Op-ed in Décideur Public: AI has already entered town halls through the window

On September 14, 2026, the French public sector magazine Décideur Public published an op-ed by Dominique Péré, CEO of HelloSpot. Its title sums up the situation: “Artificial intelligence has already entered town halls… through the window.”

Read the op-ed on Décideur Public (in French)

The situation: AI without a framework

The question is no longer whether AI will arrive in local authorities. It is already there, but in an uncontrolled way: staff use consumer tools, often American ones, to draft a reply or summarize a file, without a secure framework or integration into their business software.

The op-ed draws on several studies:

• according to a 2025 Reco study, 71% of employees use AI without approval from their IT department;
• fragmented digital tools reportedly cost 4 hours per week per staff member, according to the Harvard Business Review;
• OpenAI accounts for more than half of unsupervised use;
• AI built into business software increases productivity by 14%, according to research by Erik Brynjolfsson.

The risk: residents’ data

The danger does not come from staff wanting to save time. It comes from the data they handle. A letter to the mayor, a reported issue, a civil registry request all contain a resident’s identity, address and situation. When this information goes through a service hosted outside Europe, the local authority loses control of its data.

The position HelloSpot defends is pragmatic: it is not about banning every existing tool. Public documents, such as council deliberations or municipal orders, can circulate without difficulty. Residents’ personal data, on the other hand, calls for a sovereign AI.

The recommendation: a sovereign AI, built into business tools

Dominique Péré recommends deploying French or European AI solutions, such as Mistral, that comply with the GDPR and the EU AI Act and are integrated into existing tools rather than kept in a silo. The op-ed illustrates what this integration makes possible with climate vulnerability registers, which can be activated in real time during a heatwave (see our heatwave page).

This is the approach of HelloSpot’s AI-powered citizen relationship management: the AI works directly on residents’ requests, without copying and pasting between applications. It qualifies, routes and suggests; staff validate.

Taking stock of AI use in your local authority

Would you like to know where AI is already used in your departments, and how to frame it? The AI audit helps you take stock, and the free version lets you test a sovereign AI for up to 1,000 requests.