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Council approves six‑month pilot for AI constituent service to improve phone and web response
Summary
The council approved a six‑month, $14,000 pilot contract with Polymorphic Inc. for AI handling of constituent inquiries via phone and web to shorten response times and provide multilingual support; the city manager said the system will refer complex cases to staff and deliver analytics to guide future staffing.
The city manager outlined a six‑month trial with Polymorphic Inc. to handle constituent engagement by telephone and web. He said the platform can answer routine inquiries in multiple languages, draw from the city's website and code of ordinances, and route more complex items to the appropriate staff contact.
The manager told the council the pilot will cost about $14,000 and is funded from the IT technology upgrades line: "What we're asking the council to do is to give us 6 months to experiment, with a well known company... that is able to handle constituent inquiries, via artificial intelligence, on a secure means that meets all modern cybersecurity protocol standards." Councilors asked about staffing tradeoffs and urged evaluation of success metrics and a short trial period so budget decisions for FY26 can be informed by results.
The council voted to approve the pilot. Several members emphasized the city still needs human staff for complex, high‑touch work and asked that staff return with performance metrics after the trial.
