The 2026 Maryland Innovation Summit — The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
Last week I had the privilege of attending the Maryland Innovation Summit hosted by the Moore/Miller administration. I won't lie to you: I did not have high hopes, but I decided to attend out of curiosity and an opportunity for dialogue.
What I experienced was very much what I expected: a day of treating AI like it's a foregone conclusion that we as Marylanders must rush to catch up to instead of take our time to consider, vet, and approach with caution. The Summit organizers created a dog and pony show where it felt like all speakers were required to sing AI's praises and the vague potential promise it holds for Maryland's economy.
Before I dive into a recap of my impressions of the day, I want to cover a few caveats for transparency purposes and to ground your expectations:
I'm not an AI expert or an AI enthusiast. I'm just a former tech lawyer who knows the industry well.
The observations and impressions I share from the day aren't fact checked. To the extent I share claims made by a speaker in the article, you should know those claims aren't fact checked. You're welcome to verify said claims yourself if you're so inclined.
I'm writing from my own experience and what I know about the tech industry.
I did not attend every talk at the Summit, one because I left early and two because the afternoon had multiple tracks which made attending every talk impossible.
I'm not a patient person, which is why I despise politics. People don't ever say what they mean and it takes forever for things to get done. I left the Summit early because it was hours of people not saying what they meant and I found it highly irritating. In my defense, another woman who flew in from out of town to attend the Summit was so over it that she moved up her flight to go home early. I dropped her off at the airport on my way home.
Okay, now that the caveats are out of the way, let's get into my impressions from the day. I'll start with what they got right, then transition into what they got wrong, and finally, I'll discuss the fundamental issue with Maryland's current approach to AI based on my perspective and experience as a tech lawyer.
The Good
Overall, I think there were five good things presented at this Summit. Here they are in no particular order:
The day began with a sobering statistic on wealth inequality.
The first panel of the day included Dr. Rajiv Shah who is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation. As the day goes, he was our one and only semi-skeptic of AI. He wasn't very critical, but he did drop one statistic that stayed with me. He said that after World War II, 66% of the national income went to labor, aka the working class folks. Throughout the decades, that number has steadily decreased and we're now somewhere around 50% (though holy moly, it feels like less!). His critical statistic was this: if the percentage of income that goes to labor drops to 40%, this whole experiment we're doing here in this country probably goes belly up. His point was that we need to figure out what we're doing with AI and we need to do it fast because AI has the ability to rapidly propel us to that 40% drop off number.
I thought this was a great way to structure the day's conversation because it made us aware of what's really at stake when we're talking about AI. If this information had been used to ground the day in an honest and more robust discussion, I think we could have had a completely different Summit.
We got to see a practical use of AI that could actually make people's lives better
The government's most effective piece of AI propaganda for the day was presented by the head of Maryland Benefits, Patrick McLaughlin. He briefly walked us through how his team is using AI to comply with the Trump Administration's Big Beautiful Bill. If you aren't familiar, that bill has added a number of work and reporting requirements for folks to be eligible for Medicaid and SNAP benefits. McLaughlin gave us an overview about how AI will support Maryland caseworkers manage the exponential increase in paperwork that bill creates so that Marylanders who are eligible for benefits can receive them in a timely manner. This was a great example of a common sense application of AI that can vastly improve government services.
It was one of the only times where I found myself nodding in agreement with one of the day's speakers.
We should expect to see legislation re: Digital Likeness Rights in the next General Assembly Session
During his keynote, Governor Moore mentioned that Digital Likeness Rights are among the list of recommended legislation his administration is asking our General Assembly to pass in the next session. This is both important and a big deal. It's what would protect you as a Maryland citizen from having your voice, face, body, etc. used without your permission (for example, deepfakes). Again, this is very common sense legislation that should be passed at the federal level as well, but we all know what's happening there.
I was really excited to hear this because I think it's legislation that every State should have already passed so it's good to hear that it's a priority for the upcoming session.
I think the government kind of gets how serious AI is for everyday people
The Governor also seemed to understand the seriousness of the moment we're in. I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing given how bullish he is on AI, but he did make the distinction that AI is different from past technology innovations precisely because it asks the question: "what is the role of the human?" Whereas past tech simply asked: "how does this tech serve humans?"
