Rancho Cordova students showcase AI bots with real-world applications

As a showcase of youth innovation, future artificial intelligence technology took center stage in Rancho Cordova with students showing off their bots.

These Rancho Cordova High School students get hands-on experience with artificial intelligence. Now, these young innovators are putting their skills to the test by designing AI bots with real-world applications.

"These are computer engineers of the future," Mayor Garrett Gatewood said.

So far, they've got two big-name clients. The City of Rancho Cordova is helping sponsor the students' research. The mayor says it's part of the city's effort to become an AI technology hub.

"It's jobs, education, job readiness, all in one," Gatewood said. "We're building what's called an AI ecosphere."

Students have designed an online AI portal for the city that can provide customer service and track questions and concerns that are coming in.

"So that the city can understand how many customers have called, why are they calling, what's the reason for the call," said program facilitator Jothi Periasamy.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has also signed up to demo a student-created chat agent. It can perform tasks like teaching customers how to save money through energy usage.

"This is a way more effective way of doing work with a new technology," Gatewood said.

Past generations of Rancho Cordova technology workers helped build rockets that sent man to the moon, and while those jobs are now gone, the mayor and other AI supporters say training today's youth is crucial to remain relevant in the high-tech job market.

"It's in our DNA to be the scientist capital, and so we're just going back to what we've always done," Gatewood.

Last September, the Rancho Cordova City Council approved spending $5 million towards creating a new AI and robotic economy, and some of that money is now funding this education program.