Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Steps to Advance Artificial Intelligence Capability at SUNY and Make New York National Leader in AI

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced further steps to secure New York’s place at the forefront of artificial intelligence research. The new SUNY INSPIRE Center will scale AI research and scholarship to advance public good. In addition, select SUNY campuses will create Departments of AI and Society to spur innovation and improve lives. SUNY will also create a new generative AI chatbot program that can be tailored for coursework, research, and student projects. Just weeks after securing $275 million in the FY 2025 budget for Empire AI, these programs will be among the first steps to bring the power of AI to SUNY students, promote responsible research and development, and advance AI for the public good.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Steven Rubenstein, I want to thank you for propelling ABNY at the forefront of all issues and policies that are critical to this great city. Let's give a round of applause to our Chairman, Steven Rubenstein. Also, a shout out to the founders, the legacy of the Rudin family, Bill Rudin is here. I want to thank all of them and Sam and everyone who never gave up on this city, even in its darkest hours decades ago.

I'd like to acknowledge some members of my cabinet. There are many individuals here who represent different agencies, but my senior team, who endured the long, arduous nights, mornings, breakfasts, dinners, midnight calls or the early ones – they went on all night. So, if you're still alive after that Budget, let's give a round of applause to the Secretary of the Governor, Karen Persichilli Keogh, otherwise known as KPK. Liz Fine, the Counsel to the Governor. Thank you, Liz, for all you do. Extraordinary. Blake Washington, his first Budget. It's great to have him on my side. Thank you, Blake. Kathryn Garcia, Head of State Operations, who can solve any problem – just give it all to us, Kathryn can solve it. My Communications Director, Anthony Hogrebe, I want to thank him, his first round with us. Chief of Staff, Stacy Lynch, master negotiator as well. Thank you, Stacy. The head of all my agencies and entities there's so many of you are here, and I'm so grateful. I'll be talking a little bit about talent. I do have a talent is that I find the best talent and they're represented in my administration every single day. I want to thank them for all they do.

When I first spoke here, I was pretty much a rookie Governor. I think I've been in office two months. It's like oh my God, I've always heard about this ABNY speech. Am I up for it? It wasn't as hard as I thought. But I told you that back in November of 2021, even a month before Omicron came out of nowhere and set us back on our heels, I said I want to usher in a whole new era of collaboration based on the ABNY model that's been in place for 50 years. Bringing people together to solve problems. It's simple. It sounds simple. But the idea of bringing people together who aren't accustomed to being brought together like a mayor and a governor, a governor and a legislature – it was rather radical. But I also said at the time, it's not about who gets the credit. It's about who gets stuff done. Just get things done.

So, today I'm going to take a few minutes to update you on some of our progress. The past, but I won't spend too much time. Steven laid out some of our initiatives. You can certainly read all my remarks about the project. We're very proud of it. But I want to also lay out my vision for the future of this state and the city. But I will take that brief trip down memory lane. Just a few years ago, people were, I would say, shorting New York City. And they predicted its demise. Now I'm not talking about anybody in this room. That's not what ABNY members do. But there were headlines that said, “Will the city ever bounce back? Has it lost its mojo? What's going to happen?” And people were working remotely. Oh, they'll never come back to this city.

Have you tried to get through Midtown traffic lately? Gun violence was up not just here, but across the nation. The subway felt unsafe. Restaurants and hotels were struggling, and Midtown was eerily quiet. Kind of appreciated being able to take long walks without a lot of traffic stopping me, except it felt very unnatural. Mary Adams and I came together, and we presented it right here at a forum, our plan for the new New York. And it was 18 months ago, we unveiled pretty progressive forward-thinking ideas on how to get this city back. Because I knew first of all, foundationally, for the confidence of New Yorkers to go up, crime had to go down. Job number one. We had to get this city moving again. And I'm really proud to report that we've made genuine progress. Gun violence, which is everyone's fear, down 40 percent in New York City. I'm not sure I could have predicted it would be down 40 percent that short time ago, but it is.

Subway crime, Janno Lieber has leaned hard into this, working closely. We're always in the subway announcing new initiatives because that is the lifeline. That's an overused phrase, but it is true. And now, subway crime – we deployed resources, the Mayor sent in 1,000 members of law enforcement in February. I supplemented that with 1,000 National Guard, State Police, Transit Police. I said, “We have to restore the security that everybody who uses this system deserves.” Subway crime is down now, lower than it was before the pandemic, when people were not talking about subway crime. Let's give that a round of applause because that didn't happen by itself.

