AI Experience podcast: AI in town halls, saving time without losing control
On the AI Experience podcast, Ludovic Diligeart explains how town halls can use AI without giving up control over their data or their decisions.
On March 15, 2026, Ludovic Diligeart, founder of HelloSpot, was the guest of episode 71 of the AI Experience podcast, titled “AI in town halls: local democracy under algorithm.”
The question running through the conversation is simple, and it is one many elected officials and directors general of services (the town’s chief executives) are asking today: how do you save time without losing control?
Listen to the episode on AI Experience (in French)
What AI already does in town halls
The episode reviews very concrete uses, far from abstract promises:
- handling citizen requests and analyzing reported issues;
- sorting incoming mail;
- helping draft replies;
- summarizing planning permission files.
These are repetitive tasks that weigh on staff and delay answers to residents. Handing them over to AI gives time back to human relationships, provided you stay in control.
The real risk: AI that moves in without a framework
The podcast also covers “shadow AI”: staff using consumer AI tools without approval from their local authority. The problem is not the wish to save time, which is legitimate. It is that residents’ data (identity, address, subject of the request) is sent to services whose hosting and applicable law the municipality does not control.
HelloSpot’s answer comes down to two principles. First, separate the data: public documents (council deliberations, municipal orders) pose no particular difficulty, but residents’ personal data requires a sovereign AI. Second, build AI into the business tool rather than leaving it to live alongside it, with no copying and pasting between applications.
”The final word must remain human”
That is the phrase Ludovic Diligeart uses for local democracy. In HelloSpot, the AI qualifies a request, routes it to the right department, prepares a draft reply or flags a missing document. Staff reread, correct and decide.
This AI relies on French technology from Mistral, complies with the GDPR and the EU AI Act, and the data is not used to train models. The local authority can also turn it off in the areas it considers sensitive.
Learn more
Discover how HelloSpot’s citizen relationship management centralizes every request, or get started with the free version, up to 1,000 requests.
