NVIDIA AI Podcast - Ep. 280

Title: Mayor Matt Mahan on How AI Is Changing City Life in San Jose
Date: November 12, 2025
Host: Noah Kravitz
Guests: Mayor Matt Mahan (San Jose, CA), Jumbi Edelburham (Nvidia, Smart Cities & Spaces)

Overview

This episode explores how San Jose, under Mayor Matt Mahan’s leadership, is pioneering the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in city operations. Mayor Mahan and Nvidia’s Jumbi Edelburham discuss practical examples, real-world impacts, city staff upskilling, the challenges and opportunities of civic innovation, and how AI is making San Jose a model for other cities nationwide.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Mayor Mahan’s Journey and Vision

• Transitioned from teaching to tech entrepreneurship to public service.
• Inspired by problems faced in his small farming town and exposure to Silicon Valley innovation.
• Bringing an entrepreneurial, outcome-focused, risk-tolerant approach to city government.
  • “We’re trying to bring a more experimental culture.” (Matt Mahan, 03:54)

2. Opportunities for AI in Cities

• Jumbi’s View (04:17): AI impacts areas like citizen services, traffic management, public safety, energy optimization.
  • Major area: Making city services more efficient and accessible.
  • Example: AI automates permitting (e.g. ADU permitting for accessory dwellings), business licensing, emergency support, affordable housing searches.
  • AI enables automated real-time translation—vital for San Jose’s residents who speak 50+ languages.
    • “AI can automatically translate, understand the emergency, and route the calls to provide the appropriate response.” (Jumbi, 05:54)
• Mayor’s Examples (07:16):
  • Public meetings now use real-time, two-way language translation with AI.
  • AI being piloted to automate pothole detection, speed up bus routes, and improve city services through responsive systems.

3. Challenges of AI Adoption in City Government

• Risk Aversion & Resource Constraints:

  • Government can’t afford big failures; essential services must continue.
  • Limited capacity to “pilot” new tools amid core service demands.
  • Need to carve out time, space, and permission to innovate.
    • “We have more need...than we have resources for. So it can be hard to carve out time, staff time and budget to try new things.” (Matt Mahan, 09:40)

• Building a Framework for Trust:

  • Early resistance around AI: concerns about guardrails, bias.
  • San Jose led creation of the Gov AI Coalition—guidelines, best practices, a policy manual, vendor registry, and platform for collaboration among 800+ agencies.
    • “This coalition has taken off like a startup...It’s just become this incredible platform for collaboration.” (Matt Mahan, 12:13)

4. AI Upskilling and Workforce Innovation

• San Jose’s AI Upskilling Program:

  • Goal: Train 1,000 city employees by year’s end (currently mid-rollout).
  • Focus on AI as “labor enhancement,” not replacement.
  • Voluntary 10-week upskilling program in partnership with Nvidia and San Jose State University.
  • Approach: Empower staff to automate repetitive tasks, freeing them for more creative/problem-solving work.
    • “We see AI as not a labor replacement so much as labor enhancement…” (Matt Mahan, 14:53)
  • Impact: Over 10,000 staff hours saved this year just from initial cohorts.
  • City staff are empowered to build custom GPTs and innovate within departments.
    • “The greatest unlock in terms of innovation comes from humans wanting to use [the tech],...being creative in the application.” (Matt Mahan, 14:35)

• Assistive Intelligence:

  • Jumbi reframes AI in the public sector as “assistive intelligence” to enhance, not replace, human work.
  • AI helps harness the massive volumes of city data, streamlines processes, and can unlock new revenue potential. (Jumbi, 18:13)

5. Direct Street-Level Impact

• Bus Route Optimization (20:24):
  • AI-powered sensors and signal controllers dynamically optimize bus traffic lights.
  • Results: Buses are 50% less likely to hit red lights, 20% faster bus route times, higher frequency of service—all without adding buses/drivers.
    • “We can literally just make your commute faster,...all because we’re dynamically monitoring velocities of buses and slightly modifying [signal] duration.” (Matt Mahan, 21:37)
• Broader Impact:
  • Jumbi notes a similar scheme in another city reduced congestion by 50%—cutting emissions and wait times. (Jumbi, 23:02)