Violent crime is down 32 percent on the subway. We need these trends to continue. There is no spiking the football here, and that's a woman who loves all her teams in New York. But people not only need to be safer, they need to feel safer. And that is the challenge right now. That's still that perception. And we're sensitive to that. We also built on the changes to the bail laws we made a year ago that people questioned whether or not they would make a big difference. Recidivism is down dramatically. We'll show you the numbers later.

This year, something always pops up – retail theft. From the largest retailers in the city to the tiniest bodegas. They're under siege, again, not just here, but across the country. But here we took it head on. And I said, we're going to dedicate more money for law enforcement, prosecutors, have specific teams that will deal with this, increased penalties for those who assault a retail worker. Let us show them that we respect them. We're grateful that they showed up during the pandemic and show up every day.

Also, the illegal cannabis shops popping up everywhere, making a mockery of us. We’ll push through some tough language, some tough initiatives to make sure localities like the City of New York have the power to padlock and say, “No, you're going out of business, creating the opportunity for the legitimate ones to open.”

Also, mental health. I'm glad people talk about mental health. A few years ago, nobody did. Nobody talked about mental health. We've invested over $1 billion in mental health care. As a result of our focus in the subways, on the streets, we have over 400 long term homeless individuals, people who have been on our streets a year or longer. 400 are now into housing and we're just getting started. The subway teams have had over 25,000 contacts, outreach, enrolling 1,700 into supportive programs to get them an alternative. That's how we're going to change the psychology around our transit systems, our subways, our buses.

And also, then you say people have psychiatric problems, but there's nowhere to put them because the hospitals closed all those beds, turned them into COVID beds. We had a severe shortage of mental health beds. I said, “That's not alright. Open them up again.” It turns out you can make more money in the hospital by not having them be psychiatric beds. So, we did a lot to compress the difference in reimbursements, brought everybody along, and we've added over 500 just in a short time since the pandemic, adding hundreds more in our state system.

That's just a snapshot of progress made in public safety and the mental health challenges for people who can evoke fear when you see individuals on a street or you're pushing a subway or a senior citizen going to a doctor appointment. We wanted to calm it all down. So, public safety always has been, always will be my top priority. It's the foundation.

But in the meantime, we have not missed a beat when it comes to coming up with really bold and exciting infrastructure and clean energy initiatives. From Terminal 1 and 6 at JFK. Yes, Rick Cotton, we got it done. Thank you for pushing hard. Thank you. Further expanding the Second Avenue Subway, something that's going to get rid of transit deserts that affect so many people – bringing more people to jobs without having to spend so much more time traveling. The long-delayed Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River. How many Governors and Mayors tried to get that done in the past? It's getting done. Thank you, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer for the money.

And the Interborough Express. We're going to get that done too. What a radical idea that you'd be able to take public transit from Brooklyn to Queens and Queens to Brooklyn without having to make a stop in Manhattan first. Manhattan's great, come any time, but your daily commute should not be that irrational. We're going to deal with that as well.

We’re breaking ground on massive, large-scale projects. The Champlain Hudson Power Express, something I worked on even when I was Lieutenant Governor, I saw the power of bringing hydroelectric power down the Hudson, generated in Quebec, right down to power people's homes right here in New York.

And I was so proud to be there for the – not the groundbreaking, because that means it's starting – the ribbon cutting, meaning it's done, the ribbon cutting of the first in the nation, utility grade, offshore wind power generation that is now, right now, supplying power to Long Island, and we're just getting started.

Now, the scale of this ambition is not new for New Yorkers. We always go big, right? It's just what we do, it's why we're able to attract the smartest and the best people from everywhere across the world and across our country. And as someone whose Irish ancestors helped dig a big ditch a long time ago connecting this little sleepy village known as New York all the way over to Buffalo we have been transforming places, communities, people and that created this economic powerhouse that is really the nexus between commerce and industry. And that's in our DNA. That's our history.

