Innovation Office outlines AI pilots — enterprise chatbot and Frontdesk trial to improve 24/7 constituent service
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Summary
The Innovation Office updated the committee on projects including Gov AI (an enterprise chatbot licensed from a vendor) and a low‑cost Frontdesk pilot to centralize call, text and web interactions; the office plans phased rollouts, training, and pilot evaluations with department tech staff involvement.
Jim Bull of the Department of Administration’s Innovation Office gave a semiannual report that highlighted administrative savings, pilot projects and a set of AI initiatives.
Bull described an enterprise chatbot pilot, using a government‑focused product the office called Gov AI (the presenter said it is built on an OpenAI platform), budgeted at $48,000 for the first year and intended for broad internal deployment with training and governance. “This tool will enable us to complete complex operational tasks and research to be handled efficiently within departments,” Bull said; the contract allows unlimited seats at a fixed cost, he added.
The office is also seeking to pilot Frontdesk, a multichannel constituent service platform that consolidates phone (IVR), SMS, and web chat into a single dashboard and promises 24/7 multilingual self‑service. Bull described a no‑obligation, low‑cost trial and asked committee members for the opportunity to demonstrate the system to aldermen and departmental stakeholders.
Council members asked about rollout phasing, department use cases, vendor experience with comparable cities, and plans to brand the service for residents. Srila Srinivasan, an Innovation Office fellow, said the office will prioritize bottom‑up departmental use cases and identify “low‑hanging fruit” to build early demonstrations and ensure adoption.
The committee placed the Innovation Office presentation on file and asked staff to continue outreach to departments and share rollout plans.
