Frequently Asked Questions

municiPal AI is AI-powered search, designed specifically for municipal websites. It helps residents and staff quickly find accurate information by turning municipal content into clear, conversational answers. No more digging through hundreds of website pages or technical language. Just clear, accurate answers to residents’ questions. Every time.

municiPal AI ingests and organizes content from your municipal website and any approved sources you connect. When a resident asks a question, it searches that content, understands the context of what’s being asked, and generates a clear, accurate answer grounded entirely in your information.

There’s no guesswork, no outside sources, and no generic responses. Just your content, working harder for your residents.

ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool built for everyone. municiPal AI is built exclusively for municipalities. It only answers from your approved, verified content, not the open internet which significantly reduces the risk of inaccurate or out-of-scope responses.

Built-in guardrails automatically detect sensitive topics — like legal or medical inquiries — and respond with appropriate disclaimers rather than attempting an answer. Personal information submitted by residents is detected and never stored.

Unlike general AI tools, municiPal AI continuously monitors and updates your municipal content, so answers always reflect the most current information available.

Plus, with municiPal AI, your team also gets full visibility into how residents are using it — every question asked, every answer given, and all resident feedback. That means you can spot content gaps, track trends, and keep improving your website with monthly in depth insights.

Yes! But not in the way most people picture it. Large language models handle the interpretation and communication of answers, but they never have direct access to your data. All responses are generated exclusively from your verified municipal content, retrieved and filtered before the model ever gets involved.

Think of it this way: the LLM provides the language skills, your municipality provides the facts.

municiPal AI primarily uses OpenAI models. We also maintain relationships with additional AI providers to ensure reliability and uptime. So if one service experiences disruption, your residents never notice.

Yes, and it goes well beyond it. Traditional search returns a list of links and leaves residents to find the answer themselves. municiPal AI delivers a direct answer, sourced from your content, in plain language.

That said, we recommend keeping traditional search available alongside municiPal AI to support the full range of resident preferences and accessibility needs. The municiPal team will help you set up both, so your residents get the familiar experience they know, plus a smarter way to find what they need.

For most municipalities, implementation takes four weeks from start to launch. Larger municipalities or those with more complex systems and integrations may take six to eight weeks.

Adding municiPal AI to your website requires only a single line of code. Before launch, our team prepares and tests your content to achieve approximately 97% answer accuracy, so your residents get reliable answers from day one.

Very little. Most municipalities spend fewer than five hours reviewing and testing before launch. Our team handles the setup, training, and integration work so yours can stay focused on supporting your municipality.

municiPal AI can only answer from what exists on your website, so the accuracy of answers is directly tied to the quality of your content. You don’t need everything to be perfect before you launch, but the information does need to be there.

If a topic isn’t covered on your site, municiPal AI won’t guess. It will let the resident know the answer isn’t available and direct them to contact the municipality directly.

Over time, reporting tools help identify gaps and outdated pages, giving your team a practical starting point for gradual improvements. Many municipalities find that implementation becomes a natural opportunity to tighten up their content at their own pace.

That’s part of what municiPal AI is built to handle. As it ingests your content, it organizes and evaluates it, assessing relevance, authority, and freshness to determine the best answer when multiple sources exist.

So even if your content lives across different pages, departments, or documents, residents still get a single, clear answer.

Yes. Broken links are flagged automatically during ingestion and included in your ongoing reporting, so nothing slips through the cracks.

Yes. The system identifies duplicate or overlapping content and uses that information to determine which source is most authoritative, so residents always get the most accurate and relevant answer.

Yes. Every piece of content is assigned a freshness score, so your team can easily spot aging pages and prioritize what needs to be updated.

The municiPal team will need access to your CMS, but no changes to your server or hosting are required. We implement everything behind the scenes, with no disruption to the resident experience.

We recommend a full launch across your website, since municiPal only draws from content that’s already public. Launching in parts can leave residents unsure what’s available and lead to more digging and frustration, not less. You can launch fully, then refine and build out content over time. If you have microsites or separate instances, we can bring those online in phases.

