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Sponsored by: CliftonLarsonAllen LLP
July 7, 2021

AI Can Provide Significant Benefits to Municipal Governments

By Brian Berry

Over the past several years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has grown increasingly common in the business world, with machine-based intelligence — which sits at the heart of AI — quickly becoming the coin of the realm for business leaders across the country. But its usage is not limited to just this area. AI can also offer considerable advantages to state and local governments.

What AI does — and doesn’t do

AI’s advantages have the potential to spread into areas where it didn’t seem possible a decade ago. In particular, AI can have an increasingly valuable role in how state and local governments operate. 

As stewards of public funds entrusted to spend them wisely, few things are more important for local governments than strectching every dollar and giving taxpayers the most bang for their buck. What AI can bring, particularly at the municipal level, is something all governments strive to achieve on an annual basis: efficiency.

While AI’s value at the outset falls into two distinct areas — process automation and virtual assistants — it is also important to point out what AI is not. AI is not a replacement for human workers, and it does not exist to take jobs away and automate them. AI only works when it is used hand-in-hand with human knowhow — when it both supports and augments the work done by humans, and allows those jobs to be done even more productively. This is critical to having success with AI in government—it needs to be a platform where humans and machines exist together for the greater good of the taxpayers.

Robotic Process Automation

One of the most valuable areas where AI can be deployed at the government level is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). This is where AI is used to automate back-office administrative work such as processing and distributing inbound documents, and assisting with the approval process. If done correctly, RPA can be a major time and money saver.

Think of how much paperwork local governments have to manage on a daily basis — from property tax bills to planning documents to public notices to land records and more. There is just no way around it; even in the digital age, municipalities are always going to have papers to process and shuffle. That’s where RPA comes in, helping to improve flow and get paper documents to the right people — much more quickly than in the past.

While that is being done, workers are freed up to do more service-based, public-facing tasks that aid citizens. And in an era when many municipal workers continue to work from home, RPA becomes an even more essential tool for enabling citizens and governments to connect.

Virtual assistants 

The other area where AI can prove invaluable to improving government function is through the use of virtual assistants, commonly known as “bots.” Bots are equipped to answer questions and navigate consumers through often difficult and unwieldly processes. And if it works in the business world, it can work at the government level — providing a self-help model for constituents that can support the work being done by employees and, once again, create a more efficient and seamless system.

AI is waiting for you

For those municipalities that haven’t yet adopted it, consider making an initial investment in AI-based platforms to help you better serve the people who elect and appoint you to your jobs. If there is one thing taxpayers want to see from their local governments, it is for things to run better and at a less costly level. AI has the components to get you there on both counts.

For more information on AI in the Northeast, contact Brian Berry at brian.berry@CLAconnect.com or 860-570-6368.

The information contained herein is general in nature and is not intended, and should not be construed, as legal, accounting, investment, or tax advice or opinion provided by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CliftonLarsonAllen) to the reader. For more information, visit CLAconnect.com.

CLA exists to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and our communities through our industry-focused wealth advisory, outsourcing, audit, tax, and consulting services. Investment advisory services are offered through CliftonLarsonAllen Wealth Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor.