Louisville is the last major Midwest metro without an AI hub. That ends now.
The Louisville AI Center is the hub that connects this city's people, knowledge, resources, and opportunities around AI, across workforce, education, healthcare, technology, manufacturing and industry, and civic life. Louisville's AI future isn't something that happens to us. It's something we build together.
The pieces are already here. What's missing is the connection.
The Brookings Institution ranks Louisville 74th in AI innovation, talent, and startup development. Cincinnati is 46th. Indianapolis is 47th. St. Louis is 51st. All three peer cities are a full tier ahead of us, and all three already have what we are building right now: an AI hub and infrastructure.
But Louisville isn't starting from zero. This city engaged more than 10,000 residents through the Future of Work Initiative. Metro government uses AI to speed permitting. Organizations across every sector are doing real work every day. The bricks are already here.
What's missing is the mortar. Too many people are navigating this change separately: a leader who needs help and doesn't know who to call, an expert with an answer who doesn't know who needs it. There's no hub that presents Louisville's AI work as one cohesive story. That's what LAIC is here to be.
“Think of us as a chamber of commerce's connective power, combined with the public service mission of a library.”
What LAIC is built to do
Connect the ecosystem
Bring Louisville's AI knowledge, expertise, and resources into the same room so people and organizations can find one another and turn separate efforts into shared solutions.
Empower the people
Give workers, students, employers, nonprofits, and small businesses the knowledge, support, and confidence to understand what is changing and participate in what comes next.
Advance the region
Turn Louisville's existing strengths into coordinated action that closes competitive gaps, expands economic mobility, prepares our workforce, and attracts the investment shaping the future.
How LAIC works
LAIC continuously listens, maps what already exists, connects people to resources, and responds in proportion to what the evidence shows, building only when a meaningful gap remains. We do not need to own every solution. Our role is to make Louisville's AI ecosystem easier to understand, navigate, and activate.
Listen and understand
Bring institutional intelligence and lived community experience together to see patterns across Louisville's AI ecosystem.
Identify and map
Surface needs, existing resources, expertise, opportunities, recurring challenges, and gaps.
Respond based on evidence
Inform when there is a knowledge gap. Connect when a resource exists. Convene when there is a shared problem. Activate when there is an opportunity. Build only when evidence shows an important need remains unmet.
Share and close the loop
Tell contributors what changed, and carry what LAIC learns into the next round of listening, through the Intelligence Brief, the State of AI in Louisville, and a public resource hub.
What guides us
Access
AI knowledge, resources, and opportunities should not become luxury goods available only to people and organizations with money, influence, or technical connections.
Agency
People should understand what is changing and have the power to make informed decisions about their work, businesses, and lives.
Connection
An ecosystem works when people, ideas, expertise, resources, and opportunities can find one another.
Trust
Participation requires transparency, responsible governance, credible information, and institutions people can rely on.
Collaboration
LAIC does not need to own every program or solution. Its role is to bring people together, strengthen what already exists, and help partners accomplish more collectively.
Practical impact
The real measure is whether this work improves life for people in Louisville: shared prosperity and lasting value, not activity for its own sake.
There is a place for you in Louisville's AI future.
Louisville's AI future isn't something that happens to us. It's something we build together. LAIC is built on community participation, organizational partnership, and founding support, and right now we're looking for the people and organizations ready to help build the hub.
Be among the first to know.
LAIC is building Louisville's AI hub. Join the interest list to get early access to membership, programs, events, and opportunities as they launch.
Join the Interest ListNo spam. No commitment. Just a front-row seat to what's coming.
Who we are
Strong leadership. Deep roots.
LAIC is led by a board of Louisville business, civic, education, and technology leaders who are committed to building an AI ecosystem that works for the entire region.
Board members
Holly Hartman
Future Workforce Systems
Interim Executive Director
Alisia McClain, Ph.D.
TECH-Nique
Vice Chair
Melissa Hicks
Dean Dorton
Treasurer
Matt Gunn
Gunn Menefee Law
Secretary
Sarah Bhatia
Slingshot
Kevin Frey
Farm Credit Mid-America
Henry Lynch
Vsimple
Brad Savko
Old National Bank
Angela Hagan, Ph.D.
Louisville Visual Art
Hollie Spade
AT&T Kentucky
Matt Whittaker
Norton Healthcare
Louisville AI Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, status pending.