6. Nurturing an AI Innovation Ecosystem

• AI Grant Program:

  • San Jose launched the first US civic AI grant program—received 170 applications, awarded four grants for projects ranging from maternal health to food waste reduction to satellite tech.
  • Winners receive grants, networking, and connections to VCs and professional support. Nvidia offers access to its Inception program for startups.
    • “How do you bring all these resources to bear in one dense environment to spark more innovation and entrepreneurship?” (Matt Mahan, 29:57)

• Ecosystem Building:

  • Mature companies like Nvidia and universities are crucial anchors.
  • San Jose Innovators monthly meetup fosters networking among local AI startups (nearly 100 in the area with $5B+ venture backing).

7. Emerging Technologies:

• Digital Twins and AI Simulations (33:30):
  • Digital twins create rich virtual models of the city, enabling “what if” scenario planning for urban development, disasters, traffic, or tourism.
    • “You can actually simulate the changes and show people visually, which is a lot more compelling and understandable.” (Jumbi, 34:18)
  • San Jose is exploring these technologies in collaboration with Nvidia and San Jose State, especially for disaster modeling.

8. What’s Next for San Jose?

• AI Pilots and Summit:
  • Ongoing pilots in permitting and procurement—may transform processes that currently take months into workflows lasting just weeks.
    • “...we reduce all that unnecessary back and forth to get to yes, faster.” (Matt Mahan, 40:05)
  • Focus on further speeding up learning, procurement, and government responsiveness with new AI tools.
• Advice for Other Cities:
  • Leverage Gov AI Coalition resources—policy manuals, case studies, vendor registries, collaborative support.
  • Learn by doing, pilot use cases, collaborate with other cities.
    • “You don’t have to start from scratch...Cities can be much more collaborative than competitive.” (Matt Mahan, 42:54)
  • Key to success: “Hire some really good people” (Jumbi, 44:06).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mayor Mahan:
  • “We’re trying to bring a more experimental culture.” (03:54)
  • “AI is so robust—the number of applications is basically limitless.” (14:30)
  • “We’ve already saved over 10,000 hours of staff time this year.” (16:33)
  • “We want to empower you...by automating the things that are kind of rote and routine.” (15:06)
  • “The greatest unlock...comes from humans wanting to use [AI]...” (14:35)
  • “We can learn from each other, collaborate...we’re an ecosystem, not in direct competition.” (43:09)
• Jumbi Edelburham:
  • “AI can automatically translate, understand the emergency, and route the calls to provide the appropriate response.” (05:54)
  • “In the public sector, I like to think of AI as assistive intelligence.” (17:59)
  • “The ability to take large amounts of multimodal data...consolidate it, analyze it, is where AI can be incredibly useful.” (18:17)
  • “Digital twins...can be used to model...impacts of urban development or extreme weather events...” (33:35)
  • “Hire some really good people.” (44:06)

Important Timestamps

• 03:54: Mayor Mahan on embracing risk and experimentation in city government
• 04:17–07:16: Jumbi outlines top AI impact areas and real-time translation in civic services
• 12:13: Gov AI Coalition: Building a collaborative platform for AI in government
• 14:35–17:03: AI upskilling: culture shift and program specifics
• 20:24–22:57: Bus route optimization with AI — direct effects explained
• 26:26–31:57: Launch and structure of the Civic AI Grant Program, fostering a local AI startup community
• 33:30–36:31: Digital twins, AI simulation, and modeling for urban planning and disasters
• 37:11–40:20: Next steps: transforming permitting, procurement, and learning cycles with AI
• 42:35–45:14: Mayor’s advice for other cities: collaboration, leveraging resources, building great teams

Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is collegial, energetic, and relentlessly pragmatic—focused on real problems and practical solutions, while acknowledging the challenges and need for cultural change in government. Both guests emphasize the importance of empowering people, fostering collaboration, and making AI “assistive,” uplifting rather than replacing human work. They highlight San Jose’s role as a leading civic innovator, but stress that their resources are available for other cities to leapfrog ahead as well.

Further Resources:

• San Jose Gov AI Coalition (links to guides, case studies, vendor registries)
• Nvidia Inception Program for Startups
• Nvidia AI Podcast