L’Intelligenza Artificiale negli enti locali

Overview & Synopsis

This report presents the principal findings of a project conducted between June 2024 and March 2025 involving municipalities—primarily in Lombardy—with the aim of assessing their knowledge and expectations regarding artificial intelligence, as well as taking stock of the current level of adoption of such technologies. The project comprised training activities, an exploratory survey, and the development of a prototype application with potential operational implications for municipal administrations. Although the survey was extended to all municipalities in Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna, only 72 municipalities participated—a figure that, in itself, indicates how distant these issues still are from the day-to-day realities of local government. By contrast, analysis of the questionnaire responses reveals an overall proactive stance: AI is seen as a means to free up resources, extract value from data, and support decision-making. The stated priorities converge along three axes: automation of repetitive processes, large-scale analytics, and the development of decision-support tools. The cautions expressed are judicious, focusing on model transparency and the preservation of human control, both considered indispensable for adoption. In parallel, the pilot initiative led to the development of a prototype for the automatic classification of municipal web pages, aligned with AGID guidelines and designed to enhance accessibility and interoperability. Taken together, the evidence points to a public administration willing to experiment, provided that adequate training is available.