Those are two fundamentally different questions, which is why the policy decisions concerning AI present high stakes. Governor Moore did seem to get that. Whether he actually acts as if it matters is a different story.
At least one panelist knew how trust works
Another person who was thinking critically about AI was panelist Dr. Valerie Sheares Ashby, the President of UMBC. She spoke plainly to the audience about how trust works. She said people trust who they know. That means you trust your neighbors, your family, etc. She emphasized to the audience and her fellow panelists that the people around you shape what and who you trust.
From an AI policy perspective, that means that whatever route the government pursues, it has to be inclusive. It has include different perspectives and people from different backgrounds and situations because that's the only way to build trust -- you have to incorporate the community. I thought this was right on and also important for discerning where AI does and doesn't belong and who should and shouldn't be required to bear the burden of the consequences of AI.
Similar to the insight Dr. Shah dropped regarding wealth inequality, it felt like if we spent more of the day thinking deeply about trust and what trust means in the context of AI, we would have had a very different day.
The above moments were easily my favorite parts of the day because they felt rooted in reality. There wasn't any exaggeration or fluff, it was just this is what we know or this is what we're doing. Unfortunately, all of these moments were just that: a moment. There wasn't an opportunity to build upon them because the rest of the day was consumed by vague conjectures.
The Bad
Speaking of vague conjectures, they were a big part of what made the day an overall negative experience for me. In this section, I'll cover the "bad": aka the stuff that happened at the Summit that either set the wrong tone or made a bad day worse.
Having Anthropic's Head of Public Policy Speak on the first panel (or really any panel).
Inviting Anthropic to this Summit felt like a critical mistake they spent the whole day unsuccessfully trying to rebound from, especially because they chose not to invite an equal and opposing AI critic to be a counterpoint to Anthropic's viewpoints.
The worst part was that Anthropic's head of public policy, Sarah Heck, was on the very first panel, which means we had to start the day by witnessing Anthropic do what it does best: play the victim. And to be honest, Sarah did a heck (ha!) of a job. She told the sob story about how Anthropic was founded by ex-Open AI employees who just wanted to build "good AI" with gusto. She hit just the right combination of victimhood and helplessness in her voice tone when she told the audience how desperate Anthropic is for the government to regulate them. And she self-aggrandized Anthropic's commitment to transparency and AI that's good for humanity, despite AI documentation strategist's Brittney Ball consistently criticizing them on their lack of transparency.
Not to mention that it's a very bizarre (and unfortunately effective) strategy to play the victim when your company is worth billions of dollars and literally no one asked you to build it, but that's what she did. That's because they (Anthropic) want us to believe that they are the ethical AI choice in the same way Bill Gates spends a fortune on PR to convince us that he's actually a good guy.
This is why Anthropic makes very public "pleas" for the government to regulate them so it seems like they care deeply about the consequences of AI. But in reality they are just as beholden to maxxing out their investors' return on investment as OpenAI is. Furthermore, if ethics and safety were Anthropic's primary driver, then they would stop building their models and wait the government to enact appropriate regulations before proceeding again. If you want to read more on this, you can read Dr. Timnit Gebru's thoughts on the issue as she has been speaking out about the dangers of AI for many years now. You can also pre-order her book Deep Unlearning: The Rise of AI and the Radicalization of a Tech Idealist.
Anyway, starting the day with Anthropic's same old song and dance felt like it set a tone that they planned to spend the day playing in our face. Had they invited someone like Dr. Timnit Gebru, Dr. Safiya Noble, or current PhD candidate and Baltimore native (!) Shae Ominijo to balance out Anthropic's theatrics to present a more measured conversation featuring different viewpoints, it would have been more successful.
We Weren't Given Anything Concrete to Grasp re: AI and Maryland's Lighthouse Industries
If you don't already know, part of the Moore-Miller administration's economic strategy is focusing on what they call Maryland's six lighthouse industries. What we didn't get at the Summit was an overview of how the administration is approaching the deployment of AI in the lighthouse industries in a way that both brings dollars to Maryland and keepsdollars in Maryland.
When I say bring and keep dollars in Maryland, I mean considering things like how these industries would source AI. Would they pay for enterprise accounts from the likes of Anthropic or OpenAI, or would they build their own AI? The answers to those questions would give us a lot of insight into how money is flowing in and out of Maryland as a result of AI and they would further help to streamline the current economic strategy.
