Smart Cities Technology and Data

Authorium, a cloud-based platform built for government administrative operations, announced the release of AuthorAI, a product that uses generative AI to streamline the procurement process.

AuthorAI generates statements of work when a user prompts it with a description of the product or service a government team is looking to procure. Authorium says it trained the AI tool on 15 million government procurement documents.

The system generates a statement of work “in minutes,” the company says, and it can include citations to original source documents. The user can then share and revise the SOW across government teams. The tool is available for immediate purchase from Authorium and AWS Marketplace.

The product launch was made possible by an $8 million infusion from investors at the start of 2025, according to Authorium. “Over the past year, Authorium has doubled the amount of government acquisitions that are processed on our platform, increasing from $25 billion in spring 2024 to $50 billion today,” Authorium co-CEOs Jay Nath and Kamran Saddique said in a joint statement.

The company also offers tools designed to streamline budget administration, grant management and legislative analysis.

Authorium was founded in 2014 under the name City Innovate, rebranding to Authorium in 2024. Sixty percent of its employees are former government employees, the company website states. Financial backers for the company include SJF Ventures and Govtech Fund.

AI in local government ‘in its infancy’

A survey of local government officials last year found that 48% viewed AI utilization as a “low priority” for their local government. Under 6% of respondents considered AI “high priority,” according to the International City/County Management Association, which surveyed 635 local government leaders in April and May of 2024.

“The use of AI as a core practice of local government in the U.S. is clearly in its infancy,” ICMA states in a report on the survey results. “There are some communities that have exuberantly embraced AI. Others are approaching this emerging technology with the utmost caution.”

The top area local government leaders considered for AI potential was “resident engagement,” with 55% of respondents seeing promise in streamlined service interfaces and AI chatbots, the report states.

A separate survey of local government IT executives in late 2024 found that 38% felt their local government was “not prepared at all” to safely incorporate AI technology, with 46% saying it was “somewhat prepared” and 9% saying their local government was “fully prepared.”

Despite local governments being in the early stages of AI adoption, major companies see its potential in the public sector. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT and one of the largest AI service providers, launched a version of its product specifically tailored for U.S. government agencies earlier this year.

The government procurement space has seen an abundance of new AI tools from companies like OpenGov, Appian, Icertis, Cloverleaf AI and more, Procurated Director of Marketing Steve Isaac recently wrote in a column for American City & County.

“Today, we are witnessing a second wave of AI applications for government procurement — not just speeding up how our industry works but fundamentally changing it,” Isaac said.

As wildfires ravaged the Los Angeles area in January, some residents evacuated, others opened their homes to family and friends and many became citizen scientists, using their phones to check the air quality around them.

Historically, air quality monitoring was the domain of regulatory bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets national standards for measuring and improving air quality and reducing pollution and communicates the air quality via the Air Quality Index. The EPA installs air quality monitors in areas that are densely populated or at high risk of pollution, but such monitors are by no means ubiquitous. Due in part to the price of these high-quality instruments, only about a third of U.S. counties have these monitors.

But with rapid advancements in air quality sensors over the past several years, communities are now home to networks of lower-cost sensors that collect and share air quality data essential to public health. New research also suggests that air quality data collection will only improve.

Better sensors with lower costs

“We're at a point now where if a community had a few tens of thousands of dollars, it could install a community air quality network and get reasonably good results,” said Charlie Catlett, a senior computer scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, who first started an urban sensor pilot project in Chicago about a decade ago. Back then, Catlett said in a recent interview, air quality sensors were much more expensive. Plus, those that were commercially available were geared toward the household, not the community level, he said.

Today, sensors are not only cheaper, but many are designed to present a picture of air quality across communities.

While cities from New Haven, Connecticut, to Sandy City, Utah, have installed their own air quality sensor networks, these networks have also sprung up in other communities through the proliferation of simple, consumer-grade sensors belonging to individual households. In the District of Columbia, the local government loans sensors to interested residents with eligible properties.

The South Coast Air Quality Monitoring District, the agency enforcing air quality regulations in the Los Angeles area, has tested hundreds of low-cost sensors to determine their efficacy via its Air Quality Sensor Performance Evaluation Center. “Performance of these sensors varies greatly,” said Andrea Polidori, assistant deputy executive officer of monitoring and analysis at South Coast AQMD. But the sensors that detect particulate matter — particle pollution — “are actually quite decent,” he said.

