How This Site Works
Learn how the Compass aggregates public data and AI insights to help you locate business opportunities, find funding, and connect with support networks.
Introduction
The Maryland Community Compass (the “Compass”) is a neighborhood development platform designed to bridge the gap between community needs and business opportunities across the state. By analyzing data on local access to essential services, such as fresh food and childcare, the Compass identifies neighborhoods where investment can have the greatest impact.
The platform equips entrepreneurs, government agencies, and developers with unique insights to estimate a neighborhood's economic potential for new businesses. Intended as a starting point for your research, this site allows users to locate business opportunities, search for government incentives, and connect with support networks to help build sustainable communities.
No endorsement of any listed businesses/experts
The State of Maryland (the “State”) does not own or endorse any of the third-party businesses or experts listed on this site. Where we have been able to locate contact information on the public web pages of Maryland economic development and business support organizations, this information has been aggregated into the “Get Support” section of the Compass.
Main features of the “Map Insights” section
Map Insights is an interactive map with three tabs, each answering a different question about a place in Maryland. See the Methodology page for the full list of data sources and the specific calculations behind each indicator.
Business Locator
Business Locator surfaces market gaps by industry — currently fresh food and child care — for the neighborhoods where they are most likely to succeed. Fresh-food retail locations are aggregated from OpenStreetMap (opens in a new tab), which is crowd-sourced and may contain inaccurate or outdated information. Individual retailers are categorized into “Convenience,” “Specialty foods,” or “Fresh produce” segments with the assistance of generative AI, and those categorizations may contain mistakes. Licensed child care provider locations and their Maryland Excellence Counts in Early Learning and School-Age Care (EXCELS) quality ratings are compiled from Maryland State public data. To read more about the Maryland EXCELS program, visit https://marylandexcels.org/ (opens in a new tab).
Neighborhood Insights
Neighborhood Insights displays neighborhood-level indicators covering demographics, economic growth, housing burden and demand, real estate activity, vacancy, development activity, construction costs, zoning, and place-based program overlays. Some indicators are novel measures composed by the State — for example, a weighted housing cost burden combining the American Community Survey median mortgage burden and rent burden, or a satellite-inferred estimate of active construction — and are subject to modeling error. The Methodology page documents the calculation, source, and known limitations of each indicator.
Site Insights
Site Insights is a real-time AI assistant that answers questions about a specific Maryland parcel using layers such as parcels, zoning, environmental risk, historic register, vacancy notices, and community plans. Site Insights privacy and data-handling practices are described below in AI Privacy & Data Handling.
AI-Powered Summaries
Portions of Map Insights use generative AI to summarize and extract structured information from public documents. “Community Voice” quotes are extracted from publicly available county or municipal comprehensive plans and neighborhood plans, and offer qualitative context alongside the quantitative indicators. Users should read these summaries in the context of the original source on which they are based.
- Sustainable Community applications are sourced from Maryland DHCD (opens in a new tab).
- Comprehensive Plans are sourced from Maryland Department of Planning (opens in a new tab).
- Baltimore City Community Plans are sourced from the Baltimore City Planning Department (opens in a new tab).
The State of Maryland provides these features for convenience and does not endorse or assume responsibility for the content of the summaries or extractions.
Main features of the “Find Funding” section
Find Funding is a searchable database of grants, loans, tax credits, training programs, and technical-assistance offerings for Maryland entrepreneurs and community developers. The database is assembled automatically by a generative-AI extraction pipeline that reads publicly available web pages from Maryland State agencies, county and municipal economic-development entities, non-profits, foundations, and select private funders, and structures each program into a common schema (eligibility, deadlines, dollar range, contact information, etc.).
Because the extraction is automated, program entries may be inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated relative to the source. Third-party requirements for programs change regularly — new programs may become available that are not yet listed, others may become unavailable, and deadlines and eligibility criteria may change. Users should always independently verify program details directly with the granting entity using the source link provided on each program record before relying on them. See the Methodology page for the current list of source domains and the extraction methodology.
Main features of “Get Support” section
The "Get Support" page contains publicly available contact information provided by individuals and organizations that support entrepreneurs and small businesses. As this information is collected from publicly available third-party websites, it may contain inaccurate information. Users are encouraged to independently verify credentials and qualifications before engaging with providers.
AI Risk Classification & Safety Measures
In accordance with the State of Maryland’s Responsible AI Policy (opens in a new tab), the Compass is classified as a Limited Risk AI system. This determination reflects that the platform uses AI to improve access to publicly available information, and that no AI feature on the Compass makes autonomous decisions that affect the legal rights, safety, benefits, or eligibility of any constituent. The data processed by AI features is classified as Level 1 (Public) data — publicly available planning documents, open-source mapping information, and publicly published data from Maryland State agencies and third-party sources.
The Compass uses generative AI in two forms, each with a different safety posture:
Pre-generated AI outputs
Portions of the site — such as “Community Voice” plan-quote extractions, funding-program summaries, and industry categorizations for retail locations — are produced by AI in advance and stored as static content. Because these outputs are not created in real time, they can be subjected to quality control before publication:
- Human review: A manual review of AI-generated summaries and extracts where data volume permits, ensuring alignment with the original source documents.
