An AI system developed in Austria analyses the publicly accessible budget and investment plans of cities and municipalities in Europe.

The aim of thinkers.ai’s technology is to recognise planned construction and investment projects at an early stage – sometimes years before concrete tenders are issued.

The AI collects information from a variety of publically available sources, such as many budget planning sheets, medium-term financial plans or city council minutes, and processes it in a structured manner.

This allows to monitor developments in areas such as infrastructure, education, energy, transport or investments in IT, vehicles or equipment with foresight.

This could be a strategic advantage for companies operating as suppliers of public institutions – for example in the fields of construction, architecture, planning or technical equipment. ‘Until now, it was manually possible but very time-consuming to filter out relevant investment signals from thousands of pages of municipal documents,’ explains Dr Isabell Claus from thinkers.ai. The new technology significantly reduces this research effort and thus enables forward-looking planning. 

The AI use case also highlights the change in data processing in the public sphere: while information is generally publically accessible, there has often been a lack of tools to process it systematically. Automated analysis using AI could now make this access much easier – even for smaller companies without their own research departments.

It remains to be seen whether and to what extent local authorities will respond to this new form of transparency. One thing is clear: digitally available documents and the use of intelligent analysis systems are changing the flow of information between administration and business and creating new opportunities for foresight in the manufacturing industry and among service providers. Especially in economically challenging times, improvements in planning are of great value across all sectors.