One such sensor is produced by the company PurpleAir, which updates aggregate, localized air quality data every two minutes on its free maps.

PurpleAir sensors measure PM2.5, fine particulate matter up to 2.5 microns in diameter, small enough to be inhaled and travel into the lungs. PM2.5 makes up roughly 90% of the particulate matter emitted from wildfires.

Over the past several years, sensors like PurpleAir’s have also gotten better at illustrating air quality in a given area, said Karen Clay, professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. Data hasimproved as sensors have become more common, she said, because “you get much better local data if you have more sensors.”

Air quality inequality

Air quality sensors are not equally distributed in communities, pointing to a role for cities, said Clay.

Some communities “already have pretty dense PurpleAir networks, so in those cases, having [city-provided] monitors may not add a lot of value,” she said.

But cities can make a difference by strategically placing sensors in communities where there are data gaps, Clay said, such as neighborhoods where lower-income residents are less likely to purchase their own sensors.

These communities are also more likely to be affected by PM2.5, according to a 2018 study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

A 2022 study in that journal found that though the number of PurpleAir sensors increased in California between 2017 and 2020, there were fewer sensors in census tracts with higher rates of residents of color, low-income residents and PM2.5 levels.

The study also found that the areas in California with the highest levels of pollution and socioeconomic disadvantage included southern Los Angeles County and areas downwind of it.

A network of air quality networks

PurpleAir’s air quality map shows hundreds of PurpleAir sensors in the Los Angeles area.

Clay said data from low-cost sensors bolsters the government’s more advanced data. Indeed, PurpleAir’s hyperlocal data is now integrated into the air quality reports the EPA provides, such as its AirNow Fire and Smoke Map.

But while current sensors can measure the level of air pollution, they still don’t give a complete, real-time picture of what’s in the air, said Jason Low, deputy executive officer of monitoring and analysis at South Coast AQMD. That’s why it’s important to “communicate to the public the context of air monitoring data,” he said.

The Air Quality Index “is a good indicator for smoke,” Low said, “but there are other compounds [in the air].” The AQI doesn’t take into account all toxic material, such as lead, that could be in the air. And wildfire particulate material is more toxic when fires spread through cities rather than forests because of the burning of man-made materials.

The air quality app maps that many Californians relied on in January essentially show total PM mass concentration, said Roya Bahreini, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of California, Riverside. “But what [an app map] doesn't tell you is what the particulate matter is made of.”

Bahreini is co-principal investigator of the federally funded Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork project, or ASCENT, which continuously monitors aerosol composition at 12 sites nationwide.

During the wildfires, ASCENT’s research-grade monitors captured high levels of toxins, including lead, at the project’s sites in Los Angeles, Riverside and Joshua Tree National Park. That’s perhaps not surprising where the fires were burning houses with lead paint and cars with lead batteries.

Connecting data to people

While the ASCENT data is still preliminary, the researchers released data from the Los Angeles-area sites as the wildfires were raging to inform residents about the specifics of the air pollution around them, complementing the usual AQI data. For example, if particulate material was high, residents could look at the ASCENT data to see if the pollution was due to typical emissions or if it contained urban wildfire toxins, Bahreini said.

The South Coast AQMD recently expanded its air monitoring efforts, deploying mobile monitoring vehicles to identify sites with high levels of toxins and human-made chemicals, as these areas could require further monitoring. Data it captures will be shared with the public via the South Coast AQMD’s website, experts at the agency said.

“Getting the data to people — and getting people to pay attention to the data,” is challenging for air quality networks, said Clay.

Residents could benefit from alerts when there are toxins like lead in the air, she said. For example, a digital screen in town could broadcast the AQI to a community, she suggested.

“[AQI] does show up on some weather apps,” Clay said. “But how much are people staring at weather apps?

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Located in North Central Indiana, St. Joseph County blends industrial heritage with modern innovation. Home to 270,000 residents and institutions like the University of Notre Dame, the county has experienced rapid growth, driven by major tech investments. To meet residents' evolving needs, the county prioritized transparency, engagement, and efficiency through digital transformation.