We can launch microsites or connect your separate instances in phases.

No problem. Our team works closely with you throughout the process, with scheduled check-ins to keep launch dates on track.

municiPal is configured to match your website’s colours and button styles, so it looks and feels like a natural part of your site. If you have a video banner, we can display municiPal below it. A few product elements can’t be adjusted, since they’re required to meet WCAG 2.2 compliance and accessibility standards.

Yes. Our team will work with you to plan a smooth transition, with typical implementation taking 4–6 weeks. Vendor contracts vary, so be sure to check your current cancellation policy before starting.

We don’t offer a formal pilot or trial, but you’re welcome to explore municiPal in action on existing client websites, including Kawarthalakes.ca, Kitchener.ca (and its microsites), Sechelt.ca, and Leamington.ca.

municiPal AI works in conjunction with Google Translate. If your municipality has Google Translate enabled on your website, residents can interact with municiPal AI in their preferred language.

Yes. municiPal AI is built to read structured website elements like tabs, accordions, and embedded documents, content that is often buried or hard to surface through traditional search.

Yes. Each pricing tier includes a defined number of microsites, and additional microsites can be added if needed.

Yes. municiPal AI integrates with common municipal platforms including SharePoint, Laserfiche, and eScribe. It indexes only public-facing content, so residents can access the information they need without ever exposing internal files or restricted data.

Your website content is refreshed every five days, with news content updated approximately every three hours, keeping residents informed with the most current information available. More frequent scrapes are available upon request but may include an additional charge.

Yes. If critical information needs to be reflected right away, such as emergency announcements or service disruptions, your team can request an urgent update outside the regular refresh cycle. The number of annual requests will be included in your contract.

Yes. municiPal AI can surface public-facing election information available on your municipal website, including voting locations, dates, and procedures.

Strict guardrails are in place to ensure responses remain neutral and free from candidate bias, so municipalities can confidently provide election information without the risk of influencing resident opinion.

Yes, with a subscription to Council Intelligence, municiPal AI can answer questions related to council meeting agendas and minutes, pulling from integrated platforms like Laserfiche and eScribe where applicable.

The system is context-aware, meaning it routes responses from the most appropriate and authoritative source. Strict guardrails ensure answers stay grounded in verified municipal content, so residents get accurate information without interpretation or editorializing.

No. municiPal AI does not process or collect payment information. It will direct residents to the appropriate page or system to complete a transaction.

You do. Each municipality retains full ownership of its data at all times.

Data is retained for one year and is available to you throughout that period. Municipalities can request a full export of their data at any time. If you choose to offboard, your data is securely destroyed and a formal record of destruction is provided upon request.

municiPal AI is designed to avoid collecting personal data entirely. If a resident accidentally includes personal information in a question, it is automatically detected and redacted before anything is stored.

This means no names, contact details, or sensitive information ever enters the system, keeping both your residents and your municipality protected.

Yes. municiPal AI is designed to align with common municipal standards including relevant privacy legislation, WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility requirements, and Canadian data hosting requirements.

For a full overview of our security and compliance practices, visit our Security page.

municiPal AI is built with multiple layers of protection. The system answers only from your approved municipal content, which eliminates the risk of responses drawn from unreliable or inappropriate outside sources.

Built-in guardrails detect sensitive topics such as political opinions, medical advice, and financial recommendations, and respond with appropriate disclaimers rather than attempting an answer. Personal information submitted by residents is automatically detected and never stored.

The municiPal team also maintains active AI observability, monitoring system behaviour and reviewing logs to catch anything that falls outside expected parameters. And if you ever need to act quickly, your team can disable the system instantly using your existing CMS controls, no vendor support required.

A core group of municiPal team members needs access to your system to implement it and run regular updates. We work with your team to determine the right level of access. Most municipal CMS platforms keep access logs, so you can see who’s logging in and when. Access can be revoked at any time . We’d just ask that you let us know, so we can avoid any disruption to service or updates.

