Google Helps Local Governments Communicate Via AI

Google says it wants to help local governments have “civic conversations” with AI’s assistance.

The tech giant announced on its blog Tuesday (Sept. 22) that it was supporting the Jigsaw Partner Program, run by a tech incubator housed within Google.

Google said its support will involve “a collaborative fund to help more policymakers benefit from AI-powered civic conversations, while also “calling on local government leaders around the world to join us.”

The program lets local governments use artificial intelligence (AI) to run “fast, large-scale civic conversations” at no operational cost to uncover insights about community needs that can help guide essential services.

The company added that some cities are already using the tool, with civic leaders saying Jigsaw’s suite, Sensemaking, helps them make more informed policy decisions.

For example, Bowling Green, Kentucky, was able to collect input from 8,000 residents for its 25-year growth plan. Similar initiatives are underway in cities including Chattanooga, Tennessee; Riverside, California; and Kitchener, Ontario, Google added.

“Civic leaders can’t govern effectively in the dark, and constituents shouldn’t have to shout to have their voices heard,” the blog post said. “We invite governors, mayors,and local officials globally to express interest in using Sensemaking AI through the Jigsaw Partners Program. Together, we are building a future where hearing from every voice isn’t just an aspiration, but the baseline for effective leadership.”

In related news, PYMNTS wrote Monday (Sept. 21) about new guidance issued by the Urban Institute which argued that states and localities must have governance structures in place before embedding AI systems that can take action on their own into public services.

“The institute’s new agentic AI playbook is designed to help state and local officials prepare for and maintain responsible deployments as governments look to the technology to cut costs, streamline operations and improve services,” the report said. “Unlike conventional generative AI, agentic systems can go beyond producing content to independently plan and act toward a goal.”

Agentic AI “often has some autonomy to make future decisions or to think about future decisions and plan then take action,” Graham MacDonald, the Urban Institute’s chief information officer and vice president of technology and data science, said in an interview with Route Fifty.

That additional autonomy is already being tested in government, the report said, citing the example of a pilot in Virginia introduced under former Gov. Glenn Youngkin that used agentic AI to scan regulatory and guidance documents for redundant or burdensome language.

According to the state’s Office of Regulatory Management, the initiative found more than $1.4 billion in annual savings and helped cut permit and license processing times by almost 80%.