Resident enquiries
High-volume service questions — waste, rates, parking, environment, bookings — answered instantly across phone, web and messaging, in the languages your community speaks.
AI agents for public sector and local government
The short version: the timing is unusually good. 67% of local government leaders identified improving internal efficiency or automation as a top priority in the next 12–18 months (ICMA / Tyler Technologies municipal AI survey, 2025), and 2026 marked the shift from exploration to governance — formal AI policies and approved vendor lists, which is the precursor to serious contract spending.
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Proven results in the sector
Meanwhile federal is dominated by the large platforms, and local government is comparatively untapped because councils lack budget for $10M+ contracts. That’s a boutique-sized gap.
One London borough — Barking & Dagenham — resolved 93% of resident enquiries through its AI assistant within the first six months of deployment, handling 18,400 conversations and cutting 10,000 phone calls (EBI.AI case study, October 2022; UK Government AI Knowledge Hub, 2024). Westminster City Council achieved an 89.5% resolution rate on 33,400 resident queries using Microsoft Copilot Studio agents since September 2025 (Microsoft UK Stories, 2025). Permit intake completeness checking has cut pre-review from 5–10 business days to same-day.
Those are the two highest-volume, lowest-controversy workflows, and they’re where we’d start.
Workflows we automate
Permit and application intake
Completeness checked at submission, missing information requested immediately, and only genuinely reviewable applications reaching officers.
Case-note drafting
Officer notes drafted from activity for review and correction, particularly in social and community services.
Records and information requests
Request intake, scoping and progress tracking.
Internal service desk
The questions staff ask corporate services repeatedly.
What we integrate with
- Planning and regulatory: iDOX, Uniform and comparable planning platforms
- CRM and case management: major local government platforms
- Finance and rates: through the core system
- Channels: phone, web, webchat, messaging, in-person kiosk
How we de-risk it
- Approval gates, least-privilege access and audit logging on every action — the governance pattern the sector has settled on.
- No determinations. Agents check completeness and route. Officers decide, and that distinction has to be defensible publicly.
- Accessibility and language equity are requirements, not features.
- Transparency by default. Residents are told they’re dealing with an agent and can always reach a person.
- Procurement-ready documentation because your process will require it.
Related use cases
The same workflows, described by the job rather than the sector.
Frequently asked questions
Can an agent make a determination?
No. It checks completeness, routes and drafts. Determinations are made by authorised officers, and the audit trail proves it.
How does this fit our AI policy?
Most council AI policies require approval gates, logging and human accountability, which is how we build regardless. Bring the policy to the audit.
What about residents who can’t or won’t use it?
Every channel keeps a human route. Digital equity is a requirement.
Is our procurement process a problem?
It’s slow rather than a problem. The audit is small enough to procure quickly and gives you the documentation a larger procurement needs.
Not sure this is your operation
Every sector page describes the workflows we’d expect to find. Yours will differ in ways that matter, and the audit is designed for exactly that — you get evidence about your own business rather than someone else’s.