No. All data is scraped and stored externally, so municiPal has no impact on your website’s speed or load times.

We are, 24/7. You’ll always know exactly who to contact and how to reach us.

Yes. Municipalities receive monthly reports summarizing searches, trends, resident feedback, and content gaps. Raw search data is also available as a CSV export upon request, giving your team full access to the information behind the insights.

Monthly reporting gives your team a clear picture of how residents are using municiPal AI. Reports include search queries, user feedback, question categories, emerging trends, and insights into potential content gaps, helping your municipality continuously improve the information it provides to residents.

Yes. By analyzing what residents are searching for, municiPal AI helps surface questions that your website may not be answering well. Over time, this gives your team a practical, resident-driven roadmap for improving your content.

Yes, though we generally advise against it, since exclusions can only be applied at the URL level. It’s best to connect with the municiPal team directly to talk through your options.

municiPal AI is tested to approximately 97% accuracy at launch using a six-point evaluation framework that measures factual correctness, relevance, clarity, completeness, proper citation of municipal sources, and the absence of hallucinated information.

That said, accuracy is ultimately tied to the quality of content on your website. The better your content, the better your answers. Over time, monthly reporting and content gap insights help your team keep both improving together.

municiPal AI is designed to interpret and clarify, not just repeat. Even when source content is complex, technical, or poorly structured, the system translates it into plain language that residents can actually understand, while staying grounded in the facts.

Yes. municiPal AI is designed with residents in mind, not municipal insiders. It simplifies technical terminology and translates complex language into clear, plain language responses written at a grade 8 reading level or lower, so everyone in your community can find the answers they need.

For municipalities with Google Translate enabled on their website, municiPal AI works seamlessly alongside it, helping residents access information in their preferred language.

Your team will have time to test and approve everything before launch. Because municiPal draws only from your existing, approved content, it already reflects your voice and tone. All responses are written at a grade 8 reading level or lower, so every interaction stays consistent with your municipality’s identity.

Absolutely. We’ll walk through sensitive topics and review boilerplate responses together during the testing phase.

municiPal responds using the content on your website, and prioritizes newer content — like alerts and news over older, static pages. If you have emergency information, we recommend publishing it as news or an alert, since that content is scraped more frequently. It’s good communications practice regardless. 

And, our account reps are always available to help any answers or work through specific response scenarios with you. 

municiPal has built-in escalation logic that recognizes when a query should be handed off to staff rather than answered directly.

Yes. municiPal only answers from approved municipal content already on your website — it won’t provide information beyond that.

municiPal can direct residents to the right form, but it can’t help fill one out. That step still has to be completed by the resident.

municiPal AI uses population-based pricing, making it scalable and fair for municipalities of all sizes. There is a one-time implementation fee and an annual subscription that covers hosting, maintenance, and AI usage.

Contact us for a customized quote based on your municipality’s needs.

Our pricing tiers are designed with room to grow. If your municipality exceeds expected usage, we work with you directly to adjust your plan, so service to your residents is never interrupted.

Yes. Counties and regional groups of municipalities can implement a shared municiPal AI environment. Each municipality surfaces its own locally relevant answers while benefiting from shared infrastructure, making it a cost-effective option for regions looking to adopt AI together.

municiPal AI guarantees 99.9% uptime, backed by a formal Service Level Agreement. Our use of redundant AI providers ensures that even in the rare event of a service disruption, your residents experience no interruption.

It’s natural for people to feel wary about AI replacing jobs. municiPal isn’t designed to do that. It helps residents find information faster and frees up staff from repeat questions, so they can focus on the more complex and often urgent issues that come with working in government.

The one-time implementation fee covers system setup, design and coding, data scraping and testing, meetings with your team, internal QA, client testing, and launch. The annual subscription covers ongoing services, including hosting, security, licensing, search tokens, and core infrastructure maintenance and support.