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Speaking with TechGraph, Terrence Curley, Senior Vice President of Operations at OpenGov, outlined how governments are moving beyond basic digitization to improve the accessibility and usability of public data, and how the company is supporting this shift by helping agencies present financial and operational information in intuitive formats that residents can understand and engage with in real time.
Curley further spoke about how OpenGov’s low-code Government App Builder enables agencies to rapidly deploy tailored workflows, align with federal funding requirements, and maintain operational continuity in environments where staffing turnover and institutional knowledge gaps are common.
Read the interview in detail:
TechGraph: Governments are notorious for moving slowly when it comes to adopting new technology, often because of procurement hurdles and political sensitivities. How does OpenGov actually push through that resistance and keep modernization projects from stalling midway?
Terrence Curley: Efficiency is not just a nice-to-have for governments—it’s essential. Shrinking budgets, leaner workforces, heightened cybersecurity risks, and rising community expectations make status quo reliance on decades-old systems unsustainable. Our vision of high-performance government for every community begins with helping government leaders understand the urgency to change and showing how modern, purpose-built technology can help them do it.
But technology alone isn’t enough. We’re able to push through the challenges of adoption because we stand hand-in-hand with our customers at every step. We ensure they’re confident not only in the software, but in the expertise of our team to guide implementation and deliver success. And when a customer chooses OpenGov, they’re gaining a partner with the knowledge and experience to lead them confidently through modernization.
TechGraph: There is often a disconnect between the promise of transparency and what citizens actually feel. How confident are you that platforms like OpenGov can bridge that gap without becoming another layer of bureaucracy that people struggle to engage with?
Terrence Curley: The key to true transparency is user experience. Data only matters if it’s accessible and easy to understand. From the beginning, OpenGov has focused not just on digitizing processes to collect data, but also on making that data intuitive for residents to engage with.
A good example is our AI strategy, which now allows residents to ask questions in natural language and receive clear, accurate answers. For instance, instead of combing through dense pages of a budget book, a resident can simply type a question into a search tool and immediately find what they need. By operationalizing manual processes and layering in intuitive, natural-language reporting tools, we ensure transparency isn’t just an afterthought buried in clunky systems, but a reality that residents can easily experience.
TechGraph: Different jurisdictions face very different pressures, whether it is a rural county with limited IT staff or a large city wrestling with scale. When you roll out the same platform across such varied landscapes, where do you find the biggest fault lines, and how do you adapt?
Terrence Curley: OpenGov’s platform is built exclusively for local and state governments, so every product is designed to adapt to their unique use cases. Interoperability is central: every city, state, and town has its own set of systems. From the start, our software has been built to integrate with and work alongside any customer’s existing ecosystem.
Our Public Service Platform isn’t one-size-fits-all. It spans asset management, permitting and licensing, procurement and contract management, accounting and budgeting, billing and revenue, and transparency and open data. Whether an agency needs a targeted solution, wants to replace its entire financial system, or prefers to start with one pain point and expand, OpenGov meets them where they are.
That adaptability has grown even stronger with the Government App Builder. With low-code/no-code flexibility, this toolkit enables us to tailor our suite to each customer’s needs, making the platform more adaptive, responsive, and scalable than ever.
TechGraph: AI is already being debated in the private sector around bias, accountability, and overreliance on automation. In government, those risks carry even greater weight. How does OpenGov ensure that efficiency gains do not come at the expense of fairness or democratic oversight?
Terrence Curley: The balance between efficiency and oversight is built into the DNA of our AI. Our intelligence algorithm is called OpenGov Assist, and the word “assist” is intentional: our tools support human decision-making. They don’t replace it. AI can automate workflows, draft communications, and suggest ways to structure a form, but final authority remains with government staff.
Take the Communication Center in our Permitting & Licensing suite. Drafting permitting updates can consume hours of staff time. With the Communication Center, staff set message goals and adjust tone, length, and language using intuitive sliders to auto-generate content. Manual drafting from scratch becomes a scalable, AI-driven workflow, yet staff retain full editing control and must approve every draft before it’s sent. That kind of safeguard is built into every AI use case across our platform.
TechGraph: Governments have been tested repeatedly in recent years by crises like wildfires, floods, and public health emergencies. How do you design systems that are not only robust enough for day-to-day operations but also flexible enough to support agencies when the unexpected happens?
Terrence Curley: Crisis response demands speed, flexibility, and compliance. That’s exactly what the Government App Builder I mentioned previously is built for. It lets agencies rapidly create new applications, guided by AI-generated templates, while ensuring compliance with FEMA, ARPA, and other federal frameworks.
When the unexpected happens, governments can use the Government App Builder to quickly adapt existing systems or build entirely new workflows in days rather than months. The result is a compliant, purpose-built solution tailored to the emergency at hand. It’s a clear example of how our government-only focus equips us to meet challenges that broad, horizontal platforms simply weren’t built to handle.
TechGraph: Anyone who has covered local government knows turnover is constant and institutional memory often walks out the door. How does OpenGov design technology that does not just serve the people currently in office, but also preserves knowledge and continuity when new leaders or staff take over?
Terrence Curley: Yes, turnover is a constant in government, and too often, critical processes and institutional knowledge still live with a single person. For agencies to operate effectively, their systems must outlast individuals, especially as many public servants approach retirement. By transforming paper-based processes into digital workflows, we’re not just improving efficiency for today’s users; we’re ensuring essential knowledge is preserved and accessible 365 days a year for whoever steps into the role next.
Because we work exclusively with governments, our products also embed common use cases and best practices from thousands of municipalities. New staff don’t need to reinvent the wheel—they inherit proven workflows that reflect how agencies nationwide operate, while still capturing the unique practices of their own organization.
TechGraph: ERP companies often talk about partnerships with governments, but there is always a risk of dependency. How do you ensure agencies remain empowered and are not locked into a vendor-controlled future they cannot afford to change?
Terrence Curley: Just as interoperability is crucial for adoption, it’s also what keeps our customers empowered and not locked into our system. As I mentioned before, every government we work with already has decades of data, processes, and systems in place. To even be considered, our solutions must integrate seamlessly with that environment. That same design principle ensures agencies are never dependent on our tools. Their data is always their data, and it can be exported, integrated, or extended into other systems whenever needed.
Our goal is, of course, to make customers so successful that they choose to continue partnering with us and expanding across our suites. But by design, that growth has to come from the strength of our products and our people, since our system isn’t built to lock agencies into a siloed system they can’t leave.