Twenty-five years ago, change did not arrive in Virginia’s courthouses all at once. It came quietly — one scanner, one database, one policy argument at a time.
Back then, land records were still mostly kept in bound volumes. If you wanted to know who owned a property, you drove to the courthouse, waited for your turn, and read an index that had not changed much since the early 1900s. It worked — but slowly, and not always fairly for those without time, transportation or legal help.
That is why the Virginia Coalition for Open Government stepped in. Under the leadership of the late Forrest “Frosty” Landon, former editor of the Roanoke Times, VCOG stood with clerks of court, legislators and local officials as the Land Records Management Task Force pushed for modernization. I had the privilege of chairing that effort at the close of the 20th century.
The goal was never technology for technology’s sake. It was transparency. It was confidence. It was making sure the public records that define ownership — the backbone of our property system — were open, understandable and dependable.
Those reforms opened courthouse doors digitally. Online access, uniform indexing and electronic filing did more than speed up transactions. They strengthened public trust.
Today, we are at a similar moment.
AI will not replace clerks of court. It will not replace lawyers, surveyors or bankers. And it should never replace official records. But used wisely, it can help people access, understand and use the public records they already own faster, better and cheaper.
Across the country, early examples hint at what this might look like. At Stanford University, researchers used AI to examine millions of historical deed records, identifying and mapping racially restrictive covenants buried in legal language. What once would have taken years of manual review was done in a fraction of the time. The project did not change the records — but it changed what we could learn from them.
Yet no government-led pilot projects in the U.S. have fully integrated AI into live county land record systems. That is not failure — it is caution. Accuracy and trust matter. One mistake in public records can echo for decades.
Still, the landscape is evolving. Early experiments suggest practical uses: improving indexing, helping staff search records efficiently, summarizing long documents and answering routine questions — all without replacing human oversight.
The next decade matters. The generation entering public service will inherit digital records — but not always connected, consistent or easy to understand. AI offers a way to bridge that gap, but only if approached with the same care that guided modernization twenty-five years ago.
That means curiosity without recklessness. Pilot projects that are small, transparent and well-governed. Systems that assist rather than obscure. And above all, a continued commitment to the public interest.
A member of the 2026 Virginia General Assembly may choose to take the first step — through a study resolution, budget language or a letter requesting a JLARC or joint subcommittee review— so the Commonwealth can examine whether and how to modernize Virginia’s land records once again.
This is a message from one generation to the next.
The Information Age did not wait for Virginia, but Virginia chose to meet it prepared. Artificial intelligence will not wait either. The choice before us is whether we shape how it serves the public record — or allow it to shape that record by default.
The work ahead is not entirely new. It is simply the next chapter in a long story of stewardship— one that began with courthouse books, passed through computer screens, and now stands at the threshold of something more powerful.
If we remember why we modernized in the first place — fairness, access and trust — the incumbent generation will get this chapter right, too.
Jack Kennedy, a former Virginia attorney, state legislator and later Clerk of Court for Wise County and Norton, modernized land records in public service. Today, he brings a blend of legal and aerospace knowledge combining with applied experiences to the U.S. Space Force Museum at Cape Canaveral, now inspiring the next generation of space pioneers visiting from around the globe.