✦ Councils · Cities · Municipalities
AI agents for the public sector, built for the funding cliff
Resolve routine citizen requests around the clock, triage vulnerable cases to the right officer, and protect your frontline staff. Designed for UK councils, US cities and EU municipalities under real budget pressure.
Cut cost-to-serve, not service
Resolve routine citizen requests automatically so caseworkers can focus on vulnerable residents and statutory casework.
Serve every resident, in their language
Native conversations in 100+ languages. Critical for diverse boroughs, immigration services, and EU border municipalities.
GDPR, accessibility, and audit-ready
Hosted in EU, WCAG 2.2 AA compliant, full conversation logs for FOI / public-records requests.
State of play
The 2026 reality forcouncils and cities
34%
of UK councils may need Exceptional Financial Support in next 3 years
LGA survey, Feb 2026
~40%
of Danish municipal IT departments are short-staffed
DKnyt municipal IT survey, 2026
9 in 10
public-sector leaders struggle to find qualified staff
PwC Public Sector Workforce, EU
5–10×
peak-volume spikes absorbed with zero hold time
Certainly customer benchmarks
Council & municipal teams using AI to serve residents
Showing 49 of 49 authorities
Council names shown for category illustration. Logos and crests are property of their respective authorities.
Municipal AI adoption proof
Councils and cities alreadylive with AI in production
A snapshot of public-sector AI deployments across the UK, US and Denmark. Independently sourced; not Certainly customers unless stated.
Aarhus Kommune (DK)
- What they tried
- ‘Muni’ chatbot answers citizen questions about passports, MitID, childcare and self-service across aarhus.dk.
- When
- Live; awarded Dansk IT & Digitaliseringsstyrelsen's Digitalisation Prize, 2022.
- Outcome
- Now shared across 30+ Danish municipalities through Den Digitale Hotline (DDH) cooperation.
Københavns Kommune (DK)
- What they tried
- AI assistants in jobcentre and citizen-service teams to summarise cases and draft replies.
- When
- Rolled out 2024–2025 under the city's AI strategy.
- Outcome
- Caseworkers report meaningful time savings on routine documentation.
Camden Council (UK)
- What they tried
- Gen-AI chatbot, video and webchat across the contact centre to deflect routine queries (council tax, housing, waste).
- When
- Live, multi-year rollout reported 2024.
- Outcome
- Halved telephony demand on covered journeys, per the council's published case study.
Buckinghamshire Council (UK)
- What they tried
- AI chatbot and webchat across council services, with a dedicated privacy notice for AI interactions.
- When
- Live as of 2025.
- Outcome
- Used to triage residents into the right service and free advisors for complex cases.
City of Los Angeles (US)
- What they tried
- MyLA311 modernisation: new platform with AI-assisted intake for service requests (potholes, bulky-item pickup, graffiti).
- When
- Launched March 2025 by the Mayor's Office.
- Outcome
- Improves routing and response on millions of annual 311 contacts.
City of Miami (US)
- What they tried
- ‘Codebot’ AI assistant in the Code Compliance department answers resident questions in multiple languages, 24/7.
- When
- Launched April 2026.
- Outcome
- Cuts wait times for code and permitting questions; multilingual coverage out of the box.
NYC (US) — MyCity
- What they tried
- MyCity AI chatbot for small-business owners covering permits, licences and regulations.
- When
- Launched October 2023; iterated through 2024–2025.
- Outcome
- First US-city generative-AI assistant for business services; informed national guidance on public-sector AI guardrails.
Den Digitale Hotline (DK)
- What they tried
- Shared chatbot ‘Muni’ plus hybrid AI answers for 30+ Danish kommuner via cross-municipal cooperation.
- When
- Operational; AI services expanded 2024–2025.
- Outcome
- Smaller kommuner get enterprise-grade self-service without standing up their own AI stack.
Hackney Council (UK)
- What they tried
- Internal AI tooling for case-note summarisation and knowledge search across adult social care.
- When
- Pilots reported 2024–2025 under the council's data & insight programme.
- Outcome
- Frees frontline practitioners from admin so more time goes to vulnerable residents.
Helsingin kaupunki (FI)
- What they tried
- ‘Kamu’ AI chatbot for new residents and city services, plus generative-AI pilots in education and customer service.
- When
- Live since 2018; generative-AI pilots from 2024.
- Outcome
- One of Europe's longest-running municipal AI assistants, now extended with LLM answers.
Examples compiled from public council and city communications. Inclusion is illustrative of municipal AI adoption and does not imply a Certainly customer relationship unless explicitly stated.
