How AI Helps State and Local Governments Work Smarter – Government Technology

The rapid pace of change in our world shows no sign of slowing, and with this rapid change comes increased citizen and societal expectations. The digital age demands better speed, efficiency and simplicity in all areas of life. To rise to the occasion, governments have to be more tech savvy and more open-minded to digital transformation.

To do so, some governments are turning to new AI technologies. While the term AI might sound ambiguous, its potential and its applications are quite concrete. AI can improve mobility, advance education, protect food and water safety, decrease emissions, prevent crime, increase cross-border security and even save lives.

Lets look at some ways AI can improve and reshape government agency operations.

Citizens can also use these chatbots to report traffic accidents, infrastructure problems and other public safety hazards, or obtain information needed from the city. In turn, employees have more time to handle the important task of actually resolving problems. Best yet, citizens can more easily and quickly get questions and concerns resolved at any time of day.

The city of San Jose, Calif., is a prime example. The city created the My San Jose app, a mobile self-help platform and 311 system. More than 45,000 residents now use My San Jose to interface with their local government, giving officials a real-time dashboard of citizen requests. Staff have been able to prioritize resources for issues such as illegal dumping and abandoned vehicles, and redundant calls have been reduced by about 20 percent.

The city of Las Vegas, for example, invested in intelligent automation for vehicle traffic information. The city applied AI to its connected and autonomous vehicle initiatives in its downtown area. Lyft ran trials with 40 autonomous cars, and latest-model Audi cars can also receive data feeds from the city.

Governments can also turn to intelligent technologies to meet sustainability goals with things like smart waste management systems. Sensors at trash receptables can monitor waste levels in real time via a cloud-based dashboard. Once a container is filled, the system automatically triggers an alert for the citys garbage truck fleet to service the location. Instead of emptying trash containers at set times throughout the week, they are only emptied as needed.

Organizations can apply AI to tackle tasks like image recognition and document analysis; speech and language recognition for native and non-native language speakers; anomaly detection to flag mishaps and fraud; data labeling; forecasting critical business metrics from revenue to resource requirements and more and AIs potential will only continue to grow. For state and local organizations, AI will be key to finding more meaning in the troves of information already existing in their business applications, ultimately making processes more efficient and freeing up time and resources to focus on the citizen experience.

To take advantage of all that AI has to offer, public-sector organizations need a clear vision and concrete commitment from leadership to adopt AI in intelligent and transformative ways, and to ensure their workforce has the opportunity to learn the skills required to thrive in an AI-infused world.

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How AI Helps State and Local Governments Work Smarter - Government Technology