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50 The Authority │ August T HE P ROBLEM OF THE L OST E XPERT : H OW AI W ILL S AVE M UNICIPAL A UTHORITY T ALENT AND P ROVIDE B ETTER P UBLIC S ERVICES By Amanda Coe, TechForGov M unicipal authorities all over Pennsylvania are struggling with something that has been growing for some time now. A great deal of their talent base depends on a few individuals with tremendous amounts of institutional knowledge. They know how things work, where the records are kept, how laws have changed. Who to contact if there's a problem. If someone asks them a question, they usually know the answer instantly. So What Happens When That Institutional Knowledge Walks Out the Door? As retirements speed up, and hiring continues to be difficult for municipal authorities, many of them are worried about transferring knowledge, succession planning, maintaining good quality services with reduced staff, and, at the same time, customer expectations just keep getting higher. Customers expect to get the same quick access to information that they do from banks, stores, and other companies providing basic services. Thus, municipal authorities are under pressure to perform with fewer assets while at the same time preserving the institutional knowledge that allows their organizations to run well. Fortunately, recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) offer authorities ways to resolve both of these challenges in realistic and reasonable ways. AI Does Not Replace Human Resources When people hear the words Artificial Intelligence (AI), they typically think about automation replacing workers. There is no doubt that there is cause for concern in local government and public utilities. However, the best application of AI inside a municipal authority does not replace personnel. Rather, it makes employees able to function much more effectively, and provides access to organizational knowledge much more easily. Think of AI as an electronic assistant which assists municipal authority staff and customers quickly locate information contained in the municipal authority itself. Much of this type of information contains useful information. Policies, procedures, regulations, meeting minutes, customer service information, construction standards, engineering documents, rate structures and public record information are examples. The difficulty is often finding the correct piece of information may take weeks or even months looking through years of files and/or documentation or simply remembering past experiences. Using AI to make relevant information appear rapidly while allowing employees to make decisions, etc., could make technology into a tool that supports employees instead of replacing them.