THU AM News: Recovery.com deploying AI projects as user base grows; Marquette poll finds public skeptical of AI, data centers

September 17, 2026

— Madison-based Recovery.com is deploying AI to more quickly connect its growing user base with treatment resources and conduct research on service providers.

Nick Myers, an entrepreneur and the director of AI innovation for the company, discussed various applications for the technology during yesterday’s meeting of the Madison Rotary Club. Since Recovery.com acquired Myers’ former startup RedFox AI last year, the platform has grown to about 1.5 million visitors per month.

“We are the best place on the internet to find treatment,” Myers said.

The site now has 25,000 treatment centers listed from all over the world. That includes facilities offering treatment for eating disorders and depression as well as rehab for those with drug addiction.

“It also shows the scale of when we deploy AI within our organization, the broad impact that is having on people coming to find treatment, and that’s really powerful,” Myers said, adding “we need to be accurate, and we need to be comprehensive in the sense that we need to cover every type of treatment … and AI is helping us do that.”

The business last fall launched its Recovery AI tool. It’s meant to help users interact with its lengthy treatment center profiles, which include a wide array of information, and parse out the information they need. The tool can answer questions about what insurance plans the center accepts, what services they offer and more.

“It’s a way they can get answers very, very quickly to a question they might have that allows them then to get in touch with that center … it’s been super valuable to see the questions people are asking,” Myers said. “And we can see people actually reaching out from this tool to the treatment center at a much quicker pace.”

He attributes the tool’s success to its “narrow” design, noting the system only has access to the vetted data that’s located on the center profiles, unlike more general systems like ChatGPT. He argued AI applications like this can help create trust with users, noting the sector’s challenges with this.

“Especially in behavioral health, which historically has been a field that’s had its ups and downs with people trusting it, we have to ensure there is trust with this tool, and for us at least it’s proving quite successful,” Myers said.

Meanwhile, Recovery.com has also launched a project called “Limitless” that aims to vastly reduce the time needed to research treatment centers and vet them for listing on the site. That work is currently done manually, and though Myers said humans will always remain in the loop, applying AI to this challenge will help accelerate the company’s plans.

Once operational, the team expects to have “most treatment centers” listed on the site within the next two years, he said.

Yesterday’s discussion referenced the latest McKinsey report that found 88% of enterprises are using AI, but only 6% are getting “real enterprise value,” Myers said.

“That is a very low number … so clearly there is a gap there that we need to try and solve,” he said.

Watch the video.

— The latest Marquette University Law School Poll found views on AI’s benefit to society continue to shift while remaining generally negative despite growing use.

In the group’s latest national poll conducted earlier this month, 64% said the development of AI is a bad thing for society while 36% said it’s a good thing. In the prior survey in July, the split was 70-30. In June, that was 65-35. But in April, it was 70-30, indicating some fluidity in the public’s view of AI.

But at the same time, the rate of respondents using AI has risen over the same period. Over the last four surveys, the share of those who indicate they use AI apps has risen from 61% to 69%.

Meanwhile, respondents are “strongly skeptical” of data centers, as 71% in the latest survey said costs outweigh the benefits and 29% said the opposite. In a January poll, 62% said costs of data centers were greater than their benefits.

Authors wrote the public “sees relatively limited benefits” from data centers based on a question asking respondents to select which two of six possible benefits were most important. A third said maintaining U.S. leadership in AI, while 30% said the digital economy relies on data centers and 29% said creating new permanent jobs at these sites.

Still, 23% of respondents said none of the six considerations were benefits of data centers.

A similar question asking about the costs of data centers found high water use was a common worry with 54%, followed by driving up electricity costs with 51%. Other top costs selected included data centers replacing rural or agricultural land with 30%, tax subsidies with 14% and noise from data centers with 13%.

The nationwide survey was conducted Sept. 2-9 and included 1,023 adults. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

See the results.

— WEDC staff fielded questions from members of the agency’s Wisconsin Investment Fund Committee about how investment dollars are being used by fund managers.

Bethany Larsen, venture investment director for the agency, addressed members of the committee yesterday and provided updates on the WIF portfolio.

