UCPCOG Brings Regional Planning Services In-House

Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments (UCPCOG) Partners with mySidewalk to Bring Regional Planning Services In-House using Civic AI Tool.

The council behind the nine-state UCPCOG AI Network extends its AI leadership into regional planning, bringing its planning and grant work in-house.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WILSON, N.C. — August 5, 2026 — The Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments (UCPCOG) has partnered with mySidewalk to bring its verified-data platform and AI assistant, Sidekick, into regional planning. The partnership supports the UCPCOG AI Network, the council's model for responsible public-sector AI, into everyday planning and grants work, connecting rural communities with responsible AI vendors like mySidewalk.

UCPCOG is a recognized leader in responsible government AI. It launched the UCPCOG AI Network in July 2025 to give small and rural governments shared access to vetted AI tools, along with the training and governance to use them responsibly. In August 2025, UCPCOG became the first regional council in the nation named to the Center for Public Sector AI's “AI 50 Public Sector Innovators” list.

UCPCOG's team will use Sidekick to produce its comprehensive economic development strategy, grant applications, forecasts, and community-ready engagement materials across its five-county region. Much of that work has long required outside consultants.

For UCPCOG, the value is accountability paired with capacity. Sidekick, which is purpose-built for civic work, pulls only from mySidewalk's data library of more than 9 billion community data values from sources like the Census Bureau, HUD, and the EPA, as well as proprietary data derived from publicly available sources. Every figure is validated and normalized across 16 geography types and carries a source reference so published data is trust-worthy and defensible.

“The UCPCOG AI Network exists to help rural governments adopt AI they can trust, and mySidewalk meets that standard,” said Robert Hiett, Executive Director of UCPCOG. “I don’t put anything in front of my board that I can't trace to a source, and most AI tools can't clear that bar. mySidewalk's platform and AI tool lets us do our own planning and grant work with data we can defend, streamlining our processes so that we have capacity for deeper community work.”

“The UCPCOG team set the bar for responsible AI among councils of governments,” said Stephen Hardy, CEO of mySidewalk. “We built Sidekick so the smallest regions and communities can produce the same caliber of work as those with more resources. We're proud to support UCPCOG in delivering more capacity, confidence and clarity in their daily work.”

About the Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments
UCPCOG serves Wilson, Nash, Edgecombe, Halifax, and Northampton counties in North Carolina, supporting member governments across planning, infrastructure, community and economic development, workforce, and aging services. Through the UCPCOG AI Network, it helps small and rural governments across nine states adopt AI responsibly. Learn more at ucpcog.org.

About mySidewalk
mySidewalk is a community data platform built to help public sector teams turn data into action by combining a 9-billion-value verified data library, interactive visualizations, and report and dashboard building tools. Sidekick, the platform’s AI assistant, answers community data questions and produces credible, defensible deliverables in hours, not weeks. mySidewalk has been ranked multiple times in the GovTech 100, most recently in 2026. Learn more at mysidewalk.com.