Enhancing City Governance: The Role of AI in Improving Resident Services

AI tools are increasingly being utilized by governments to analyze community feedback, such as 311 requests and public surveys, to better understand residents’ needs. For example, Boston received nearly 300,000 311 requests in 2024, primarily complaints about parking, while New York City had 35 million requests in 2023. The challenge lies in identifying trends from this vast data, but AI offers a more structured analysis approach, as demonstrated by Boston’s use of generative AI to create a map of pothole complaints. Additionally, tools like Polis are being explored to summarize resident responses and enhance direct democracy, with a focus on supporting human agency rather than replacement. However, there are concerns about misinformation, illustrated by New York City’s 311 chatbot, which previously provided inaccurate information. Though it has shown improvement, caution is necessary to ensure AI tools provide reliable and valuable support to local governments.

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