But we've always been defined by our willingness to look to the future and imagine the impossible and then just do it. So, what does the future look like right now? What is the impossible that we're capable of imagining now that we can put our collective minds together and ultimately resources and get it done? This is the best part of my job, getting to think about the next decades that lie ahead. That's what's required.

One thing we have to continue to do is address the issue of how we unlock the potential, the human potential, our greatest resource, the people of New York for the next decades. How will we get everyone transitioned and prepared for the energy, future jobs, the economy that's changing, technology jobs, it's all coming. And workers are needed for all these industries.

So, let's take a quick look into the crystal ball. I do believe standing here today that the emerging technologies will determine the winners and losers of tomorrow. Full stop. That's what will define our future. Just as roads and bridges and electricity and connectivity powered the 20th century, we are going to be running hard into the 21st century and beyond, and we'll be driven by microchip and the power of artificial intelligence. That is our future, my friends. That is the future.

And I'll tell you, if there was a forum like this when someone first came up with the word, did you ever imagine what like this thing called the internet could do? That is what we're facing right now when I talk about artificial intelligence that has the power, the capability to transform lives and communities forever. We cannot ever underestimate the significance of artificial intelligence. This will be the most powerful tool ever created.

And we here in New York, because we're certainly not lacking in vision and ambition, we can deploy it, maximize it, and utilize it to have the most positive effects on our communities. Now there's competition from other states, competition from other countries around the world. They all want these industries to go where they are. I love a good competition. We will not lose this one, especially the AI industry, because we know that this technology, everything it touches, it’ll be more efficient, more productive, competitive, more profitable.

So, I said in my State of the State address just a couple months ago, whoever dominates AI will dominate the next era of human history. I'll tell you right now. I'm confident New York will win that race and continue to be a supercharged economic and business capital of the world. Why? Because, as I mentioned at the outset, the human capital – capital and talent is everything. The machines aren't coming up with these ideas. It's the brilliant people. And New York has an abundance of brilliant people. That's what sets us apart. We know that. It's not arrogance. It's the truth. Competition is in our blood. People come here. They want to be part of this collective energy. People are coming.

I was in California; I admire what they did with Silicon Valley. But they're coming here, the suburban office parks with the slides and the miniature golf and I was out there. It's all fun. But if they're serious about changing the world and being connected with other similarly brilliant people and having incredible workspaces and culture and just the energy of this place. This is where they're coming now. And others have written this off and I say, “Welcome. Welcome to New York.”

They want to use that talent. They're desperate to just get out to an environment that embraces it. And that's what we do here in New York. We want to put their genius to work and be challenged by the smartest minds and most creative people on this planet. So, no one in the world can compete with New York when it comes to our talent. That sets us apart, and it is diverse talent. It is very diverse talent. That is what sets us apart as well, and I'm so proud of that. So, right now, I think we're talking about someday in the future, there are more AI job openings in New York City than any place in the country, even beating out Silicon Valley. Did you know that? It's happening right now.

We'll build on that momentum with my newly enacted Empire AI Consortium. Remember that phrase. You can give that a round of applause. Who ever thought of that one? That's okay. Julie Samuel is in the front row here.

First in the nation, I love saying that. First in the nation, ten years, $400 million dollar partnership between the state, private sector, and major academic institutions including SUNY and CUNY because we're not leaving anyone behind. We also have great institutions like Cornell, RPI, Columbia, NYU Flatiron Institute, others. People are buying into this consortium. They want to be part of this.

What are we going to do with that money? We're going to build the nation's largest and most powerful supercomputers, the type of which is only available right now in the large private tech companies using it for themselves. See the difference? They're not using it to innovate solutions for the future, deal with societal problems. They're doing it for their own benefit. That's fine. Capitalism, love it. But I don't want to leave anybody behind. And that's my point. And I can't claim credit for this brilliant idea. I always give credit where credit's due. I can just claim credit for getting it launched.

Like many great stories and ideas and relationships, it started with breakfast at the Regency. Where else? Tom Secunda and I sat down last fall. He says, “I have this really kind of radical idea. I could get money from the private sector. But you have to get all this money for the state. We got to get the universities involved. Everybody has to buy in, and we could actually democratize the power of AI, make it more available quicker.” And he says, “I know it's only got a little chance of happening, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.” I was hooked. He had me at hello. It was that powerful.

