{"688364":{"#nid":"688364","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Students Merge Analytics and Public Policy to Build Legislative AI Tool","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EKeeping pace with the rapid movement of state and federal legislation is a high-stakes challenge for organizations and policymakers. To address this, a pair of Georgia Tech data analytics students developed Politheon, an AI agent-driven legislative tracking platform shaped by rigorous data analytics, a boost from Georgia Tech\u2019s CREATE-X, and critical insights from data scientists in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECo-founded by Daniel Forcade and Hanna Bodnar, recent graduates of Georgia Tech\u2019s Master of Science in Analytics program, Politheon is designed to overcome the limitations of standard artificial intelligence in providing businesses and other organizations with accurate and actionable information about legislative activity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBodnar credits the team\u0027s collaboration with Associate Professor Omar Asensio\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/datasciencepolicy.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EData Science and Policy Lab\u003C\/a\u003E in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/spp.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy \u003C\/a\u003Efor helping shape the platform.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Collaborating with Professor Asensio\u2019s lab was pivotal,\u0022 Bodnar said. \u0022As engineers, we had to expand our perspective beyond the technical implementation and deeply understand how public policy researchers and practitioners interpret legislative data. That interdisciplinary feedback helped us design a system that is both technically rigorous and policy-aware.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EForcade agreed, saying it took the combined resources of CREATE-X and the collaboration with Asensio\u2019s lab to make Politheon what it is.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cCREATE-X gave us the business foundation to build and scale, while our collaboration with Professor Asensio\u2019s lab helped us strengthen the scientific rigor behind the system. In policy, it\u0027s incredibly important to have testing, validation, and empirical grounding behind what you build.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen it comes to understanding the potential impact of sometimes obliquely written legislation, precision and insight are vital. Publicly available large language models often struggle in these environments, sounding authoritative but often hallucinating in place of facts and failing to reason out the hidden impacts of legislation. \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/politheon.com\/\u0022\u003EPolitheon\u003C\/a\u003E, however, offers a potential solution, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iac.gatech.edu\/people\/person\/omar-isaac-asensio\u0022\u003EAsensio \u003C\/a\u003Esaid.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This is a very exciting use case for agentic AI in the context of evidence-informed policy,\u0022 he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe project originally started as the final project for Bodnar and Forcade\u2019s analytics program. Forcade said their instructors encouraged them to apply to \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/createx.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ECREATE-X\u003C\/a\u003E to take the project further.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EForcade said CREATE-X liked the idea but asked them to talk to more experts. Forcade and Bodnar then reached out to Asensio.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAsensio was enthusiastic and invited them to present at his lab, where his team spent two and a half hours offering Forcade and Bodnar intensive constructive feedback. The duo has been collaborating with the lab ever since.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAsensio noted that this kind of cross-pollination is an embedded feature of his lab.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We often start with data or policy solutions to guide technical development, and not the other way around,\u0022 Asensio said. \u0022This means our technologists learn to do causal inference and policy impact evaluation, and our policy scholars learn to code and train models and algorithms as part of their work.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat focus on critical evaluation aligns seamlessly with the founders\u0027 technical training.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022My background in mathematics and Georgia Tech\u2019s Analytics program gave me a strong foundation in statistical modeling and machine learning systems,\u0022 Bodnar said. \u0022The program emphasizes not just building models but evaluating them rigorously. That mindset shaped how we designed Politheon, especially how we validate outputs and measure accuracy in a space where precision really matters.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe platform is already demonstrating its capabilities. Recent agent outputs include a large-scale scan of more than 25,000 Oregon bills, drawn from a broader searchable database of over 1.6 million state and federal bills, identifying emerging trends in artificial intelligence regulation. The system has also delivered validated, cross-jurisdictional analysis of \u201cbuy-now-pay-later\u201d legislation in New York and Congress, with findings reviewed by senior government affairs professionals, tracing how the issue emerged and how it evolved over time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe startup recently secured $100,000 in funding which helped build complete, and near real-time, data coverage across the federal government and \u0026nbsp;all U.S. states.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe raise enabled us to bring in the live data stream,\u201d Forcade said. \u201cWith real-time coverage in place, we\u2019re now advancing pricing discussions and pilot rollouts with multiple organizations.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUltimately, the platform is designed to provide clarity amid the noise of modern governance.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Policy moves quickly, and missing a compliance date or legislative shift can be costly,\u0022 Bodnar said. \u0022Our goal is to surface what\u2019s relevant, explain why it matters, and provide clear citations to the original bills so teams can make informed decisions with confidence.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwo Georgia Tech alums have built an AI-agent-driven tool to track legislation with extensive help from the Data Science and Policy Lab in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Two Georgia Tech alums have built an AI-agent-driven tool to track legislation with extensive help from the Data Science and Policy Lab in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy."}],"uid":"34600","created_gmt":"2026-02-18 17:31:10","changed_gmt":"2026-02-23 01:39:56","author":"mpearson34","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-18T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-18T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679342":{"id":"679342","type":"image","title":"demoDay-sign-founders-169.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EPolitheon co-founders Daniel Forcade and Hannah Bodnar at the CREATE-X Demo Day in August 2025.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1771436259","gmt_created":"2026-02-18 17:37:39","changed":"1771436259","gmt_changed":"2026-02-18 17:37:39","alt":"Politheon co-founders Daniel Forcade and Hannah Bodnar stand in front of a lighted sign reading \u0022Demo Day\u0022 at the CREATE-X Demo Day in August 2025.","file":{"fid":"263491","name":"demoDay-sign-founders-169.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/18\/demoDay-sign-founders-169.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/18\/demoDay-sign-founders-169.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1692209,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/18\/demoDay-sign-founders-169.jpg?itok=NMFxh_RQ"}}},"media_ids":["679342"],"groups":[{"id":"583966","name":"CREATE-X"},{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1289","name":"School of Public Policy"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMichael Pearson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EIvan Allen College of Liberal Arts\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}