Mai-Ling Garcia

Mai-Ling Garcia helps leaders navigate change and earn trust, focusing on AI and emerging tech in the public sector. Her work explores how institutions adapt to technological change while building public trust and preserving human judgment.

Mai-Ling is Senior Visiting Fellow on Tech and Democracy at New America, advisor to Humans of Public Service, and Vice Chair of the Vallejo Economic Development Commission. She is building Bold Public Works, a space for civic thought leadership. Previously, she led programs at Bloomberg Centers for Government Excellence and Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University, guiding work in 20+ cities on three continents. She helped create early digital service teams in Oakland and drove digital strategy and engagement in San Francisco.
Her recent writing includes Making AI Work for the Public and The Demand Machine. She writes on building public technology the way you build a city: slowly, in public, for the people who live there.