Municipal AI projects in Alberta powered by GovLab
GovLab is working to transform government operations using artificial intelligence. The organization, which was founded in partnership with the Government of Alberta, AltaML and Mitacs, serves as an innovation hub for public sector bodies. It brings together private sector technology, public sector data and problems, as well as academic talent to propel economic prosperity and social development.
With a mission to build a sustainable innovation practice that will launch products powered by data and ethical artificial intelligence (AI) to benefit citizens and governments, GovLab is providing:
- AI talent acceleration – upskilling public sector staff (including municipal and provincial), post-secondary students and recent graduates
- Proof-of-concept development – exploring the viability of potential AI use cases to potentially commercialize them for wider use
- Economic development – developing talent, attracting investment, and helping to develop the ‘tech sector’ of Alberta’s economy (i.e., job creation and retention).
Some of the municipal AI use cases explored by GovLab which have become piloted solutions include:
- Pavement condition assessment solution – using machine learning they are able to detect pavement distress (e.g., cracking, potholes) and save the municipality between $300,000 and $4.8 million a year.
- Fleet maintenance – using AI to identify failure patterns to keep mobile assets up and running, reducing costs and optimizing asset servicing
- Permit intake – reducing application processing times to enable quicker responses to permits with estimated savings of between $1.3 million and $2.2 million a year.
For more information, please contact danb [at] abmunis.ca (Dan Blackburn), Senior Director of Growth & Innovation.
