Every day it seems there’s a burgeoning use case for AI in local government, with new tools, models and capabilities being introduced at a dizzying speed. This pace creates a genuine challenge, as government buyers evaluate AI against fundamentally different criteria than the private sector. A 2025 EY survey of municipal leaders found that 78 percent of IT decision-makers are “concerned about the lack of clear regulations/government standards for AI development.”
The tension between pressure to adopt AI and the need to do so responsibly, in a way that provides actual value, is shaping how agencies approach AI today. For local government leaders, their first questions are often not about features but about usability, data governance and security.
One of the most immediate AI opportunities for local governments is solving routine plan review workflow issues that hinder teams before meaningful work even begins.
THE BOTTLENECK BEFORE PLAN REVIEW BEGINS
In our customer conversations, the presubmission bottleneck comes up repeatedly. Too often, applicants turn in submissions with missing engineer stamps, scales and north arrows, or incorrect file types, forcing staff to pause higher-value work to track down information that should have been included from the start.
Additionally, applicants have little visibility into their application status and begin asking for updates, thereby creating another layer of administrative work for staff. The result is a familiar cycle of delays, resubmittals and additional administrative effort on both sides.
This problem is shockingly common, with agencies losing significant time before plan review even begins. In fact, between 20-30 percent of first-cycle plan submissions are returned for basic errors, with each resubmittal adding one to three days to the timeline before the review starts.
Taken together, these start-stop submission delays make for a consistent drain on valuable staff time and an ongoing source of frustration for applicants.
WHY PLAN SUBMISSION IS THE RIGHT PLACE TO INTRODUCE AI
For agencies looking to apply AI in meaningful ways, where you start matters. A 2025 MIT report found that 95 percent of enterprise AI efforts are delivering little to no value, often because they aren’t integrated into existing workflows.
In plan review, AI that sits outside of the submission workflow or is layered on top creates more friction rather than removing it.
That’s why improving submission quality at the start of the plan review process represents an excellent first use case for AI in local government. Instead of relying on manual checks which siphon off valuable human resources, presubmission AI can verify the completeness of plans in real time.
Avolve AI Submit acts as a front gate, reviewing incoming plans to identify missing sheet references and titles, auto-detect and populate elements like the north arrow and scale, and ensure space for approval stamps before they move forward in the review life cycle.
Applicants receive immediate feedback, empowering them to resolve issues early on and avoid lengthy and unnecessary rejection cycles. Reviewers start with cleaner submissions, which allows projects to progress more quickly into review and with fewer interruptions.
DESIGNED FOR HOW LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ACTUALLY WORK
For AI adoption to succeed in the government environment, it must align with how the government operates. This means supporting human decision-making rather than replacing it.
Avolve’s approach is grounded in what we describe as intentional, people-first paradigm. Our goal is to reduce the tedious administrative back-and-forth while ensuring trained professionals remain in control of final decisions. We believe AI should augment, not replace, human expertise.
Adoption also depends on usability. If the experience is fragmented, cumbersome or requires staff to move into new or separate workflows, it’s unlikely to stick. The most easily adoptable AI tools are ones that fit naturally into an employee’s flow of work and surface the right information when and where it’s needed.
Avolve AI was shaped by direct customer feedback and our years partnering with more than 350 local government customers. The result is purpose-built Avolve AI that ensures the unique security and data governance requirements of local agencies while providing highly practical applications that deliver meaningful time and resource savings today.
SECURITY AND DATA GOVERNANCE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT
AI for government comes with a unique responsibility. Too many models operate as black boxes, making it difficult for both developers and users to understand how outputs are produced. Yet in government, local agencies need to be able to explain how decisions are made.
With well-documented governance policies, enterprise security and clear data-handling standards, Microsoft Azure AI supports Avolve’s intentional approach to AI, which centers on augmenting human expertise and preserving judgment records. As Avolve evaluated partners for our AI, we tested multiple AI models to examine how they fared with real-world plan review pain points. Microsoft Azure AI, the preferred choice of many government entities to meet the unique security and data governance requirements of their constituents, emerged as the strongest option for performance and accuracy.
AVOLVE’S FUTURE ROAD MAP BRINGS MORE PURPOSE-BUILT INNOVATIONS
Looking ahead, we’re working on features like revision change detection, plan object counts (i.e., doors, windows, walls) and bringing AI to our mobile field-enabled solutions.
As the first and only Esri Gold Partner offering plan review, we are excited to bring AI-powered GIS asset feature creation with Esri ArcGIS to further reduce manual work and bottlenecks for our end users, accelerating how quickly jurisdictions can update and act on spatial data.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR PUBLIC-SECTOR TEAMS
AI for local government will continue to evolve, and we’re excited to see where it will take us. For now, submission still represents one of the most high-value steps to integrate AI in the plan review workflow as improving the quality of submissions at the start has downstream effects that influence everything from internal resource management to revenue generation. In the end, cleaner submissions help set the stage for faster, scalable and more predictable community development.
Explore how Avolve AI tackles the most preventable bottleneck in plan review and what it takes to operationalize AI in your workflow.
Author Bio:
Ben Cook is Chief Technology Officer at Avolve, where he leads engineering and technology strategy for the company’s plan review solutions. Prior to becoming CTO, he served as Vice President of Engineering at Avolve, and brings additional experience as a fractional CTO and engineering leader across SaaS and startup environments. Ben specializes in building high-performing teams, driving product innovation, and delivering secure, scalable software using agile and modern development practices.
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