The fund was seeded with $50 million from the federal State Small Business Credit Initiative, providing venture capital dollars for funds to invest in startups in Wisconsin. That funding is being matched equally by private capital raised by fund managers, bringing the total amount being invested to $100 million.

So far, total commitments for the WIF now stand at $30 million across its recipient fund managers, Larsen said. Fund managers have collectively deployed about $6.7 million in direct investments and paid about $2 million in management fees, for a total of $8.7 million utilized so far, according to Larsen.

When asked about the possibility of management fees outpacing the amount actually being invested, Larsen acknowledged the concern, noting the recipient fund Serra Ventures is drawing quarterly management fees against its $7 million allocation “even though they’re not necessarily finding deals” that quickly.

“There is the risk that if they’re drawing management fees against an allocation [that] they’re not able to deploy that amount, then at the end of the program you would need to claw back fees that represent the portion of the allocation that they weren’t able to disburse,” she said.

The SSBCI program also has rules in place so that if a recipient fund doesn’t invest in at least one portfolio company within the first year, it cannot be paid management fees, according to yesterday’s discussion.

Larsen also said the agency is confident that funds drawing management fees but not deploying capital yet are on track to do so, noting the last year has represented a “big learning process” for understanding U.S. Treasury guidelines for the funds and getting more clarity on how they can be used.

“It’s been kind of a reset and slowed down fund managers, but at this time, we expect they will be able to deploy their allocations,” Larsen said, adding “if not, we’ll be monitoring that closely.”

See more on the fund.

— Democratic lawmakers want to give the Public Service Commission more time to review extra high-voltage lines planned across Wisconsin.

State Reps. Tara Johnson of the town of Shelby and Andrew Hysell of Sun Prairie said the next Legislature should vote to extend the window state regulators have to review applications to construct new power plants or transmission lines.

They also called for an increase in the amount of money available to intervenors – generally environmental or watchdog groups like Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin or Clean Wisconsin – who weigh in on those cases.

Both lawmakers cited constituent concern about plans to build new extra high-voltage power lines in their districts – the BECI 765 kV line in Hysell’s district, and the MariBell line in Johnson’s.

“Time and tools are what we are trying to give our constituents,” Johnson said yesterday.

Once PSC staff deem an application complete, regulators have 180 days to review construction applications before ruling on them, with the ability to extend that deadline another 180 days. Projects receive automatic approval if the commission does not rule on them before then.

Hysell and Johnson called for that window to be increased by a further 180 days. They also endorsed increasing the PSC’s budget for intervenors – which is funded by revenue collected from regulated utilities – by another $415,000 over the next biennium.

That program currently receives $542,000 annually.

Gov. Tony Evers included both measures in his 2025-27 budget, but neither measure made it into last year’s budget bill. Hysell lobbed blame toward the Joint Finance Committee’s GOP co-chairs, Sen. Howard Marklein of Spring Green and Rep. Mark Born of Beaver Dam, for rejecting that budget item.

— An Ozaukee County judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a tax increment financing district covering the Port Washington data center.

Opponents of the Vantage-Oracle-OpenAI data center campus sued the city of Port Washington in February, seeking to block the financing plan for the $15 billion project.

Great Lakes Neighbors argued the tax financing plan, which is expected to divert some $450 million in property taxes over the 18-year life of the TID, was invalid because the land the data center is being built on was not blighted and there was not enough information to show the plan would enhance the value of the land.

Judge Adam Gerrol ordered the case dismissed in an oral ruling yesterday, according to court records and a person with knowledge of the proceedings.

A statement from the city thanked the court “for its thorough review of this matter.”

“The significant infrastructure projects included in TID No. 5 will benefit people in the City of Port Washington, the Town of Port Washington and surrounding areas at no cost to residents. These infrastructure improvements are being paid for up front by Vantage Data Centers, which will then essentially pay itself back with its upcoming payments into the TID,” the statement said.

An email to Great Lakes Neighbors yesterday afternoon was not returned, nor was a late-afternoon voicemail and email to a spokesperson for Vantage.

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