I recently attended Brainstorm 2026 in Denver, surrounded by collection industry business leaders talking about artificial intelligence, automation, data and the rapidly changing ways we communicate with your constituents.

AI was certainly the headline.

But one of my biggest takeaways had less to do with robots and more to do with something government finance professionals have been managing forever: How do we make it easier for people to respond, comply and pay?

For collection agencies—and for the government entities that hire us—that question has become increasingly important.

Consumers have Changed. Collections Has to Change With Them.

Think, how do you communicate in your own life?

You may ignore a phone number you don’t recognize but immediately read a text. You may notice an email at 6:30 a.m. but not have time to make a phone call until days later. You may click a payment link while sitting in the school pickup line.

Consumers aren’t necessarily avoiding communication.  Sometimes we’re simply trying to reach them in a way they no longer use.

Modern collections should be able to appropriately incorporate multiple communication channels, including telephone, mail, email and text messaging, while applying the compliance requirements associated with each.

The goal isn’t to bombard someone from every direction. It’s to create a compliant communication strategy that gives the consumer a reasonable opportunity to engage.

That distinction matters. When Someone Is Ready to Pay, Get Out of Their Way

This may have been my favorite takeaway from Brainstorm because it is so simple.

Reduce friction.

Imagine receiving a communication about an outstanding court obligation or tax balance. You’re ready to take care of it. Then you have to:

• Find the notice.
• Locate the phone number.
• Call during business hours.
• Wait for an agent.
• Find your card.
• Repeat your information.

Every additional step is another opportunity for the payment to become, “I’ll do it later.”

And we all know what happens to “later.”

A modern collection process should make the path from communication → verification → payment as straightforward as compliance and security requirements allow.

Secure online portals, mobile-friendly payment pages and simple click-through options aren’t just conveniences.

They can directly affect recovery.

For government finance offices, that means technology shouldn’t be evaluated solely by how sophisticated it sounds. Ask a simpler question:

How easy is it for a consumer who wants to pay us to actually pay us?

So…What About AI? AI dominated many of the conversations at Brainstorm, and for good reason.

But at CheckMark Collections, we don’t believe AI should replace judgment, compliance oversight or people. We’re much more interested in using it to make our people better at their jobs.

That can mean analyzing collection data to identify patterns that might otherwise be missed. It can help us examine communication performance, organize information, evaluate workflows, identify accounts requiring additional attention and develop better strategies for different segments of inventory.

AI can also help answer questions such as:

• Which communication approaches are generating engagement?
• Where are consumers dropping out of the payment process?
• Which account groups warrant human intervention sooner?
• Are there trends within placement age, balance size or account type?
• Where are we creating unnecessary steps?

The questions ultimately aren’t about AI. They’re about performance.

Government agencies should also be asking collection vendors how AI is governed.

A flashy AI presentation is not a compliance program.  Technology used in collections still operates within an environment involving consumer protection laws, privacy requirements, data security, client policies and contractual obligations.

Humans remain very much in the equation.

At CheckMark, our approach is to use technology to support decision-making and productivity while maintaining the controls, review and accountability expected from a professional collection agency.

The question isn’t:  “Do you use AI?” Almost everyone eventually will.

A better question is:  “How are you using AI, what decisions does it influence, and what controls do you have around it?” That is a much more interesting conversation.

What Government Finance Leaders Should Be Asking

As technology becomes a larger part of collections, Clerks, Tax Collectors and government finance professionals may want to ask their collection partners:

• Can consumers communicate and pay using the channels they actually use today?
• How many steps are required from first contact to completed payment?
• How does the agency measure which communication strategies are producing results?
• Where is AI being used within the operation?
• What remains subject to human review and compliance oversight?
• Is technology improving net recovery, or simply creating more activity?

That last question may be the most important.

Because ultimately, your collection agency isn’t hired to generate calls, emails, texts or impressive dashboards.

It’s hired to produce responsible results.

The Technology Isn’t the Strategy. My biggest takeaway from Brainstorm 2026 was surprisingly simple.

The future of collections isn’t about replacing people with technology.

It is about combining better data, smarter communication, easier payment experiences and experienced people to make the entire process more effective.

For government agencies, that can mean better consumer engagement. For finance departments, it can mean stronger recovery. And for the person on the other end of the account, it can mean a much easier path to getting an obligation handled.