RALEIGH, N.C — The Department of the State Treasurer said artificial intelligence can help identify unclaimed property possibly worth millions of dollars and get it back to its owners.

What You Need To Know

  • The N.C. Department of the State Treasurer in March launched a pilot project with OpenAI to streamline and improve services

  • The pilot project focused on services that rely on public data

  • The state agency says its Division of Unclaimed Property used ChatGPT to help identify business that have abandoned property

  • It is a step toward returning property potentially worth millions of dollars to its owners

The agency said in a press release that it partnered with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, on a pilot program that began in March to find ways to improve services. 

“Our team set out to find out how we could modernize our department, while still providing top notch service to folks across the state,” State Treasurer Brad Briner said in the release. “We work with huge amounts of data in everything that we do, and the majority of it is public information.”

The agency’s Unclaimed Property Division used ChatGPT over the past 12 weeks to reach out to businesses to have them turn over unclaimed property to the treasury so it can be returned to its owners.

The value of the properties could total in the millions of dollars, according to the agency’s preliminary findings.

Unclaimed property can include bank accounts, insurance policy proceeds, refunds or deposits that have been abandoned.

Businesses are obliged to try to find and return unclaimed property to its rightful owner, said Loretta Boniti, director of strategic communications and media relations for the Treasury. If an owner can’t be found, the property should be turned over to the Treasury.

She said the agency helps businesses follow those rules and during the pilot used AI to more quickly find those likely to have unclaimed property.

After receiving abandoned property, the agency tries to return it to its owner but also maintains a list at its website www.NCCash.com where owners can claim their property.

The OpenAI pilot also included the department’s Division of State and Local Government Finance.

“We had successful applications in both divisions — which saved time and provided better outcomes,” Boniti said.

ChatGPT is OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot, which creates human-like responses to questions and can search the web to crunch large amounts of information.

The company said its mission is to help people make scientific discoveries, and improve health care and productivity. But critics of artificial intelligence point to its potential for misuse and misinformation.

The state department in March announced its pilot using OpenAI with public data to improve efficiency and services to residents, calling it a “first of its kind partnership.”  

N.C. Central University in Durham will help with a third-party analysis of the treasury’s pilot program. A report is expected in the coming weeks, Boniti said.