Perspectives on AI from Economists, Site Selectors, and Industry Leaders

Perspectives on AI from Economists, Site Selectors, and Industry Leaders

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how businesses operate, make decisions, and compete in the global economy. From workforce development and site selection to marketing and business intelligence, AI is influencing nearly every aspect of economic development. To better understand how AI is reshaping the economic development landscape, we asked SEDC members in the American South to share their perspectives on the technology's current role and future potential. Their insights reveal both the promise of AI and the practical considerations communities must navigate as this technological revolution continues to unfold.

Analysis + Evaluation at Warp Speed

As project timelines continue to compress and prospects expect faster responses, many site selectors are finding that the most immediate benefit of AI is not replacing decision-making but accelerating the analysis and evaluation process. Site selection firm Strategic Location Advisors, for example, uses a closed AI system to support RFI deployment and scoring. According to founder and CEO Chuck Sexton, AI can reduce project timelines by 30 to 90 days, depending on project scope.

“For us, it has become a staple of our process to utilize our closed AI system that we have now, which is called Incenti,” said Sexton.

The Incenti platform underwent extensive internal testing over a two-year development period. As part of the validation process, the platform developer engaged trusted site selection professionals to ensure the AI was user-friendly. Traditional RFI scoring models were fed into the platform to teach it AI-generated evaluations and ensure consistency, accuracy, and reliability.

For economic development organzations, faster RFI analysis can shorten consultant response times, improve project competitiveness, and allow staff to focus more attention on relationship building and strategic problem-solving. However, emphasis on validation is critical since inaccurate information or inconsistent evaluations can affect project outcomes and community credibility.

While AI adoption has accelerated across the business landscape, the technology remains in its infancy. AI is a tool that enhances traditional site selection rather than fundamentally changing the workflow. For many consulting firms, AI has become a first step in the long process of site selection, helping to improve efficiency and streamline decision-making. AI is not, however, ready to manage the entire site selection process independently and is unlikely to do so in the near future.

Sexton emphasized that successful site selection still depends on professional judgment, local knowledge, infrastructure analysis, workforce evaluation, and client-specific considerations that cannot be fully automated. He recommends balancing innovation with due diligence, focusing on providers that demonstrate proven results, transparent methodologies, and a clear understanding of the site selection process.

Agents of Change

Economic development consulting firm Camoin Associates has been building and deploying AI agents for clients designed to handle systematic, time-intensive work. By automating data collection and enrichment, AI agents can shorten prospect research timelines and help business development teams focus on relationship-building and lead generation. For many economic development organizations (EDOs) operating with lean teams, AI can effectively expand organizational capacity without increasing headcount.

Three agents stand out as being particularly productive. Rory, a website visitor identification agent, identifies companies actively visiting an EDO client's website, compiles data into a report, and automatically delivers that report to the client for follow-up outreach.

Sam, a data-matching and deduplication agent, does daily searches for duplicate website visitors, flagging them and comparing them against existing accounts using fuzzy name and location matching before connecting each visitor to the right record. Sam flags cases for human review that fall below a 70% confidence threshold.

A third prospect enrichment agent triggers automatically when a new prospect is created in Dynamic. The agent runs inside Camoin’s Microsoft environment through Copilot Studio and researches prospective companies, gathering information such as industry classification, location of headquarters, employee count, revenue, and geographical market focus.

These agents allow EDOs to spend less time on administrative and research tasks and more time engaging with prospects and supporting existing businesses.

“It allows them to focus more time on the work that really matters and has an impact versus automating or administrative tasks,” said Dillion Roberts, Director of ProspectEngage at Camoin Associates.

Camoin has also developed an open-source agent called Hermes that is on the market. It can be used to create documents, develop marketing content, generate new ideas, and schedule tasks.

Camoin began developing AI agents by identifying 12 business functions that could benefit from automation. The team evaluated each opportunity and prioritized those that would deliver the greatest impact while being the easiest to implement.

However, implementing AI agents is not always straightforward. Every organization is different and uses a variety of software. It is important to identify standardized systems that allow the AI agents to integrate into existing workflows.

“You have to really understand exactly what software they are using,” Roberts said.

EDOs can prepare for AI integration by assessing their existing technology stack and determining whether their CRM and other core systems support AI-enabled workflows. Roberts emphasized that successful AI implementation depends heavily on CRM discipline. Incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent records can limit the effectiveness of AI-powered tools. Efficient record tracking and record keeping enable AI models to easily work within a system without becoming confused.

Roberts believes the most successful AI implementations begin with clearly defined business challenges rather than the technology itself. Organizations that identify high-volume, repetitive tasks first are often best positioned to realize immediate value from AI.

Camoin Associates has just published the Agentic AI Pilot Guide for Economic Developers to give EDOs a starting point and structure for moving in agentic workflows. Learn more at https://camoinassociates.com/resources/agentic-ai-pilot-guide-for-economic-developers.