A digital overhaul for a modern county

St. Joseph County sought to move beyond traditional, in-person government interactions by creating a seamless digital experience. The county implemented a comprehensive suite of digital solutions, including a responsive website, a mobile-friendly 311 CRM system, an online code library, and a mass notification system. These tools enhance efficiency, engagement, and accessibility.

Enhancing resident experience through a unified website

The county’s website serves as a digital hub where residents can access public information, submit service requests, and stay informed. Its intuitive interface and mobile-first design make navigation easy for tasks like permit applications and event searches. A biannual redesign ensures it remains modern and user-friendly.

According to Frank Fotia, Economic Development Planner:

"The design team is great. After having just a couple of meetings, we went through some examples and saw what we liked from some other municipalities or counties, and what we got back was beyond what we were expecting, it was fantastic."

Fotia also highlighted improved collaboration across departments:

"At the beginning, staff put something on the website and then maybe looked at it once a year and unless something changed, kept it very static. Now, we’ve gotten several departments buying into putting more things out there, sending us stuff for social media, and really increasing that online presence."

Improving accessibility with a mobile-first solution

A major milestone was the launch of a mobile app that allows residents to report issues like potholes or graffiti in real time. This direct line of communication has increased responsiveness and engagement.

Within just three weeks of its launch, over 200 reported issues were successfully addressed. Fotia emphasized:

"Getting people to find and download the app and being able to report issues to their government I think is incredibly important. Being able to meet the residents where they are, on their phones, they don't even have to go to our website to navigate there. They can just put the app on their phone and when they’re out and about in the community, if they see something, they can reach right out and let us know so that we can get it resolved."

Strengthening transparency with online codification

Ensuring open access to government documents and ordinances was another priority for St. Joseph County. The county’s online code library provides a user-friendly, centralized platform where residents can quickly search for resolutions.

Fotia explained:

"For transparency purposes, being able to put all our contracts, agreements, resolutions, and ordinances passed right up there on the website for anybody to see and read. I think it’s incredibly important, especially with all of the development and activity going on in this county, it’s very important for our residents to be able to have that ability to go online and see exactly what agreements we’re entering into and all of the contracts that we’re binding ourselves to, and as far as cost outlays, all out there, open book, anybody in the public can go online and see what we’re doing."

Personalized communication for a more connected county

The County has embraced a multi-channel communication approach to keep residents informed. A mass notification system allows the county to send alerts via email, text, and social media, ensuring messages reach residents in their preferred format.

Fotia recognized the benefits of this approach:

"Everyone has their preferred way of receiving information and communicating, whether it’s going to a website, or social media, or getting emails, or getting text messages or whatever else."

A future-ready approach to government service

St. Joseph County’s digital transformation has created a more responsive, transparent, and accessible government experience. The county is finalizing an integrated community development platform that will centralize permitting, code enforcement, and health inspections, ensuring 24/7 access to essential services.

Fotia expressed optimism about the future:

"Being able to have these tools in place, that are scalable and allow us to communicate and be transparent, is important for the county and important for our citizens as well. It does take some work, but I think at the end you’re going to say, 'I can’t believe we didn’t do this sooner.'"

State and local communities are facing a rise in cyber threats from nation-state-linked and criminal threat groups, which in many cases are looking to undermine confidence in public institutions, according to a report by the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. 

Much of the nation’s critical infrastructure is owned and operated at the state or local level, which underscores the need to develop more resilient systems, share threat intelligence and prepare for coordinated incident response.

State and local governments have raised concerns in recent years about the need for additional resources, including funding, technology upgrades and trained personnel who can monitor and rapidly respond to malicious attacks and other cyber incidents.

The report comes amid an increase in ransomware, supply chain attacks and other threats facing state and local organizations in recent years.

Hospitals and healthcare providers have increasingly been targeted by ransomware groups in recent years.

Water and wastewater treatment facilities have faced a series of attacks from state-linked actors, hacktivist groups and criminal ransomware gangs. 

In December, Rhode Island officials were confronted with an attack that disrupted a key social services site that provided food assistance, healthcare and other services to vulnerable residents.

State officials say that state-linked threat groups have targeted local and state organizations as part of a larger effort to undermine public trust through the disruption of critical services. In many cases, state and local officials are fighting uphill battles to defend against malign actors armed with financial resources and plenty of time to launch their attacks.

“There is a need for sustained stable funding for cyber defenses, and with that includes the ability to hire skilled personnel,” said Josh Bauman, director of technology at the Festus R-VI School District in Missouri and a member of the MS-ISAC Executive Committee. 