Instead of exploring these questions as they relate to the lighthouse industries, panelists throughout the day just kept saying we need to embrace AI, experiment with it, and essentially trust that it will be "massive" for Maryland. There wasn't any grounded explanation as to how they see that happening, which could have been in the form of studies they've done, data they've collected, or based on their understanding of the technology, what some of the early possibilities they believe Maryland is uniquely positioned to lead on.
That was a bummer because there were plenty of industry folks there who I would imagine were interested in hearing that vision to understand how they could partner, but there was no space for conversation around it. To be fair, the administration did release the results from a study they did of how 300 Maryland businesses are engaging with AI on the day of the Summit. I've since had an opportunity to read it and it unfortunately doesn't give us a lot to consider in terms of whether, why, or how the lighthouse industries should leverage AI.
They Talked at Us All Day so There Was No Opportunity for Dialogue
It felt like a really big missed opportunity not to leave space for questions. If every session had ended with space for 2 to 3 questions, I think we would have had a different day. Instead, every session was a conversation between the panelists on stage and there was no opportunity for questions from the audience.
There were hundreds of people in attendance, all of whom had different viewpoints and perspectives and I would have loved to hear their questions and observe how the panelists answered them. And selfishly, I would have relished the opportunity to ask my own questions. I had a full page of them after the first panel alone.
More importantly, I think it was a missed opportunity for lawmakers to be in conversation with the people who live the policy choices they make everyday and it was a bummer that the Summit's conversation was one-sided. I understand that elections are coming up so the Summit was really designed to show us what the administration is doing for Marylanders re: AI. But strategically, it felt like a missed opportunity to make real connections with constituents and as they said repeatedly to us all day, build trust.
Overall, the day itself was extremely one-noted: in Maryland, we love AI and we're embracing it with open arms, and as a Marylander, you should too. The constant messages of the day were embrace it, it's gonna be massive, and we can't be afraid to fail. It felt a bit like I was in an hours long hypnosis session with a really bad hypnotist instead of attending an engaging Summit filled with important conversation, different viewpoints, and deepened community connections.
Everything I categorize as "bad" was bad because it was a tactical error that worked against the Summit's overall success. Below, I dive into the "ugly," which is more of an observation about the root cause of the "bad" problems.
The Ugly - Our Politicians Don't Seem to Understand Silicon Valley Tech...Still
Before you ask what do I know, let me tell you a bit of my background. I am a former tech lawyer, first in big law and then as in-house counsel at startups, full-time and then fractional. At my first in-house job, I had to report to several billionaires on a weekly basis for a year as part of my job responsibilities.
I also have 2 degrees from Stanford and several of my classmates are now billionaires or set to be in the next class of billionaires. Pretty much all of my professional lawyer training was in protecting Silicon Valley tech and Silicon Beach (Los Angeles) tech before I decided to quit being a proverbial cog in the wheel (Now I do this).
With that said, there is something that I have generally observed since moving back to Maryland: very few people understand the realities of how big tech operates. A very good book that lays everything out quite plainly is Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris. Enshittification by Cory Doctorow is also pretty instructive if you don't want to read the treatise that is Palo Alto (though the audiobook is great if you like to walk or run).
I say all this to say that my general observation is that not enough Maryland politicians understand the real interworkings of Silicon Valley tech. They don't get the ecosystem. They don't get the business model. And they don't get how the money is made for tech capitalists. This has been a problem across all politicians in the country for quite awhile and it's part of why our lawmakers have repeatedly failed to regulate tech effectively. And it's why our right to privacy has been increasingly reduced and why so many tech companies that were once deemed great innovators are now just the foundation of the surveillance state and the data brokerage market.
At the Summit, this administration repeatedly said that it did not want to repeat the government mistakes of the past by failing to regulate AI early and often. They said they didn't want to fail in the same way they failed to regulate the internet in the 90s/early 2000s and social media in the 2000s/2010s. And most importantly, they said that if no one will lead, then Maryland will.
But then it proceeded to espouse a very vague "pro AI, but with guardrails" policy agenda that seemed primed to repeat past mistakes all over again. The speakers at the Summit repeatedly referred to AI as moving really fast like it was a train running off the tracks that they were helpless to do anything about. They also said it had massive potential...just like the internet, and just like social media did. Overall, I didn't leave with any sort of confidence that Maryland lawmakers were prepared to put their foot down to protect their constituents from the consequences of AI.