And I said, “We can do this. I know we can. We're just a couple months away from the Budget. Blake Washington, can you find me $275 million?” “Sure, boss.” Thank you, Blake. But also, I love long shot ideas by the way. I was prepared to do whatever it took to get this funded and over the finish line.

I will say, the legislature bought into this. When I spoke about it at my State of the State address, I had them meet a young woman, PhD candidate, working on AI, Holiday Sims from the University of Buffalo. She was using AI to figure out solutions to some of society's most complex problems – how we can make our foster care system more accessible, how we deal with issues that families and people care about. When the legislators saw this woman as the face of what AI is all about – they understood immediately, and they embrace it, and I thank them for – yes, it's a risk, it's new. Nobody's done it but follow the lead that we this is how we lean into the future. It'll be housed at one of our SUNY campuses, University of Buffalo, not just because it's where I’m from I swear to God. It's close to hydroelectric power right there in Niagara Falls. These are very energy intensive. We need low-cost power. We need the space of a campus. We have that. But the computing resources and the power generated there are available to everyone across the State who's part of the consortium. It'll create enormous job growth all over, transform industries, and give our young geniuses and researchers the tools they need – apply for federal grants.

This is just the first step. Now we're appointing a director, a board – a multiyear process. I have an advisory committee headed by the CEO of IBM and the CEO of Girls Who Code. I love that program. You should all support it – creating opportunities for young women who otherwise would never have not any to be exposed to these technologies. But also, it won't happen overnight, as impatient as I am, but we're starting. We're not waiting any longer. I'm happy to announce today, the most immediate steps are we're taking in partnership with Chancellor King at SUNY – we're going to launch new Inspire Centers, enabling our universities to scale AI research and scholarship for the public good. That's what we're starting with – solving society's problems. And that'll allow us to attract federal research dollars. Also launching departments of AI in society at a number of our campuses. This will be part of the curriculum. This will be a department on our campuses. And we'll be talking about the ethical use of AI while we're creating jobs and improving lives.

We'll also be having AI research internships for SUNY students and to make sure everybody has access to the current iteration of AI tools SUNY will launch SUNY GPT – giving every student and faculty member access to AI for their courses, their curriculum. And of course, in the process, making sure there are strict rules against plagiarism and ensuring excellence in academia.

So, the private sector, all of you here gathered today, you're critical to making these investments to make this pay off. So, we can take them from all these dreams that we're innovating on campuses and in workspaces – bring them to the reality of Wall Street. You want a good tip? Remember the graduate? Plastics? AI. This is where it's at. You heard it here, right now. You'll remember this day when you retire in three years because you listened to me. Because you're that rich. That's off my script, but I said it anyhow. Don't retire – stay.

This is where New Yorkers excel. This is what we do. We'll put the technology of the future to work here like no other place will in the world. And it won't stay in a lab. It'll help investors predict new trends. Help advertisers and marketers unlock new segments. Help our media and entertainment companies reach new audiences. What about medical breakthroughs? Researching cures for diseases. Helping our city planners deal with gridlock. Build climate resiliency and tackle societal challenges. I could give you a list for the next hour of all the areas where we can improve the lives of New Yorkers and generate more wealth for those who don't have any right now. We will leverage the power of this. We'll create high paying jobs, support our businesses. And again, it hinges a lot on our skills and our talent.

Here's how we do it. Upstate. You know where Upstate is? Picture the I-90 corridor. I'm going to help you here. See, I'm bringing one State together. Everybody loves each other. Okay? Because we have so much. We feed off each other. We build on each other. We support each other. The I-90 corridor. The New York State Thruway. I've covered every inch of it. Every inch of it. Thousands of times. We're developing a tech and jobs corridor along the I-90, investing $200 million we call ON-RAMP job training centers. Now, this is to create credentials, make sure that people have the skills that people need right now to take these jobs, with a special focus on disadvantaged populations. $350 million to launch the New York State Office of Strategic Workforce Development. What does that mean? We're not just going to train people for the jobs that are obsolete, not going anywhere. We know where the future is and we're going to make sure that people can get there with the skills we'll train them. That's what we're doing.