Biggest challenges in 2026
What is actually keepingcouncil leaders awake
The funding cliff
England saw 8 Section 114 notices issued between 2018 and 2024, and the LGA reports a third of councils may need Exceptional Financial Support by 2028. US cities face an estimated $1T pension and infrastructure gap. EU municipalities are absorbing rising welfare demand on flat budgets.
The workforce gap
MissionSquare's 2025 survey shows recruitment and retention as the #1 challenge for US state and local government. In Denmark, ~40% of kommune IT teams report being understaffed. PwC finds 9 in 10 EU public-sector leaders cannot find qualified candidates.
The trust deficit
Chicago's Inspector General called the city's 311 system a 'black hole' in early 2026. LA's controller flagged the same. When residents cannot get answers, complaints, FOI requests, and political pressure all rise.
Channels that no longer match citizen behaviour
Phone-first contact centres struggle with under-35s who expect WhatsApp, web chat, and self-service. Catalis reports 311 demand has expanded across channels faster than headcount.
Where AI pays back fastest
Eight use cases councilsdeploy in weeks
How Certainly helps
From pressure toplan, in five moves
Deflect routine queries 24/7
Around 60–70% of council contacts are repeat questions: bin days, council tax bands, school admissions, opening hours. AI agents resolve these instantly across web, WhatsApp and voice, freeing officers for complex cases.
Triage and route the hard cases
Vulnerable-resident, safeguarding, and homelessness conversations are detected and warm-handed to the right team with full transcript and risk flags. No re-telling, no dropped balls.
Multilingual by default
One agent, 100+ languages. Critical for London boroughs, Copenhagen integration services, and US sanctuary cities. Reduces the 'language-line' interpreter spend that quietly eats budgets.
Plug into the stack you already own
Native connectors for Salesforce Public Sector, Microsoft Dynamics, Granicus, Civica, KMD, and case-management systems. No rip-and-replace, deployable inside a typical procurement window.
Procurement-friendly and compliant
Available via G-Cloud-style frameworks, GDPR by design, EU-hosted, ISO 27001 aligned, full audit trail for FOI/public-records and EU AI Act readiness.
GDPR · EU AI Act ready
EU-hosted, ISO 27001 aligned, DPA on request.
WCAG 2.2 AA accessible
Designed to meet PSBAR and Section 508 obligations.
Procurement-friendly
Available through framework agreements; security questionnaires answered.
✦ White paper · For CX leaders
Serving more residents with less budget
A 2026 playbook for council CX leaders. Twenty pages of verified data, ranked use cases, a 90-day deployment plan and a one-page business case you can take to your section 151 officer or city CFO.
- The four forces reshaping public-sector CX in 2026, with sources
- Eight use cases ranked by payback speed and political risk
- A 90-day deployment plan you can lift into a project brief
- A one-page business case template with realistic ROI ranges
- Compliance checklist: GDPR, WCAG 2.2 AA, PSBAR, Section 508, EU AI Act
What's inside the playbook
- A 12-step rollout used by CX leaders in 60+ countries
- Benchmarks: containment, AHT, CSAT, ROI by industry
- Templates, scorecards, and the exact agent-spec checklist
Certainly · Government & Public Sector · 2026
Serving more citizens with less budget.
A 2026 agentic-AI playbook for government & public sector leaders.
How UK councils, US cities and EU municipalities are using agentic AI to absorb 5–10× peak volume, protect frontline staff, and meet GDPR, WCAG 2.2 and EU AI Act obligations.
8-page PDF · Free download
Executive checklist · 4 pages
Council & Government AI Readiness Checklist
32 questions across 6 dimensions. Score in 20 minutes.
- 01Strategy & sponsorship
- 02Data, knowledge & content
- 03Compliance, security & ethics
- 04Operations & workforce
- 05Channels & citizen experience
- 06Measurement & value
PDF · Free download
✦ Free tool · For council & government leaders
Score your authority's AI readiness in 20 minutes
A practical checklist used by CIOs, customer-services heads and digital leads in UK councils, US cities and Danish kommuner to align leadership on what 'ready for AI' really means before procurement starts.
- 32 scored questions across strategy, data, compliance, ops, channels and value
- Plain-English score interpretation with the recommended next step
- Maps to UK GDPR, EU AI Act, WCAG 2.2 AA, SOC 2 and FOI obligations
- Use it in cabinet briefings, DPIA reviews or vendor selection
What's inside the playbook
- A 12-step rollout used by CX leaders in 60+ countries
- Benchmarks: containment, AHT, CSAT, ROI by industry
- Templates, scorecards, and the exact agent-spec checklist
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See what AI agents can take off your contact centre
30-minute working session with a public-sector specialist. We will map your top three citizen-query categories to a deployable agent and project the cost-to-serve impact.
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