- Randomized audits: For larger datasets where complete manual review is not feasible, we conduct frequent, random quality-control audits to identify and correct inaccuracies or hallucinations.
- Transparency and user verification: We provide direct links to original source documents so users can verify AI-generated content independently.
Interactive AI outputs (Guide Me and Site Insights)
Guide Me and Site Insights generate responses to user queries in real time and the content cannot be reviewed before it is displayed. To help produce appropriate outputs, we apply the following safeguards:
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Data-Grounded Responses: Site Insights answers questions by pulling from vetted data sources such as:
- State Department of Assessment and Taxation (SDAT) parcel records;
- Maryland Department of Planning (MDP) zoning;
- Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) environmental records;
- Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) program overlays;
- Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) historic register; and
- County zoning ordinances, community plans, and the Find Funding database.
- No autonomous decisions: Both features produce informational content only. They do not make eligibility determinations, issue permits, adjudicate applications, or take any action that binds the State. The system is instructed to prohibit the assistant from rendering subjective judgments about whether a project is advisable, risky, or worthwhile.
- Post-hoc quality review: The transcripts generated from Site Insights are redacted and retained for 90 days to monitor quality, review safety, and improve prompts. See AI Privacy & Data Handling below for the full retention policy. Guide Me is not retained beyond short-term operational logs.
- Operational safeguards: We implemented security controls, including per-session and per-network-address rate limits, session-length limits, per-request timeouts, and automated redaction of personally identifying information before long-term storage.
- User transparency: Each AI feature displays a clear disclaimer that outputs are generated by AI, may contain errors, are provided for informational purposes only, and should be verified with the source before any action is taken.
Users should verify any material fact, program detail, deadline, or eligibility criterion against the original source before relying on it. AI systems can and do produce fabricated or misleading content that appears authoritative.
AI Privacy & Data Handling
Two features on the Compass send user-entered text to a third-party AI model:
- Guide Me — a one-shot recommendation tool that reads a short description of your goals and suggests which parts of the platform (e.g., Map Insights, Find Funding, Get Support) may help.
- Site Insights — a multi-turn assistant on the Map Insights page that answers questions about a specific Maryland parcel using the addresses and coordinates you provide.
Subprocessor
Both features use Amazon Bedrock (opens in a new tab) to process requests within US-based, AWS infrastructure. Under the AWS Service Terms applicable to Bedrock, customer prompts and completions are not used to train the underlying model and are not shared with the model provider. The State of Maryland is the customer of record for these requests; user queries are transmitted to Bedrock as part of that customer relationship.
What we log
Guide Me: Requests are processed synchronously and are not retained beyond short-term operational logs (e.g., request timing, error traces, network address for rate limiting). Your prompt and the returned recommendations are not stored for review.
Site Insights: For quality monitoring, safety review, and prompt improvement, we retain the following on the server:
- An anonymous session identifier (a randomized token; not tied to your name or email);
- The network address (i.e., IP address) associated with the session (used for rate limiting and detecting abuse; not shared with the AI subprocessor);
- Your questions and any addresses you submitted;
- The AI's responses;
- Which tools the agent invoked (e.g., parcel lookup, environmental scan) and their results; and
- Any feedback you provided via the thumbs-up/down controls.
Before long-term storage, we apply automated pattern-based redaction to remove personally identifying information — names, email addresses, phone numbers, and similar details — from the logged transcript. Parcel addresses are treated as descriptive location data, not personal information.
Automated redaction is made on a best-effort basis and cannot guarantee complete removal. You should not paste sensitive personal information (e.g., Social Security numbers, financial-account numbers, medical information) into any AI feature.
Retention
Site Insights: Redacted transcripts are retained for 90 days and feedback records for 1 year, after which each is deleted.
Guide Me: Prompts and responses are not stored beyond the lifecycle of the request.
Operational logs: Short-term operational logs (e.g., request timings, error traces, session-scoped network addresses) follow the State's standard log-retention schedule.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server: The State operates an MCP server that shares data with external AI tools, but the State does not control the third-party client you use to access it. The MCP server is separate from this Website's built-in AI features and follows a different retention policy. For full details on MCP server retention, please refer to Section 9.3 of the Terms and Conditions.
Your options
Both features are pseudonymous — no sign in is required, and we do not associate sessions with named users. The Website does receive and retain your network address (i.e., IP address) and an opaque session cookie for rate limiting, abuse prevention, and post-hoc quality review. After any personally identifiable information is redacted, the unredacted values remain in short-term operational logs. If you would like a specific Site Insights transcript removed before the 90-day retention period expires, email us at compass@maryland.gov and provide enough context (e.g., approximate time of your search and the address you searched) to locate the transcript.
Standard Maryland.gov policies also apply — see the statewide privacy and security policy (opens in a new tab) for the umbrella terms that cover all pages on this site.
Corrections and Removal Requests
The Compass aggregates data from many public and third-party sources — including OpenStreetMap for food retail locations, Maryland State agency records for child care providers and funding programs, and publicly available support-organization contact information. See the Methodology page for the full inventory. We strive to keep this information current and accurate, but it may lag the underlying source.
If you identify an error regarding any listing on this site — a business, service provider, funding program, or support-organization contact — or if you would like to request that your information be updated or removed, please email compass@maryland.gov.