PHOENIX, Ariz. (September 17, 2025) – The Connective, Greater Phoenix’s regional smart city consortium, welcomes the Town of Gilbert as its newest member. The Connective’s membership consists of industry and community partners committed to fostering an innovative Greater Phoenix region that intentionally collaborates on issues that impact the quality of life and well-being of all residents and businesses. As a result of joining The Connective, The Town of Gilbert will engage in cross-regional collaboration to achieve core regional goals, including improving the lives of their residents, driving equity, enhancing revenue, promoting sustainability and resilience, and supporting economic competitiveness.

“Joining The Connective will empower our city leaders to learn and collaborate with their counterparts across the region to adopt and scale solutions that transform Gilbert and the Greater Phoenix region,” said Eugene Mejia, Chief AI Strategy and Transformation Officer for the Town of Gilbert. “As the Town of Gilbert strives to create a roadmap for navigating AI best practices, leveraging industry and community partners from The Connective will be crucial.”

The Town of Gilbert is rising as a national leader in creating a roadmap for best practices for official city use of artificial intelligence (AI). With the help of The Connective, the Town of Gilbert will be able to learn how other regional municipalities are developing and deploying technology-scalable solutions rooted in connectivity, mobility, equity, and sustainability, as well as amplify their own reach in sharing best practices in emerging technology.

“Welcoming Gilbert into The Connective further strengthens our efforts to achieve our core regional goals and build the nation’s most innovative, connected, and people-centered smart region,” said Ben Williams, Government Relations Manager for The Connective. “As more cities in our region join our smart city consortium, we can achieve those goals by fostering regional collaboration, best practice sharing, competency framework, research and data analysis, validation and testing, and implementing solutions at scale.”

Other members of The Connective include the Cities of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa, Surprise, Buckeye, Goodyear, Avondale, and Tempe. With the help of The Connective, these cities have access to regional partners, including Arizona State University, Partnership for Economic Innovation, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and Maricopa Association of Governments. They can also access industry partners, including SRP, Cox Business, Intel, and Arizona Commerce Authority.

To learn more about becoming a member of The Connective, click here: https://www.greaterphxconnective.com.