Yes, when the chat is about official business. The Texas Public Information Act defines public information by what it is about and who made it, not by the tool, and since 2013 it has said in so many words that this reaches “any electronic communication” on “any device.” Both the prompt a county, city or state employee types into an AI tool for their job and the reply that comes back are covered. Since 2019 the Act also says who must hand them over, and how fast.
What does the Act count as public information?
Government Code section 552.002 defines public information as information “written, produced, collected, assembled, or maintained under a law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business,” including information made “by an individual officer or employee of a governmental body in the officer’s or employee’s official capacity” that “pertains to official business of the governmental body.”
Two subsections, added in 2013, close the device question. Information is connected with official business if it is “created by, transmitted to, received by, or maintained by an officer or employee” in their official capacity and pertains to official business. And the definition “applies to and includes any electronic communication created, transmitted, received, or maintained on any device if the communication is in connection with the transaction of official business.”
So a personal phone or a personal ChatGPT account does not take an AI chat about agency work outside the Act.
Who has to produce it?
The employee. In 2019 the Legislature added section 552.233. It says a current or former officer or employee has no “personal or property right to public information the officer or employee created or received while acting in an official capacity.” It names that employee a temporary custodian, and a temporary custodian “shall surrender or return the information to the governmental body not later than the 10th day after” the agency’s officer for public information asks. Failing to do so “is grounds for disciplinary action.”
For AI chats in personal accounts, that means each request can turn into a round of asking employees to search their own histories, against a ten-day clock.
How long do AI records have to be kept?
The same as any other record with the same purpose. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s records management team put it plainly in June 2024: “AI-generated records should be classified the same as human-generated records,” and records made with AI help should be “kept for the same length of time as those created without AI assistance.” That is a blog post from the agency’s records staff, not a rule, but it is the clearest word from the state so far.
What a Texas agency should have in place
- Decide where AI work happens. Name the AI tools staff may use for official business, and say whether personal accounts are allowed.
- Keep the record where the agency holds it. Then a request is a search the agency runs, not a ten-day wait on each temporary custodian.
- Classify AI records on your existing retention schedule by what they are for.
- Add AI tools to your request checklist next to email and texts.
For other states, see Are AI prompts public records in California? and Are ChatGPT chats public records in Washington?.
Where Verillian fits
Verillian keeps the record of every captured AI interaction on your agency’s own servers, so a records request is a search your staff run. Verillian never receives your prompts, responses or records.
Sources read on 27 October 2026.
