In March, a brand new gentle rail line connecting Seattle to downtown Bellevue opened, including to improvement stress within the fast-growing suburb.
That stress is acute within the metropolis’s allowing workplace, the place employees members area questions from allow candidates, interpret allowing codes and consider pre- and post-submittal requests.
Like many cities, Bellevue is exploring how one can use AI to enhance public companies, mentioned Sabra Schneider, the town’s CIO, in an interview with InformationWeek. Streamlining allowing is a sensible place to start. The challenge’s bold targets: to scale back by 30% the 20,000 employees hours devoted annually to allowing and to chop the variety of resubmitted permits by half.
Sabra Schneider, CIO, metropolis of Bellevue, Wash.
Discovering a companion
Bellevue had quite a few choices to contemplate for its early AI forays, with startups clamoring to share their merchandise with metropolis governments, Schnieder mentioned. Govstream.ai emerged as a frontrunner primarily based on three components: it was an area startup, had historical past within the civic tech house and proposed a partnership that “gave Bellevue confidence it will be an excellent pilot,” she mentioned.
A number of months of negotiating with Govstream.ai earlier than work formally started in April 2025 made it clear that the town’s contract course of wanted to be up to date to work with AI startups.
“We knew with AI we had been going to need to assume somewhat bit in another way as a result of a lot of the distributors working within the house did not have 5 years of presidency expertise or, typically, the issues that you simply’re in search of in a conventional RFP,” Schneider mentioned.
Adopting an ‘innovation decision’ to companion with AI startups
As a substitute, the town adopted the Revolutionary Design Partnership Coverage in July 2025. The decision goals to assist the town companion with native and nationwide startups by means of extra of a design partnership mannequin than a conventional RFP.
Govstream.ai and Bellevue labored collectively to determine the targets of the allowing pilot challenge, which is damaged into the next phases:
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Part one: The primary part of the challenge focuses on an inner information that solutions questions for the town’s allowing employees.
“It acts as a chatbot for workers. It additionally acts as an e-mail response instrument to reply routine questions, in order that employees are spending much less time wanting up routine issues or code and extra time responding to advanced questions,” Schneider mentioned. The purpose is to make this instrument public-facing as properly.
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Part two: The second part of the challenge, at the moment underway, will present real-time allow utility steering. “Ideally, that might shorten timelines for brand spanking new housing and likewise business house, principally permitting prospects to submit a cleaner packet on the primary shot round as a substitute of going backwards and forwards with employees,” Schneider mentioned.
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Part three: This part goals to leverage AI to automate allowing utility triage. The purpose is to id points and push permits ahead quicker. With AI dealing with that work on easier permits, the allow staff may concentrate on extra nuanced, advanced points.
Preliminary outcomes and ongoing work
Progress up to now is encouraging; 198 customers in improvement companies now have entry to the AI instrument. “We’re fairly optimistic about attaining that 30%,” Schneider mentioned.
phases two and three of the challenge, the town is focusing on a 50% discount in utility resubmissions. Resubmissions can sluggish utility approval significantly. Every resubmission can take weeks, and candidates might undergo a number of cycles. Govstream.ai and the town have a tentative plan to launch its utility assistant in June.
AI adoption for civic CIOs: Classes realized
Civic CIOs may be swept up within the pleasure of AI innovation similar to their friends within the personal sector, however once they innovate the outcomes should profit the general public. Schneider has stored that in thoughts as she and her staff proceed to maneuver ahead with AI adoption. Among the many helpful classes she has realized:
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Group alignment. Civic CIOs have to contemplate if AI use circumstances are aligned with the communities they serve, based on Schneider. With that in thoughts, Bellevue has actively sought group suggestions from stakeholders, together with companies, nonprofits and college students by means of an innovation discussion board.
From that public engagement, digital fairness for residents emerged as a definite precedence. Stakeholders additionally raised considerations about jobs and the equity and accuracy of the data the town provides with the assistance of AI. This perception helps Bellevue because it thinks by means of its AI insurance policies past allowing and continues to search for methods to use the know-how to its companies.
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Knowledge administration. Schneider famous that she and her staff have realized lots about information readiness as they work on this challenge. “Bellevue needed to do a good quantity of knowledge cleanup to ensure that Govstream to ingest our code and ingest our guidelines,” she mentioned.
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Human partnership/ area experience. Bellevue’s IT staff performs an necessary position within the allowing challenge, however the Govstream.ai staff labored straight with among the metropolis’s allow techs to grasp how one can ship a challenge that solved precise ache factors and will enhance over time. “Clearly, the individuals closest to doing the work know probably the most about how one can do the work higher,” Schneider mentioned.
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Traceability and transparency. Bringing allowing employees into the method introduced traceability to the forefront of the dialog. They wished to understand how the AI instrument offered the solutions it did. Early on, Govstream.ai in-built traceability features and suggestions loops to allow coaching of the methods over time.
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Peer networking. AI adoption generally is a collaborative course of. CIOs at completely different organizations and in several jurisdictions can study from each other. The GovAI Coalition may very well be a spot for presidency CIOs to start out. It has templates and instruments that policymakers can reference and adapt as they set up AI governance and launch AI initiatives. “It is by authorities and for presidency. And that is an amazing group to assist get [you] began,” Schneider mentioned.