San Jose, California; San Francisco; and New York City came out on top in New York University’s Cities Emerging Technologies Index, which evaluated the 55 most populated U.S. metropolitan areas on their readiness for technological advancement. 

Cities with strong technology sectors scored high on the index, which focuses in part on the role that AI will play in shaping urban landscapes.  

The analysis also found that a diversity of entertainment options helps to attract young talent, who in turn can help advance technological innovation in cities.

The New York University researchers scored cities based on a weighted average of two indexes: a city entertainment and habitability index and a tech economy index. The tech economy index focuses on the “development of economic and technological capacity through appropriate education, taxation, patents, and immigration policies.”

The index analyzed survey responses from 25,300 U.S. residents across 55 metropolitan areas. It also factored in secondary data sets, including demographic characteristics, number of tech companies, and research spending.

The index identified specific strengths of metropolitan areas not at the top of the rankings. It found that residents from the Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina, metropolitan area rated their quality of life the highest, while residents from Rochester, New York, ranked highest in confidence in their knowledge of emerging technologies. 

Oklahoma City ranked 51st overall out of the 55 metropolitan areas the study evaluated, but Jeff Seymour, president and CEO of the Oklahoma City Innovation District, said the index rankings don’t account for differences in population: Oklahoma City, the 42nd largest metropolitan statistical area, according to Statista, is being compared to much larger cities, he said.

“Oklahoma City is built on a strong foundation in key sectors like aerospace, defense, oil & gas, and life sciences, all of which are driving our tech growth,” Seymour said in an email. “Our universities, including the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, produce over 1,000 tech graduates annually, supporting innovation across multiple industries.”

He added that a 2024 CBRE report ranked Oklahoma City among its “Next 25” up-and-coming tech talent markets in North America.

Jeff Green is chief technology officer for Tyler Technologies, which provides software and services to the public sector.

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly pivotal role in enhancing U.S. public sector operations. Research and consulting firm Gartner predicts that by 2026, more than 70% of government agencies will employ AI to support human decision-making. In an era characterized by workforce shortages, limited budgets and escalating demands for rapid service delivery, AI-driven technologies are becoming a necessity for more efficient, transparent and responsive public services. 

Consider the following ways in which city governments are already leveraging AI to improve their operations and enhance the work of public servants:

1. In Palm Beach County, Florida, document automation software employs deep learning algorithms and machine learning techniques to automate tasks such as document classification, data extraction, and data entry. Since its adoption in 2017, the county has saved approximately $1.9 million annually by automating electronic document filings, speeding up processing, enhancing accuracy, reducing backlogs and paper waste and boosting judicial efficiency.
2. Priority-based budgeting uses AI to analyze financial data and community feedback to optimize resource allocation and align government spending with community priorities. With an annual operating budget of $673 million, Collier County, Florida, identified approximately 22% of its budget that could be reallocated to free up funding for top priorities and improve efficiency. Pittsburgh, using the same type of technology, was able to redirect funds to a previously unfunded climate action plan. In Washington County, Wisconsin, the Parks and Recreation Department transitioned programs to fee-based models and established cost-sharing partnerships to enhance financial sustainability and optimize resource allocation across varied public services.
3. In Indiana, a generative AI-powered resident assistant chatbot delivers quick, reliable responses to resident inquiries, ranging from simple questions to complex service-related issues. The chatbot understands and dynamically responds to user queries, continually improving with each interaction.
4. AI-augmented field operations software in Arkansas provides real-time data analysis, predictive maintenance alerts, and decision-making automation to field agents for utilities and emergency response. 

These examples demonstrate the benefits that can come from integrating AI into public-sector operations. Organizational and technological challenges remain, however. Legacy systems resist integration with modern AI solutions. And concerns about privacy and data security will become paramount when AI systems manage large volumes of sensitive information. These systems will need to comply with stringent data protection laws to maintain public trust. 

To successfully integrate AI into government operations, I advocate for a phased approach beginning with comprehensive stakeholder engagement and pilot testing. This mitigates resistance, integrates feedback from workers in the field for smoother implementation, and allows the systems to meet specific operational needs without disrupting existing systems.

Emergency response management is a high-stakes space. Each decision can mean life or death, which makes training and preparing for these scenarios critical. 

