Integrations with Laserfiche

Navigating the Agentic Era: Laserfiche 2026 Leadership Predictions

John Merrill speaking during the general session at the 2025 Empower conference.

As we move through 2026, the conversation around artificial intelligence has shifted from “what if” to “how fast.” For business leaders, this means the challenge is no longer just adopting AI, but orchestrating a landscape where AI agents, human expertise and rigorous data governance intersect. 

Below are strategic considerations for navigating the technological and operational shifts that are defining 2026. 

1. From tools to agents: The new standard of content management 

By 2026, AI features — document summarization, automated metadata extraction and conversational search — are no longer differentiators; they are table stakes for a document management platform. The real frontier is the AI agent. Organizations are moving past experimental chatbots toward autonomous agents capable of executing workflows. 

Meanwhile, automation isn’t replacing knowledge workers; it’s liberating them. As AI handles repetitive administrative tasks, the workforce is refocusing on high-impact, creative strategy. Leaders should encourage low-stakes AI experimentation now. Familiarizing teams with AI agents in a safe environment will help prepare the organization for when these tools move into mission-critical operations. 

2. The rise of the agentic workforce and technical bottlenecks 

This year will also mark a significant shift in how software and solutions are built. While AI can now write the majority of application code, this creates new challenges for IT strategy. While entry-level coding is being automated, the demand for experienced developers remains high. Their role has evolved into “agent orchestrators” — experts who know how to direct sophisticated AI to achieve enterprise-grade results. 

The single most important skill for 2026 is adaptability: The ability to learn and unlearn skills rapidly is now more valuable than any specific legacy programming language. 

3. Security in the age of perfect impersonation 

The cybersecurity landscape in 2026 is defined by “AI vs. AI.” This new era includes supercharged social engineering; AI can now almost perfectly impersonate individuals, making traditional phishing defenses obsolete. Organizations must move toward robust, hardware-based authentication like Fast Identity Online two-factor authentication (FIDO 2FA). Forward-thinking CIOs are now requiring vendors to adopt additional security controls, certifications and compliance frameworks.  

4. Infrastructure reality check: Budgets and supply chains 

Despite the software-centric nature of AI, the physical reality of hardware is a major constraint. Anticipated AI demand has created significant supply chain volatility. With technology budgets capped at roughly 9-10% growth and vendor subscription costs rising, leaders must find “AI offsets.”  Funding for AI innovation in 2026 is largely coming from efficiency gains and spending decreases in other areas of the IT budget rather than massive new capital injections. This is evidenced by Gartner’s 2026 forecast, which shows that while total IT spending is growing by only 10.8%, investment in AI is surging by 80.8% 

2026: The year of responsible acceleration 

The organizations winning in 2026 are those that treat AI not as a bolt-on product, but as a fundamental shift in how human talent is deployed. Trust — in your data, your vendors and your governance — remains the only currency that allows for rapid adoption. 

See how you compare to peers in your AI adoption now by reading more in The State of Document Management & AI

The State of Document Management and AI

Georgia’s Government Innovation Showcase: Transforming Technology and Accelerating AI’s Impact

Andy and Brandon at the event

Georgia’s state and regional public sector leaders convened at Public Sector Network’s Government Innovation Georgia to share ideas, initiatives and projects. The one-day event was focused on transforming government through accelerating impact and modernizing technology. With AI-powered technology surging all levels of government’s growth potential, the event provided networking, collaboration and best practice expertise among the State of Georgia’s agencies and beyond. 

Georgia’s state and regional technology leaders gathered at Public Sector Network’s Government Innovation Georgia with a clear focus: how to modernize responsibly while accelerating the impact of AI. 

What stood out was not enthusiasm for new tools alone, but a disciplined conversation about how innovation must serve citizens, strengthen trust and produce measurable outcomes. AI was not positioned as a trend to chase, but as a capability to govern carefully. 

Georgia’s Commitment to AI | Future-Forward Georgia – Innovation with Integrity

Georgia’s modernization strategy reflects a broader shift in public sector technology: moving from digitization as the goal to intelligent activation grounded in governance. 

The State CIO Shawnzia Thomas emphasized that innovation must flow through secure, visible pathways. AI governance and cybersecurity governance are inseparable. Cloud agility, responsible AI and cyber discipline form interconnected engines driving Georgia forward. This approach reframes modernization. It is not about what agencies buy. It is about what outcomes they deliver — reduced wait times, expanded access, stronger security and greater public confidence. 

Shawnzia Thomas, State Chief Information Officer and Executive Director, Georgia Technology Authority gave the event’s keynote. Her keynote a consistent message emerged: AI must be implemented with guardrails from the start. Security cannot be layered on later. Transparency is non-negotiable. If technology improves efficiency but undermines public trust, it fails its purpose. 

