Mayors group rolls out AI playbook
Weiquan Lin via Getty Images
By
Chris Teale
The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Google partnered on the playbook, which they said would help city leaders deploy the technology safely and measure success.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors in partnership with Google last week rolled out a new artificial intelligence playbook to offer city leaders guidance on how to integrate the technology and measure its success.
The playbook comes after USCM and Google hosted several workshops for mayors last year, and strives to help city leaders understand the implications of the technology for their residents and how their governments operate. Already, many have expressed optimism about how AI can make their employees more efficient by helping them with menial tasks and allowing them to focus on more meaningful work.
But there is still plenty of uncertainty around the technology, which mayors and other leaders hope to address.
“We're all in a learning mode, and that's the biggest thing right now,” Mayor Larry Klein of Sunnyvale, California, said during a press conference at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. last week. “Taking a look at how we can improve our processes is the biggest effort there. I'll say honestly, we don't know how it's going to fully affect us, and how that future ultimately stands.”
The playbook looks to educate America’s mayors on how to build the foundation for an AI-ready city, which includes establishing a governance framework, training employees, cleaning the data that AI models rely on, optimizing and modernizing technology and picking a first AI project. When it comes to selecting an AI project, the playbook recommends that city leaders first identify a challenge or issue they want to solve using the technology and think of it as a tool rather than a “solution.”
And the playbook recommends starting with tasks that are “low risk with at least moderate benefit,” so AI can prove itself in low stakes situations and employees can get used to the technology. Klein, for example, noted during the press conference that Sunnyvale uses AI to translate city council meetings into 60 different languages. And the playbook points to an example of cities using AI to process video of sewer pipes and then identify any cracks.
The playbook then gives several concrete examples that city leaders can replicate, in areas like AI governance and city administration, resilience, planning, transportation and community engagement.
“Technology has always helped society push ahead, and today, we are at an historic inflection point where AI will redefine national competitiveness and societal well-being,” the playbook says. “To seize this opportunity – and ensure communities broadly share in the opportunities of AI – governments have a powerful moment to lead by example.”
Some mayors say they have already felt the benefits of AI after being early adopters of the technology. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said during a committee meeting at the USCM conference that AI has improved how the city delivers its services, even as leaders continue to navigate thorny issues like cybersecurity, data privacy and ensuring the technology is used ethically.
Streamlining the permitting process has been a particularly fruitful use of AI, Wu said. By digitizing 250,000 permit applications from the last 25 years, the city has determined around 260 common experiences for which residents and businesses apply for a permit. Having that data at their fingertips means city leaders can optimize parts of the process, identify challenges and pain points and improve user experience, Wu said.
“Now we're starting from the user's perspective, our residents’ perspective, [and ask] what are you trying to get to as the end result?” she said. “It's often within that range of 260 options, which we have now narrowed down to the 60 most frequent, and then use AI and lots of feedback from the applicants and community members to have clear start to finish guides for how to do that thing that you're trying to do on our website.”
Others believe the effects of AI could be tremendous, especially in smaller cities that typically have fewer employees already. Rancho Cordova, California Mayor Garrett Gatewood said, given the billions of dollars invested in the technology by the federal government as well as numerous companies, a new economic boom is on the horizon.
“AI is what's going to put small, medium and large cities on the map; it has great potential, not only to engage with cities, but become a profit center that can then take care of cities and communities all at the same time,” Gatewood said at the USCM press conference. “[It] is the future of all the smaller cities. It is the future of governance as a whole. It's going to be something that people immediately are going to see the advantages of.”
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