We're doubling down our support for higher education. The TAP award has not been increased since 2000. Does anybody think the cost of college has gone up a little bit since 2000? Anybody here paying tuition, paying off your own bills, paying your kids? Yeah, raise your hands. It's basically everybody here. Now, even something like TAP can help put people over the top. We doubled the amount of TAP available. Also increased income eligibility. So, we have over 100,000 students who can now afford to go to college with this support. Young people who would have been left on the sidelines of this revolution and we're not going to let that happen. Funding for schools. We have to keep investing because that's your workforce. That is your future workforce in school right now. Our SUNY system – $1.4 billion more to support capital projects so they can grow.

Did I talk about your workforce? Let me tell you the reality. I have been to so many tech campuses – significant one in Upstate New York – been there a long time, who had me come and speak to thousands of workers during Women's History Month. Kind of a novelty – first woman Governor, come talk to women. I can do that. He said to me, “We don't have very many women here.” Thousands of workers. That all can fit in this little area here.

He says, “What do you think we should do about that?” I said, “Build a child care facility so they can take their kids to work, leave them here, visit them during lunch hour, and you'll have the most productive, diverse workforce with a lot more women in it.” I said that years ago. The State is investing $7 billion for quality, affordable child care because it doesn't matter how good your employee's education is, how smart they are, how ambitious they are, if they can't find someone to watch their kids, they're not coming to work. Help solve that problem. Unleash the full potential of everyone in our society by showing you can help overcome this basic problem. And they're not young forever. My kids finally grew up. I have my own new grandbaby to play with. So, it's just a short time in your employee's life when they need a helping hand. That's what I'm talking about. I worked for Senator Moynihan. I had to leave for good because there were no options for me. This is personal to me. I say that a lot. It's alright. What we're going to be doing. Why child care is so important? Why I'm leading into my next topic? I'm going to talk about what is being created in a small town outside Syracuse, New York. Central New York.

We're going to have a microchip manufacturer called Micron. Before I tell you about this incredible investment, let me tell you one thing they're doing right now. They are physically building an onsite child care center because they get it. They knew that this is how they're going to attract the talent. I told them so and you will do this, and they are. They're bringing to New York State a $100 billion investment in the manufacture of semiconductor memory chips. We announced it with President Biden a couple weeks ago, Senator Schumer, both key, instrumental, in getting a National Chips and Science Act. Now what that said was, it made it more competitive for our country to have this manufacture done in it. So, they could go anywhere in America with those same benefits. That's great. But how we got them to New York above all the other states is a different story. This is the single largest private sector investment in New York State history. One of the largest economic development projects in American history.

And as someone who comes from that former Rust Belt, when everybody was leaving because there were no jobs, it just warms my heart to say 50,000 jobs are coming to New York as a result of this investment. And they'll be able to create supply chain opportunities all over every corner of this state, and it's already happening.

Now, my first week as governor, first week, I had to find my conference room, because I was told there's some people from Micron, they're just going to take a look at New York, but they're looking at other states. We're not sure we're going to be competitive, but Governor, can you meet them?

When I first heard that. I said, “I need to do this. We need to get them. These guys are great. I want them here. It would take more than incentives from the federal – I knew that we had to get incentives from the State as well to make us in the competition.

I was committed to this. I knew we had to deliver a lot. They asked for 9,000 engineers. I said, sure. Help me find the engineers. I know they're out there. But I finally had to make my best pitch to the CEO. I'll tell you about this, to tell you what I'm willing to do to land business here in New York. It was a blizzard in January. I was in Albany. I was supposed to go for a half hour meeting. Remember, Hope Knight? You were there. Small plane had to get there. I had half hour to meet with the CEO. Blizzard conditions, they say not a good idea to fly. I'm from Buffalo. I could handle a blizzard. I'll go anyhow, against a lot of people's advice - I don't do that anymore, but I could not miss this meeting. They came all the way in from Idaho, and I was not going to miss this meeting. I'm also thinking, oh, he's going to see this snow and say, no, I'm not going to deal with that. That's another story.

But I'm so glad I went. I'm so glad I went. It was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting, we ended up staying for three solid hours. I thought, my staff thought something happened, I obviously had gone down, but I didn't. I was okay, but three hours. I sold them on everything that New York has to offer. It took me three hours. I could have gone on for another dozen.

