The Agent.iA project, driven by the Diputacions of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona along with the AOC Consortium, aims to determine if it's possible to develop artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for local government that are ethical, environmentally and economically sustainable, and based on public models. This initiative is supported by Think UPC and the Coloq.iA platform.
AI already demonstrates its capability to automate procedures, support citizens, and review documents. Agent.iA's challenge is to verify if these capabilities can be achieved while respecting the values of Local.iA, the framework project by the Catalan Diputacions for the deployment of public, ethical, sustainable, secure, and responsible AI.
Over the coming months, 10 proof-of-concept projects will be designed, developed, and evaluated, based on ten use cases selected from the shared needs of municipalities and local entities. These cases include assistants for accessing municipal information, tools to support public procurement, systems to streamline subsidy management, natural language-based instance generation, review of administrative agreements, and automatic classification of public space incidents.
Each proof of concept will be analyzed from various perspectives: technical feasibility with public AI models, sustainability (economic cost and environmental impact), ethics and human rights (including compliance with the European AI Act), and real-world utility in organizational workflows.
The initiative is developed through a collaborative governance model, involving multidisciplinary teams from the four Diputacions and the AOC Consortium. This co-creation model will enable the construction of reusable and scalable solutions for all local entities, as part of the Xarxa de Governs Locals Intel·ligents (XGLI).