Trust, as Ms. Thomas described it, is the ultimate deliverable. As Georgia pushes the frontier of digital transformation, this keynote outlines how agency leaders are embedding innovation into daily governance to create a smarter, more resilient state. From AI to cybersecurity, Georgia’s roadmap is focused on outcomes that matter to citizens. 

  • Streamlining operations and citizen engagement through AI and automation. 
  • Strengthening digital equity and inclusive access across the state. 
  • Building enterprise resilience with secure cloud and Zero Trust strategies. 
  • Scaling what works: replicable innovation models from across Georgia. 

Modernizing Georgia Government with AI and Automation—Built on Secure, Governed Content 

During a roundtable discussion with Georgia government leaders, the conversation centered on how AI, automation and enterprise content governance must work together. The pressure to digitize and automate is real, but so is the responsibility to ensure information remains secure, compliant and defensible. 

Two primary themes stood out from the conversation to modernize legacy processes, break down silos, and prepare for AI: 

  1. The need for trusted data:  Leaders agreed that AI magnifies both strengths and weaknesses in the information environment. Agencies that progressed successfully invested first in metadata discipline, clear retention practices and shared standards. AI cannot compensate for disorganized information; it amplifies it. 
  2. AI is a team sport:   Another theme aligned closely with Georgia’s broader strategy: AI literacy must extend beyond IT teams. Policy leaders, attorneys, records managers and executives all need shared understanding. Modernization succeeds when employees are confident pilots of AI, not passive observers. 

Rather than focusing on specific technologies, this session emphasized practical lessons, shared challenges, and the foundational objectives that help Georgia agencies scale modernization responsibly and deliver better outcomes for citizens. strengthening governance, data quality, cybersecurity alignment, and compliance 

The roundtable reinforced that AI in government is not solely a technical challenge. It is a governance and leadership discipline — one that depends equally on trusted data, clear oversight and meaningful human involvement.  

Accelerating Impact and Modernizing Technology 

The showcase made clear that Georgia is not pursuing AI as a standalone initiative. It is aligning cloud modernization, responsible AI and cybersecurity discipline around citizen outcomes. For technology leaders and records managers, this alignment has practical implications. Content must be structured, classified and governed continuously — not cleaned up later. Automation becomes the baseline layer that enforces retention, access and auditability as information enters the system. 

When governance travels with content, agencies gain the flexibility to innovate without sacrificing control. 

Georgia’s approach reflects a broader truth emerging across government: AI does not replace governance. It requires more of it. 

Agencies that invest in trusted data, disciplined security and human-centered implementation will not only accelerate impact — they will strengthen public confidence. 

Modernization will not be measured by how advanced the algorithms are. It will be measured by how confidently agencies can explain, defend and improve the decisions those systems support. 

AI in Document Management For Dummies

Responsibly-used AI provides faster access to data from more sources, alleviates data entry errors and helps turn your unstructured data into business value. But how? Read the Dummies guide, Laserfiche special edition.

From Records to Intelligence: What the 2026 InfoGov Summit Made Clear About AI in Government

Dr Moya Hill smiling while speaking at a podium
Dr. Moya Hill on stage speaking at the 2026 Public Sector InfoGov Summit

At the Public Sector InfoGov Summit 2026, focused on “Advancing Information Governance Across the Public Sector,” one message came through consistently: AI in government is not just a technology question but actually an information governance conversation. From the White House Office of Records Management and the National Archives to the Department of the Interior and Veterans Affairs, the focus was not on hype but instead on readiness, responsibility and results. 

Government runs on records. And before AI can deliver value, those records must be structured, managed and trusted. Philip Droege, director of the White House Office of Records, gave a keynote on managing White House records that was a powerful reminder that governance at the highest levels of government is built on discipline, documentation and defensibility. Whether under the Presidential Records Act or federal records mandates, accountability depends on clarity: what a record is, where it lives, who owns it and how it transitions. 

That same principle applies to AI. 

John Montel, associate CIO from the Department of the Interior, reinforced this directly: Before introducing AI, agencies must prepare their information environment. Physical records, electronic content and data must be organized. 

Ownership must be clear. Retention must be consistent. Metadata must be reliable.  

Records Management Lays AI Groundwork in Government 

Without that groundwork, AI amplifies inconsistency rather than value. This is where AI-powered content management becomes meaningful. AI can automatically classify documents, extract metadata, identify sensitive information and summarize complex files. But those capabilities only create impact when they operate inside a governance framework with retention schedules, access controls, audit trails and human oversight built in. 

