Image generated with AI
Municipalities face major challenges: a shortage of skilled workers, increasing demands, and the loss of institutional knowledge are already placing a heavy burden on many administrations today. AI can help—yet successful projects rarely begin with the technology itself. What matters instead?
AI is no longer a distant prospect for municipalities either. While some administrations are already piloting initial projects or actively deploying AI applications, others are still at the very beginning of their considerations. Starting points differ considerably—depending on the size of the municipality, the degree of digitalization, available human resources, and organizational prerequisites.
At the same time, similar challenges apply to all municipalities: a shortage of skilled workers, increasing demands on service and accessibility, growing documentation requirements, and the imminent loss of experiential knowledge due to demographic change are increasing the pressure on many administrations. Added to this is the expectation of citizens to be able to use administrative services in an increasingly digital and straightforward manner.
Against this backdrop, interest in AI is growing. The key question, however, is not whether municipalities should use AI, but where the greatest value is created. Because successful AI projects rarely begin with a technology decision. They start with a specific problem that needs to be solved.
The results of the WIK short study "AI in Municipalities: Applications, Potentials, and Obstacles" show that many municipalities are already engaging with artificial intelligence (AI), yet widespread adoption is still in its early stages. This is not surprising. After all, many public administrations first face the question of where a meaningful starting point might even be found.
According to the study, many municipalities see the greatest potential in relieving the burden on employees, processing cases more efficiently, and utilizing administrative knowledge.
The focus often falls first on visible applications such as chatbots or digital citizen assistants. For municipal practice, however, four particularly relevant forms of AI application can broadly be distinguished: analytical systems that identify patterns in data, computer vision for evaluating images, generative AI for language and documents, and AI agents that coordinate multiple work steps. Chatbots therefore represent only one part of the spectrum.
The greatest potential, however, often lies not in particularly visible applications, but in supporting internal administrative processes. These include, for example, research in extensive document repositories, the preparation of administrative knowledge, the analysis of applications, or the processing of recurring tasks. It is precisely here that high workloads frequently arise, tying up employees and consuming valuable time.
Successful AI projects therefore often begin not with the question "Which technology do we want to use?" but rather with: "Where are we losing time, knowledge, or resources today?"
For municipalities, this means: a successful entry into AI rarely begins with a large-scale project. Often, it is clearly defined use cases with manageable effort that enable initial experience and quickly create tangible value. These include, for example:
Such applications are particularly well-suited to areas with high research and review requirements—such as citizen services offices, building authorities, or social welfare offices. There, they can make specialist information easier to find, pre-structure documents, and support recurring work steps, without automating professional decisions.
On this basis, competencies can be built, employee acceptance can be fostered, and further areas of application can be systematically unlocked.
A promising use case alone, however, is not sufficient to successfully deploy AI in public administration. The decisive groundwork is often laid before the first pilot project: through clear responsibilities, appropriate framework conditions, and a realistic assessment of one's own starting position.
Many municipalities already have good ideas for the use of AI, but still face uncertainties when it comes to these questions.
Those who clarify these aspects at an early stage create the foundation for sustainable use of AI. Clear responsibilities accelerate decisions, defined framework conditions create security, and suitable technical platforms facilitate the introduction of new applications. Open interfaces, interoperable standards, and scalable operating models lay the foundation for securely transferring successful solutions across departments while giving administrations the flexibility to scale successful pilot projects to other areas.
For municipalities, this means: AI readiness is more than a technical question. It emerges where specialist departments, IT, data protection, and administrative leadership jointly clarify which goals are being pursued, which risks need to be considered, and which prerequisites must be established for secure and sovereign operations.
AI readiness also encompasses the human dimension. Successful projects place not technology, but people at the center: AI should support and relieve employees, not replace them. Concerns and fears—such as the loss of control or the elimination of tasks—must be taken seriously. Transparency, early involvement, and targeted training build trust and promote acceptance. This also applies in relation to citizens: comprehensible decisions and the assurance that responsibility remains with people create the foundation for broad acceptance of AI-supported administrative services.
To do this, it is important to examine possible biases and disadvantages at an early stage: transparent criteria, comprehensible results, and clearly defined human decision-making responsibility help limit discrimination risks and secure trust.
When discussing the challenges facing municipalities, the shortage of skilled workers is often at the center of attention. In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult for many administrations to fill vacancies and attract qualified employees. At the same time, another change is on the horizon: in the coming years, a large number of experienced employees will be leaving the workforce due to retirement (the departure of the "Baby Boomers").
However, it is not only labor that is lost with them. Valuable experiential knowledge about processes, responsibilities, regulations, and established procedures often disappears as well. While this knowledge is frequently documented, it is spread across numerous documents, specialist systems, directories, and personal files. This makes it increasingly difficult for new employees to quickly find and contextualize relevant information.
This is precisely where interesting application possibilities for AI emerge. Modern knowledge assistants draw on information from a variety of sources, make relevant content easier to find, and support employees with research and information tasks. This ensures that existing knowledge remains more accessible and can be made available across the entire organization.
For municipalities, it is worth taking a closer look at particularly knowledge-intensive areas.
AI-supported knowledge and research assistants help provide faster access to existing information and ensure that administrative knowledge remains usable across the organization. Especially in times of demographic change, this is increasingly becoming a strategic success factor for an efficient administration.
Successful AI projects place not technology, but people at the center: AI is intended to support and relieve employees, not replace them.
Artificial intelligence offers municipalities numerous opportunities to make administrative processes more efficient, relieve the burden on staff, make better use of existing knowledge, and strengthen the long-term capacity of the public administration to act. However, a successful start rarely begins with a technology decision. What is decisive is identifying concrete challenges, selecting suitable use cases, and creating the organizational prerequisites for sustainable use.
The examples show that the greatest potential often lies where employees are supported with research, analysis, or knowledge tasks. At the same time, municipalities benefit from clearly defining responsibilities and considering data protection, information security, and technical requirements at an early stage.
Digital sovereignty provides additional operational security in this context. It helps municipalities keep sensitive data under their own control, comply with regulatory requirements, and continue developing AI applications in the long term and independently. This creates the conditions for gradually expanding successful pilot projects to other areas of administration and sustainably embedding the benefits of AI.
Ultimately, this is about more than technology. It is about securing the long-term capacity of municipalities to act. Those who make knowledge more accessible, relieve employees in a targeted manner, and at the same time create the organizational and technical prerequisites, strengthen the ability of the public administration to continue acting reliably and in a citizen-oriented manner in the future.
Municipalities are starting their journey with AI from very different starting points. The AI Readiness Check helps them determine their current position, identify potential, and assess their current level of AI maturity.
Based on practical questions, municipalities receive concrete recommendations for action for the next steps—from identifying suitable use cases and organizational requirements to data protection, governance, and digital sovereignty.