Over the course of a year, a three-person team from George Mason University worked to improve preparedness via AI-powered games for the Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management in Arlington, Virginia. 

Using an iterative process and feedback from Arlington County department members, the team created two interactive games, called Go-Repair and Go-Rescue, which simulated infrastructure maintenance, resource allocation and evacuations. The dynamic learning environment provided utility managers and volunteers with a wider scope and more flexibility than traditional training methods.

“AI optimization and reinforcement learning models calculate the optimal decisions, and this allows players to assess whether their decisions are better or worse comparatively,” said Shima Mohebbi, assistant professor in the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research at GMU and the project’s leader.

Incorporating AI into training enables the department to better identify areas of improvement in decision-making and provides a tool to learn from mistakes without real-world consequences. To avoid subjectivity often seen in large language models, the researchers developed a model with a mathematical foundation and used reinforcement learning. 

Enterprises can also gain value from incorporating AI into training and workforce development, from adaptive learning platforms to AI-augmented skills assessments. More than 3 in 5 HR pros expect AI to wholly transform the way training is currently conducted, according to a survey by management consulting firm OC&C Strategy Consultants. Most respondents said they were looking to expand AI adoption to talent management. 

To infuse AI into training, business leaders can choose off-the-shelf options. Most corporate training providers, including Coursera, Skillsoft and LinkedIn Learning, have added the technology to their tech stacks to some degree, and CIOs can also look into developing in-house solutions. 

Mohebbi said leaders interested in developing a similar solution to Go-Repair and Go-Rescue should start by getting a clear understanding of the problem they want to address. To do that, Mohebbi’s team focused on connecting with stakeholders.

AI model decisions

Despite the current spike in interest regarding generative AI, Mohebbi’s team didn’t pursue that particular branch of artificial intelligence. 

“The AI models that we are using are based on a mathematical foundation, not just generated based on past experiences,” Mohebbi said. “We really need to have that strong mathematical foundation to avoid the subjectivity we usually see in large language models.”

Hype alone isn’t enough to warrant implementation.

CIOs have had to work to rein in generative AI use cases and prioritize those with the most potential. The costly technology is not the best or most reliable tool in every situation. 

“We want to look at AI, which is not a hammer looking for a nail, but [by being] clear in terms of what’s the business problem or context we are solving and how can AI enable us to do that,” Surabhi Pokhriyal, chief digital growth officer at Church & Dwight, said during the company’s analyst day last week.

Technology leaders who tease out generative AI’s weaknesses and lean on its strengths to prioritize use cases find success. Oftentimes that means fewer deployments. Leading organizations pursue about half as many generative AI opportunities on average compared to less advanced businesses, according to Boston Consulting Group. 

As the GMU project developed, stakeholders raised questions about the reliability of the AI models used to power the training games. 

“We added more information about these background algorithms,” Mohebbi said. “They were more comfortable afterward and enthusiastic about adopting the game.”

Implementing stakeholder feedback

Go-Repair and Go-Rescue function quite differently than they did initially. Mohebbi’s team created several versions before landing on the current functionality and capabilities. 

“We held meetings and then provided a version and they would test it out and provide us with feedback,” Mohebbi said. “We’d address their feedback and provide them with an updated version. It was a very iterative process.”

One of the first changes was also the biggest. The game was initially designed to be played offline, but security protocols within the department wouldn’t allow downloads. Mohebbi’s team then shifted to web-based development. 

Mohebbi’s team also added visual elements, improved user experience, enhanced the localized scenarios and provided more insight into user decisions and their consequences throughout the process. 

The partnership between technologists and end users was crucial to the project’s success. 

“If it wasn’t for the feedback and our interactions with Arlington County, we wouldn’t even know about the certain specifics and features needed,” Mohebbi said.

The Atlanta City Council unanimously voted on Monday to establish an artificial intelligence commission to explore how the city can incorporate AI into its operations. The commission will convene at least once a month starting no later than February 2025 and will produce a report by February 2026 detailing opportunities for using AI in city government, including potential benefits and challenges. The group will comprise 13 individuals, including Atlanta’s chief information officer, Georgia’s chief digital and AI officer, experts from the state’s universities and multiple members appointed by the city’s mayor and council members from each district.

