’t whether public agencies will use AI; it’s how they can do so effectively, transparently, and in compliance with rapidly evolving regulations.

Across the 91,000+ state and local agencies in the U.S., leaders often face the same challenges: talent shortages, manual workflows, and siloed legacy software stacks. Agencies recognize AI’s potential to deliver efficiency and impact – but require governance to ensure deployments meet public record and data protection requirements. CIOs, as the gatekeepers of public-sector technology, are under pressure to both control AI and unlock its value.

Darwin was founded to address these challenges.

Darwin represents a turning point for AI in government. By working with public sector agencies to build the foundation for safe and scalable AI, Darwin is helping deliver the governance that CIOs require and the automation agencies crave. It begins with Govern, a centralized platform that lets agencies set policy, monitor usage, and enforce compliance across every department. Once governance is in place, agencies graduate to LaunchPad, where they can build and deploy agentic workflows that can transform back-office operations like onboarding, RFP review, procurement, and record management.

By helping agencies build trust in AI internally, Darwin unlocks a massive downstream opportunity to automate the everyday administrative work that keeps government running. Once embedded, Darwin becomes a foundational layer for future AI workflows. Every new agent built on LaunchPad leverages the same secure foundation and policy framework – making Darwin a top choice for CIOs eager for safety and efficiency.

A vote of confidence from CIOs.

Our conviction was influenced by what we heard in the market. The feedback from agency CIOs was consistent: the opportunity for AI in State and Local (SLED) Government agencies is massive but the need for AI governance is urgent, and Darwin is delivering immediate value on both of these fronts.

Darwin’s leadership team brings credibility and technical depth. CEO Noam Maital is a second-time GovTech founder who previously built and sold Waycare, an AI traffic management platform adopted by cities nationwide. CTO Asaf Fadida brings deep cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure expertise from his time building endpoint security solutions for the Israeli Defense Forces. Darwin also recently brought on Chief AI Officer Dustin Haisler, former president of e.Republic and one of the most recognized voices in public-sector innovation, adding reach and authority across the SLED ecosystem. Together, this team has the domain fluency, technical rigor, and policy savvy to make Darwin the default platform for AI in government.

AI in the public sector is not a question of if, but how. The next decade we expect to see government agencies redefine how they deliver services, manage data, and engage citizens – but this transformation must happen responsibly. Darwin’s mission aligns with that future. By helping agencies implement guardrails before scaling innovation, they’re helping ensure that AI adoption happens with accountability, transparency, and public trust at its core.

Insight Partners is thrilled to lead Darwin’s Series A round and support Noam, Asaf, Dustin and team as they continue building the infrastructure for a new era of AI-enabled government – one that’s faster, smarter, and safer for everyone. We look forward to supporting Darwin on its journey to become the household name for AI in State & Local Government.