What's worse is that the current policy agenda seems to be setting us up to become dependent on the big AI players, which is playing right into the hands of the Silicon Valley tech model. If you don't know, the tech that comes out of Silicon Valley is often designed to get more useful as more people use it. In other words, the users make the tech great and build it up to the point where it becomes indispensable (Cory Doctorow covers this in great detail in his book Enshittification).
Once we hit that critical tipping point of the tech becoming indispensable, tech companies raise the price. We see it all the time, but most notably lately with SaaS tools for small business owners and streaming networks for tv and movies.
It wasn't clear what the administration's plan is to avoid finding ourselves between a proverbial rock and a hard place once we've gone all in on AI and our good friend Anthropic decides to jack up the prices. Does that mean all of our industries including the government will be sending gigantic checks to California companies every month? And if so, how much money do we anticipate flowing out of Maryland to cover the costs of AI? And, do we anticipate the money that comes in due to our AI innovation in the lighthouse industries to eclipse that so it feels like pennies on the dollar?
We have to remember that Maryland is already in a precarious position financially. We can't afford to be in a situation where we invest in a strategy that ultimately takes even more dollars out of our state.
And yet, based on today's conversations, that is what it seems big AI will be well positioned to do in the long run.
My hope is that this is the first of many conversations and that future conversations will be just that: opportunities to engage in meaningful dialogue. I'd also love to see the administration work with more AI experts with no skin in the game as well as actual critics of the technology.
My Key Takeaways and Where We Go From Here
If you're a business owner reading this, then you've probably heard people say we're in a trust recession. To me, my key takeaway from the Summit wasn't whether AI is or isn't a great opportunity for Maryland, it was that yet again establishment Democrats don't seem to have any idea what it means or looks like to build trust with their constituents. Objectively, this was a pretty easy group to win over. It was full of academics, industry folks, foundations, research institutes, and nonprofit organizations -- all of whom can be considered at least interested in the potential possibilities AI has to offer. So this was not what you would call a hostile audience.
But, unfortunately, the Summit didn't have much to offer us. There wasn't a whole lot of learning offered and there wasn't any opportunity for discussion. If the policy of this administration is to ensure no one is left behind, then this Summit should have created space for discussion of what that looks like and how the people in the room can start to figure that out.
In light of that, here is how I'm thinking about Maryland's relationship to AI going forward:
My Vote Won’t Change In November
If you saw my Threads post on this Summit, there are a lot of folks saying it's time to change our vote. You all can obviously do what you want, but I'll still be voting for Moore in the election in November. Not because I feel especially moved by him, but because we don't have the kind of strategic organizing in Maryland for a working people's candidate to be successful in a gubnatorial election. I think that's something we can collectively build towards, but we simply aren't there yet.
Because of that, I'd rather vote to keep a Democrat in office as a harm reduction strategy and focus on organizing for the future. I say this for a few reasons, but mostly because voting has never been the end all/be all of my political activity. I learned awhile ago that community building and organizing can do a lot to insulate you from the harmful policies of our elected officials. So my goal always is to build communal ties strong enough to weather the storm of any politician.
I’m Putting My Effort Into Local AI
From an AI perspective, I'll be spending my time learning more about local AI that operates solely on my devices without needing to access the cloud (aka data centers). Shae O. has a beginner's guide to local AI that I plan to purchase and read through thoroughly. Then I'll be working within the entrepreneur, funding, and nonprofit ecosystems I'm a part of to think through when and where AI makes sense and whether a local model can be used to achieve our objectives.
I’m Not Putting Much Energy Into Politics
From an advocacy perspective, I'll be sharing my observations with friends in policy work so they can do their thing in the political sphere to shift the conversation to something more productive for Marylanders. As I said, I truly try to keep my distance from day-to-day politics because it’s truly not my zone of genius and it's not a good use of the minimum amount of extrovert energy I possess.
If you have your own takeaways, I’d love to hear them! Thank you for reading my very long review of the Innovation Summit. If you found it helpful to read, feel free to buy me a matcha. And if you're an entrepreneur based in Baltimore, keep an eye out for some legal workshops I'm offering at Impact Hub later this fall.
Thanks for reading!
