Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving beyond experimentation in local government, with councils beginning to embed it into everyday operations. New national policy and real-world pilots are now showing how AI can improve services, boost productivity and strengthen decision making.
In multiple cities across Australia, a familiar scene is playing out: a council officer is doing the same thing they do every day. Copying data from one system into another, reformatting a report nobody reads thoroughly, chasing a form that should have arrived digitally but came in on paper because the old portal doesn’t work on mobile.
These small inconveniences are accepted as normal, so they barely register as a problem – until they are multiplied across every officer, every team, every week of the year, and the impact becomes significant.
Moorabool Shire Council considered this and when they piloted Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled automation through Datacom’s Datascape platform, those small tasks started disappearing. What were once five-to-ten-minute jobs were instead being completed in under a minute, leading to a projected saving of 12 weeks of staff time per year.
Caught between ambition and execution
That result sits against a broader truth the sector is quietly reckoning with. Datascape’s AI Insights report revealed a sector caught between ambition and execution. Based on research across three major local government conferences in 2025, it surveyed 166 council leaders and staff from New South Wales and New Zealand.
Around 42 per cent of councils are still exploring AI through pilot projects, while 38 per cent are focused on building the governance and trust frameworks to support it. Only one in five are scaling use cases across teams or embedding AI into daily operations.
The ambition is there and experimentation is widespread, but embedded, everyday AI is still the exception. The gap lies in infrastructure rather than resistance. Close to nine in ten leaders described their teams as early-stage AI learners, with most staff self-teaching through individual efforts rather than structured programs. Fluency is growing, but unevenly as it is being carried by the curious few rather than lifted by the organisation.
What councils want from AI
When asked what matters most, council leaders weren’t chasing transformation for the sake of it.
The pattern is clear – councils want AI that helps them do the work they already do, but faster, with more confidence, and with something to show for it.
In Australia, the focus on AI use cases skews toward infrastructure and asset management functions, including inspection summaries, maintenance prioritisation and condition reporting. In New Zealand, councils lean into community experience and workforce productivity, from triaging service requests during seasonal peaks to summarising consultation feedback and accelerating internal approvals.
While different pressures reflect situational requirements, the underlying need to relieve the friction so people can do the work that actually matters is the same.
The AI measurement problem
According to the Datacom’s report, around 40 per cent of councils aren’t measuring AI uplift at all. Another 28 per cent have isolated examples but no consistent framework. Only about one in ten can track baseline data and quantify return on investment clearly.
Without measurement, AI initiatives struggle to survive budget cycles as they fail to compete with evidenced core services for funding. They need to be able to demonstrate stewardship of public money to elected members or communities and build the organisational confidence that turns a pilot into a practice.
The Federal Government’s updated policy on responsible AI use, effective December 2025, pushes in this direction, requiring transparency statements, AI use registers, and governance reporting. However, policy sets the floor, and councils still need the capability to measure change.
What Moorabool found when they stopped experimenting
Moorabool’s story shows what happens when you stop treating technology as a series of separate projects and start connecting it to how the organisation works.
Their move to Datascape’s property and rating system alone cut rate notice processing times from minutes to seconds, recovering two weeks of annual processing efforts. Linked service requests, rate accounts, and reproduction notices eliminated duplication, and budget forecasting, direct debit rollovers, and audit trails now live in a single platform.
Their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) rollout centralised online forms, payment processing, and correspondence tracking into one view. Sixty per cent of applications shifted from paper to digital submission. Staff spend less time navigating systems and more time helping people.
When they introduced Antenno, a mobile app for two-way community engagement, nearly 1000 residents downloaded it within months. Eleven per cent of customer requests now come through digital channels, with a target of 25-50 per cent digital engagement ahead.
The AI pilot was built on that foundation, embedded in the workflows staff already use and surfacing value in the tasks they already do.
Starting with the everyday to create lasting change
Councils that are seeing progress with AI are starting small. They choose one area of work, set a clear outcome, and focus on incremental improvements that build across teams. Those gains begin with minutes saved, not hours, but they compound quickly.
AI is being embedded inside the systems staff already use, such as CRM, online services, case management and asset tools, so it supports existing workflows rather than creating new ones. Clear governance provides clarity on how AI operates and how decisions remain transparent, which helps turn early wins into consistent practice.
This approach matters because every council carries a long list of small tasks that have always felt too minor to question, and they already know AI can help with this work. The real challenge is being able to measure the change and having a platform built to show that impact.
Datascape is designed specifically for local government, with AI embedded across property, rating, regulatory, customer and asset operations. Measurement and governance are built in, allowing councils to demonstrate return on investment, strengthen community trust, and move from pilots to everyday use – just like Moorabool.
The full AI Insights report – including findings on where councils sit on the AI maturity curve, what outcomes they’re prioritising, and how measurement capability varies across the sector – is available to download below.
To find out more, visit datacom.com
