New Jersey wins national SEED Award for AI work improving access to unemployment and leave benefits
TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development has been honored with the 2025 SEED Award from US Digital Response for its use of artificial intelligence to expand access to unemployment and paid leave benefits, officials announced Wednesday.
The award recognizes New Jersey as a national leader in developing digital solutions that can be replicated across multiple jurisdictions. NJDOL used the state’s AI assistant—created by the New Jersey State Office of Innovation—to simplify and improve translations for Unemployment Insurance and Paid Family and Medical Leave programs in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.
“We are thrilled to receive the ‘2025 SEED Award’ in recognition of NJDOL’s efforts to harness the power of AI to better serve New Jersey workers in need,” Commissioner of Labor Robert Asaro-Angelo said. “Our commitment to improving our translations and use of plain language in paid family and medical leave and in our Unemployment Insurance glossaries helped to increase access for more English, Spanish, and Haitian-Creole speaking residents than ever before. As a result, we saw more UI application submissions in Spanish and higher follow-through rates—improving access to critical benefits for New Jersey workers that can be scaled to help around the country.”
New Jersey State Chief Innovation Officer Dave Cole said the award underscores the state’s leadership in responsible AI. “This much-deserved recognition shows how NJDOL is leading the way to harness generative AI responsibly and make a real difference for people who are unemployed or seeking leave,” Cole said. “The Office of Innovation looks forward to continuing to partner with NJDOL to deliver crucial benefits and resources more effectively and efficiently than ever before.”
The agency worked with community-based organizations—including the Lakewood Resource and Referral Center, Norwescap, the Immigration and American Citizenship Organization, Jefferson Park Ministries, Church World Service Jersey City, Rise and the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund—to support the development of plain-language glossaries and AI prompts. These tools, tested by community members and NJDOL staff, sharply reduced translation turnaround time and improved the quality of multilingual customer resources.
The effort contributed to an increase in Spanish-language UI applications and required fewer edits from native speakers. It also enhanced online application translations and improved follow-through rates for claim submissions.
New Jersey was one of three states selected for US Digital Response’s 2025 Digital Service Champions Awards, alongside Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The awards recognize states leading modernization in digital government and public service.
NJDOL’s broader use of AI includes initiatives to streamline unemployment claims processing, personalize job matching, strengthen data analysis and improve the overall customer experience. State officials say those efforts are part of a long-term plan to modernize government operations and expand digital access for residents.
The SEED Award provides New Jersey with national visibility for its digital innovation work and supports the cross-state sharing of best practices that could drive new partnerships and collaborations.
More information about NJDOL’s workforce development initiatives is available at nj.gov/labor, and details on the SEED Award can be found through US Digital Response.