The National Archives provided a compelling example. Acting Chief Innovation Officer Jill Reilly described how NARA is leveraging AI to enhance metadata, improve semantic search and expand access to historic collections including the 1950 Census and Revolutionary War Pension files. But the key to success was not the algorithm. It was the “ground truth” datasets and strong metadata foundation beneath it. AI was layered on top of trusted records, not substituted for them. 

That is the model government leaders should follow. 

Dr. Moya Hill, chief FOIA/privacy/records officer with the Office of Acquisition, Logistics, and Construction, led a discussion on FOIA at the Department of Veterans Affairs which further underscored the point. Transparency is not optional. AI can assist in identifying responsive records, standardizing redactions and accelerating response times. But defensibility remains paramount with explainable outputs and auditable decisions. Governance programs must align FOIA, privacy and records management rather than treating them as separate disciplines. The conversation also turned toward agentic AI, systems capable of coordinating actions within defined rules. 

AMTRAK Senior Director of Data, AI and Automation John Chiofee’s closing keynote on the “governance fabric” tied information, data and AI together. Governance cannot sit in a silo. It must travel with the information across systems, departments and workflows. AI will increasingly monitor compliance thresholds, surface anomalies and recommend actions—but within guardrails defined by policy. 

That evolution mirrors what we see in AI-empowered content management today. 

  • Phase one is intelligent extraction structuring information automatically as it enters the system. 
  • Phase two is human-plus-AI collaboration accelerating review, classification and routing while preserving oversight. 
  • Phase three moves toward intelligent orchestration where AI agents help coordinate workflows, identify risk and support decisions under defined governance policies. 

This evolution is built into Laserfiche, a platform grounded in decades of public sector experience. Records management capabilities support full lifecycle tracking, granular security, automated retention and audit readiness aligned with standards like DoD 5015.2. AI capabilities such as Smart Fields, intelligent classification and workflow automation operate within that governance framework. 

The takeaway from the summit was clear: AI is not replacing records management. It is elevating it. 

Government leaders should not ask, “How do we deploy AI?” The better question is, “Is our information environment ready?” Agencies that invest now in structured metadata, lifecycle governance and cross-functional collaboration between IT, records and business leaders will be positioned to move from managing records to activating intelligence. 

Shaping Tomorrow’s Enterprise: The Power of Intelligent Workflow Automation

Laserfiche Virtual Training – New Laserfiche Administrator Bootcamp

Designed for new users to get caught up on Laserfiche administration basics, this lab-style instructor-led training will provide the foundations necessary to successfully manage, administer, and troubleshoot your Laserfiche system.

Topics covered include repository design, metadata administration, repository security and records management, along with repository and task automation.

Advanced Laserfiche Forms and Business Processes

Missed it at Empower? Elevate your form and process design!

This hands-on lab will show how to build sophisticated forms and processes to enhance user experience and process maintenance. Beginning with a complicated, suboptimal process as a starting point, we will see how implementing advanced functionalities can make both a form and process more streamlined, efficient, and resistant to errors. This course will teach you how to:

Leverage complex field rules and calculations to reduce form and process maintenance

Configure advanced process features such a gateways and events to handle exceptions elegantly

Update existing processes to leverage best practices and new features when designing solutions

Advanced Workflow Design – Working with Data

Missed it at Empower? Streamline data processing with Workflow!

In this hands-on lab, we’ll explore complex workflow solutions for working with batches of data. Focusing on efficiency, you’ll see how to configure Workflow to retrieve and manipulate data, whether you’re working with sets of data from a database or manipulating data to be sent as part of an integration. In this course, you’ll learn how to:

Effectively query and batch data sets

Efficiently iterate through information while considering when to invoke child workflows

Manipulate tokens to construct data to be sent to other sources, such as Laserfiche Forms, tables, or third-party applications

Advanced Workflow Design – Document Processing

Missed it at Empower? Enhance your workflows for document processing and import!

In this hands-on lab, we’ll explore complex workflow solutions for bulk document import and re-processing repository documents. Focusing on efficiency and performance, you’ll see how to configure Workflow to streamline working with documents, whether you’re processing new incoming documents or existing documents in the repository. In this course, you’ll learn how to:

Leverage Invoke Workflow activities to modularize workflows

Elegantly handle document exceptions within a process using built-in features

Improve workflow efficiency and performance while considering requirements for speed of processing and accuracy

Intermediate Workflow Design

Missed it at Empower? Unlock your automation potential with workflow!

Refine your workflow knowledge with this hands-on lab, highlighting workflow design patterns to tackle common business needs like data processing and document routing. Go beyond the basics of Workflow by learning useful techniques for working with logic, manipulating tokens to fit your needs, and streamlining your processes to get the most out of your automation. This course will teach you how to:

Find and work with multiple repository entries within a workflow

Manipulate data using token functions including working with multi-value tokens

Troubleshoot workflows to get them back on track