Executive Summary
The Maryland Department of Human Services (DHS) serves as the state’s primary social safety net,
providing life-sustaining benefits to over one million residents. In this high-stakes environment,
a caseworker’s readiness is measured by two equally critical metrics: technical accuracy and
emotional intelligence. A single error in calculation can delay a family’s access to food or other
critical resources, while a cold or bureaucratic interaction can erode public trust in government
during a moment of crisis.
To eliminate the “readiness gap” between legislative change and frontline execution, DHS launched
the AI-Powered Policy Enablement Package (APEP). Moving beyond static documents, APEP provides a
multi-modal ecosystem including synthesized audio, custom-grounded video, real-time guidance assistants, and a groundbreaking Adaptive Policy Simulator. Following successful pilots, DHS executed a statewide launch in Spring 2026. Transitioning from a centralized IT initiative to a democratized business capability, APEP now
enables non-technical policy experts across the agency to build their own high-fidelity training
suites in under an hour.