I told them about our world class institutions, our colleges, the access they have to the best talent in the world, and people are hungry for jobs. Hungry. Where you stay at a job a long time because that was the industrial legacy of Upstate New York and part of our identity throughout this state. I talked about the cost of living upstate. They could afford it. Persuaded them to take a chance on New York. I said, this place is the most beautiful place you'll ever want to see.

Napa Valley? I’ve got the Finger Lakes. I've got Long Island. I've got beautiful wineries. I will take you to the wineries, whatever it takes to come here. I will do it. We landed them. We had overcome some other issues that arose. I said, I'll make anything happen for you. We're building infrastructure. Roads and bridges have to be changed.

We're literally changing the curriculum in the schools in the nine counties around there. Working with UFT here, from New York City, who knows that these are going to be jobs for all of New York. A pilot program to say for our elementary and high school students, we're changing the curriculum to teach coding and skills that employers will be able to take advantage of 20 years from now. That's what's called looking at the long game. That's what we're doing here. We're making investments.

And also, I said, we'll have housing. Now, housing is a challenge here in New York City. Does anybody know I care about housing? Yeah, you get knocked around a little bit. But I don't mind. Because I said we have a crisis. Usually, you can't solve a crisis in one year, I'll admit that. But you start talking about it. You start getting people to understand like, yeah, maybe that's why my workers are coming in from New Jersey because they kept building at a rate that dwarfed ours. Maybe all these crazy restrictions in the city that the mayor and I have been trying to get rid of are holding us back. Maybe should we just be a little more expansive and look at all the possibilities and actually do something about it?

So yes, it took the next session of the Legislature because we know that rents and mortgages make it harder for families. We all heard about the 1.4 percent vacancy rate. Thank God I was able to land an apartment a few months ago. It's supposed to be 8 percent, by the way. A healthy city has an 8 percent vacancy rate.

So, high costs of housing drive people out, and I made it a priority. We got through an historic agreement. Rome wasn't built in a day. They're not popping up tomorrow, team. We're not. But we started the process. And it's a whole array of what we can do: kickstart housing construction, convert empty towers and office space into housing, eliminating outdated rules, getting vacant apartments that have been warehoused since the rules were changed back in 2019 back in the marketplace. But I'll say it, I'm going to make housing more affordable, more accessible, cause it's all about supply and demand, you build more, the prices come down, it makes sense. That is the only thing holding us back. We have the talent, crime is coming down, people want to be here, but they have to put their head on a pillow somewhere every night, they have to have a place to live. That is the only thing.

So, we're going to build housing, child care, education, safety, and reliable and efficient infrastructure and transportation systems. These are all preconditions to people coming here and thriving here. My job is to ensure that those preconditions exist. And that's how we make sure people benefit.

It's been said a rising tide lifts all boats. My job is to make sure everybody has a boat in the first place. Everybody needs a boat. From the dry cleaner, bodega owner, to the largest businesses represented in this room. I've laid out for you this morning a strategy. Investments in AI, microchips, semiconductors, infrastructure, housing, clean energy. They're not isolated, by the way. It's not just a laundry list out of my budget. They're all interconnected. This is what we think about. My brilliant team. We get together much earlier and plot out this path forward. An interconnected ecosystem that enables our economy to flourish into the future. Whether it's the offshore wind generating power just a few miles down the road, clean energy, we're all going to power this city.

We have a huge challenge ahead of us, but we need to make sure that it never goes dark in this city, figuratively or literally.

I'll leave you with this. For those who are shorting our prospects, know this: I am long on New York. I'm looking to the future. I know that this city's great civic and business communities will join me investing not just for the next quarter, not just for the next year, but for the next 100 years.

We'll invest in the exceptionalism that has always defined this great city. And for those of you in this room, I say thank you. Thank you for staying just like Rudin's and others never gave up on the city back in the dark days of the 1970s. We will never surrender to the circumstances of our time. In fact, we come out stronger, more resilient, more committed to redefining our future in a way that people will always say, ah, yes, that's what New York does. Negativity can paralyze a city.

So, go forth, all of you thought leaders to your places of work, your networks, your social gatherings. Talk about your confidence in this city now and how far we've come, but better yet, how far we're going. It's our job to say to the rest of the world, we'll always be the best because we're never going back.

Let's go forth and show the world that, yes, we're the best. New York is back and we're here to stay. Thank you very much.