Japanese cities get AI help to manage government paperwork
A new tool called Polimill is helping Japanese municipalities search through mountains of administrative documents faster. It uses artificial intelligence to make government work smoother and quicker for the people who run our cities and towns.
Running a city or town means dealing with endless rules, records, and paperwork. Staff need to search through years of documents to find the right information—a task that can take hours. Polimill, a new platform, is changing that by using artificial intelligence (AI) to help.
The tool is built on GPT technology—a system that understands language the way humans do, making it able to read and summarize complex documents. Think of it like having a smart assistant who knows every rule and past decision your municipality has made. When a staff member needs to find information, they can simply ask in plain language, and the AI searches through the archives to find the answer.
Polimill also includes a code-building feature (called Codex) that helps developers write software faster. This means cities can update their systems and add new features without waiting weeks for someone to write the code from scratch. For municipalities stretched thin by budgets and staff shortages, this saves both time and money.
Japan is using this as a test case for what public AI infrastructure could look like across the country. If it works well in these towns and cities, it could become a model for how governments everywhere use AI to serve residents better—not just faster, but smarter.
Original source: OpenAI Blog