Although the concept of AI has been around since the 1950s, it has in recent years become more popular due to the large amount of data available, advanced algorithms and computational improvements, according to the Atlanta City Council resolution to form an AI commission. Cities can use AI for applications such as optimizing traffic flow, reducing energy consumption and streamlining administrative tasks, said National League of Cities CEO and Executive Director Clarence Anthony in a November report on municipal AI use published by NLC and Google.

Atlanta is already leveraging some AI-driven technologies. After two water main breaks this summer, officials said the city would pilot AI-enhanced devices that can detect future leaks before they intensify, according to Atlanta News First. 

The city’s newly approved commission reflects the attitude of many local officials and technology experts in the U.S.: Embrace the opportunities of AI, but proceed with caution. 

“With intentional use of AI, city leaders can reduce repetitive tasks and make government operations more efficient, enabling time and resources to be invested back into communities to address resident needs,” Rochelle Haynes, managing director of Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities Certification program, wrote in a public letter to city leaders earlier this year. Among the advice Haynes offered was for cities to create clear guidelines for staff on how to use AI tools responsibly.

City leaders don’t need artificial intelligence-driven technologies to tell them they have a climate change problem, at least in the eyes of Rohit Aggarwala, New York City’s chief climate officer. 

“We don't need AI or big data to tell us with much greater detail how screwed we are as a city or as a planet,” Aggarwala said at last week’s Urban Tech Summit held at Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus in New York City. 

Technology developers should instead focus on solving “the real problems that we face” in city government, which include engineering, project coordination and funding hurdles, said Aggarwala, who also serves as commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Aggarwala detailed some of these “real problems” in his remarks. For example, New York City’s building decarbonization law, Local Law 97, is challenged by the multi-billion dollar price tag of retrofitting the city’s buildings and the poor management of many buildings.

“We've got a lot of bad management in a lot of our buildings, and we are asking them to do something that's really difficult and really ambitious,” Aggarwala said. “Right now, we're doing it in the face of interest rates that are really high.”

He also pointed to the engineering hurdles the city faced during work on the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a transmission project that will bring Canadian-generated clean energy to New York. The project developer’s initial design for infrastructure in the city was “absolutely unacceptable,” Aggarwala said, because it interfered with critical sewer infrastructure in the borough of Queens. The conflict underscores how the complexity and cost of doing underground construction in New York City can hold back the renewable energy transition, Aggarwala said.

Challenges like these are the “cutting-edge areas” for potential AI applications, Aggarwala explained.

“If you want to have AI address climate, I need to ask you to help it make government work better,” Aggarwala told the audience. “Particularly in those areas where government is already trying to address things, but it is not in the policy, it is not even necessarily in the money. It is in the way we do things.”

Aggarwala is hopeful that AI can address local governments’ operational challenges but said climate-related AI applications could fail to be useful to cities in the same way other urban technologies have been.

“We know that urban technology has fully conquered that age-old problem of ‘How can I get a burrito delivered?’ But it has not really addressed our housing crisis. It has not really fixed our transit systems,” Aggarwala said.

As AI tools proliferate, investments will be needed to teach the public sector how to use them, added Elijah Hutchinson, the executive director of the New York City Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, in his remarks at the Urban Tech Summit. 

“It's encouraging to hear all of the different ways in which AI can be useful,” Hutchinson said. “We really need AI to also work for government as well and to be brought along in this transition.” Types of technology he would like to see include tools that assess how bus and bike lanes impact vehicle travel times as well as tools that help the city monitor noise and air quality impacts, “which are often very difficult to measure and can be fleeting.”

However, the climate opportunities of AI must be balanced with the environmental harms the technology poses, Hutchinson said. Computationally intense models are driving surging demand for data centers, which use large amounts of land, energy and water. Hutchinson noted that, on average, the water use of a data center for one day is equal to the water use of 3,000 New Yorkers. 

“There is so much more we don’t know in this landscape,” Hutchinson said. “Like any tool, what can help us can also harm us, and it needs to be used carefully.”

The National League of Cities and Google announced on Wednesday a report on how local governments can leverage artificial intelligence-driven technologies — and mitigate the risks they present. 

AI offers cities the opportunity to become more efficient, sustainable and livable, NLC CEO and Executive Director Clarence Anthony said in a foreword to the report. He pointed to applications such as optimizing traffic flow, reducing energy consumption and streamlining administrative tasks. 

However, not all cities are using or even have access to AI, which could turn “the digital divide that has plagued many cities into an ‘AI divide,’” Karan Bhatia, vice president and global head of government affairs and public policy at Google, said in a statement.

While the concept of AI has existed for decades, it burst into the public discourse in 2022 and 2023 with the release of generative AI applications that allowed people around the world to engage more directly with the technology for the first time, the NLC and Google report says. 

Generative AI, which can create new content like text and images based on patterns learned from existing data, is just one of numerous categories of AI. Other types of AI relevant to local government are predictive AI, which makes predictions about future events or trends, and perceptive AI, which interprets and understands sensory inputs.

Each of these types of AI brings distinct promise and pitfalls, says the report, which was spearheaded by the NLC’s AI Advisory Committee.

Generative AI, for example, can be used to translate public meetings and 311 calls or to develop chatbots that can respond to resident questions. However, generative AI can make mistakes. New York City’s chatbot made headlines earlier this year after providing residents with misinformation on topics such as housing rights and worker protections. 

AI tools may also reflect existing biases present in the data they are trained on; for example, they could reinforce existing inequitable resource allocation, the report says. AI tools also may pose data privacy and security risks and become a target for cyberattacks.

The report contains a toolkit that walks cities through the steps of getting started with AI, including conducting a landscape analysis, assessing readiness, developing use guidance and policy, and engaging the public.

Throughout the report, NLC and Google highlight how some cities are already using AI. Numerous communities have chatbots that help users find information about the city and its services, while Sunnyvale, California, gives residents who attend in-person city council meetings access to in-time closed captioning translation. Memphis, Tennessee, is using AI to find potholes by analyzing video footage from city vehicles and combining those results with existing data. Tucson, Arizona, meanwhile, is using AI software to predict which water pipes are most likely to fail next, helping the city prioritize maintenance and repairs.

But barriers to these applications remain: Resource constraints, concerns from city staff or elected officials and lack of political will to invest in technology are among the challenges cities face in implementing AI, the report says.

Google is piloting an online mapping tool in 14 U.S. communities to help city leaders understand how trees and highly reflective surfaces, like cool roofs, could help mitigate urban heat, according to a press release issued in September. 

“Cities can determine the neighborhoods with the highest heat exposure and vulnerability, and which cooling interventions could have the most reduction in surface temperatures,” said Mansi Kansal, Google Research product manager, in an email. The tool, which is not publicly available, Kansal said, applies artificial intelligence to satellite and aerial imagery to quantify potential reductions in surface temperatures.

Climate change-driven extreme heat presents a pressing challenge for cities around the world. Local and state governments are beginning to hire chief heat officers and devise heat action plans packed with short-term measures, such as opening cooling centers for the public to find respite on hot days, and long-term strategies, like increasing tree canopy.

Among the solutions that cities are turning to are “cool” pavement and roofs, which are designed to reflect rather than absorb sunlight. Some research has shown these reflective surfaces, deployed at neighborhood scale, can lower the ambient air temperature by several degrees Fahrenheit. However, some experts warn that this cooling effect is marginal compared with the public health benefits of increasing access to shade.

Google’s new tool marks another way city leaders can try to figure out the best heat mitigation measures for their community. It’s available in Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Boston; Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Los Angeles; Miami-Dade County, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; New York City; Phoenix; San Antonio; Stockton, California; Tempe, Arizona; and Washington, D.C., Kansal said. 

The tool allows city planners to predict how changes in cool roof areas and tree canopy would change the average summer land surface temperature in their communities. It includes filters to show areas that see the highest temperatures and are most vulnerable, based on factors such as median household income and social vulnerability index, Kansal said.

Powering the tool is AI-driven object detection and models that account for local characteristics including how much green space a city has or how well the roofs on buildings reflect sunlight, the press release says.

The tool measures land surface temperatures rather than air temperature because the former provides higher spatial resolution and is available globally, Kansal said. Air temperature data is much more sparsely available and requires additional weather factors for accurate modeling. 

The land surface temperature data can give cities reliable insights that can enable decisions now on cooling interventions in vulnerable areas, Kansal said. Meanwhile, Google is working on longer-term research to model the effects of cooling interventions on air temperature. The tech company hopes to partner with more cities in the future to inform urban cooling strategies, the press release says.