Local governments in Michigan are embracing new technologies and have already started to utilize artificial intelligence in their day-to-day operations.
AI is helping them with patrol management, waste handling and translation services, according to the Michigan Municipal League, a nonprofit that represents more than 500 local governments across the state.
This has prompted the state to invest in AI training as well, including $1.2 billion for an AI research facility at the University of Michigan. State officials said they hope to take the lead in developing an AI strategy and create new jobs.
Tony Minghine, deputy executive director of the Michigan Municipal League, said AI is improving the general productivity of government employees and in the future could help make it easier for the public to access services.
“I think there's so much that government does that people might wonder, ‘How do you even avail yourself of it?’” he said. “It will tear down some of those barriers.”
One of these communities embracing AI is the city of Mount Pleasant.
Aaron Desentz, the city manager, said his team started using Placer AI last year to study where people are going in Mount Pleasant.
This data helps city development and planning, Desentz said.
“What we learned from last year's study again are just some of the things that maybe folks knew, but none of it was necessarily intuitive,” he said. “We're able to look at and better understand the Mount Pleasant consumer or our market makeup.”
Some of the highlights that the city learned, according to Desentz, were:
- Businesses on South Mission are more popular than on North Mission;
- Mount Pleasant has the topmost visited Meijer and Walmart in the state;
- Soaring Eagle Casino and Central Michigan University are the top drivers of traffic to Mount Pleasant, especially during their large-scale events.
Placer AI buys people’s data from phone apps, and it is then able to track how many visitors a specific location had, Desentz said.
“It's completely unanimous,” he said. “There's no personalized information or anything like that. It just gives us how many cell phones, and in particular what it's utilizing, is your location.”
Placer AI has a special subscription for cities, and Desentz said Mount Pleasant pays $18,000 a year for the service.
And just a little over 40 miles east, Bay City is utilizing AI for a slightly different purpose in its city government.
James Blake, environmental services manager for Bay City, said they use a program from Prairie Robotics that identifies materials in recycling that weren’t supposed to end up there.
Cameras powered by AI are able to spot that kind of material Blake calls “contamination” in recycling carts.
“One big thing that it has helped a lot is with identifying the contamination in carts,” he said. “Before we had the AI ... I would go physically out in my work truck and stop at random houses and physically look inside their cart and identify contamination.”
Then the AI is able to tell the city where the contamination came from and send a postcard to a home address, informing the household about the unrecyclable material, Blake said.
He said education plays a big role when it comes to community engagement in recycling.
“On the back end, I can auto populate where these hotspots (of carts with most contamination) are around the city ... and push the education materials,” he said.
But Minghine said even though AI offers lots of opportunities, it poses several challenges. First, AI platforms like Chat GPT aren’t always accurate.
“You might think you're getting the right answer, and you’re not,” Minghine said. “It's looking at information that's out there and it doesn't always know real from fiction.”
The University of Michigan’s Artificial Intelligence Handbook for Local Government describes a case when an AI tool failed in Michigan in 2023. The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency used AI-powered software to screen for unemployment fraud, but the number of suspects was five times higher than usual.
“The problem was that (the software) was too rigid in its definition of fraud and automatically assumed guilt while also operating on missing, corrupt and incomplete data,” the handbook reads.
In addition, there is a privacy concern.
“If you're using a public platform, any information you put out there becomes public,” Minghine said.
The state of Michigan is also responding to new technologies. Several state government agencies recently introduced Michigan’s AI and the Workforce Plan.
About 2.8 million Michigan jobs could be changed by AI in the next five to 10 years, the plan read. That’s why the state aims to invest in training people’s skills that help succeed in an evolving economy while preparing small and medium-sized businesses to adopt and benefit from AI.
“Michigan stands at a pivotal moment, where embracing AI’s transformative power can accelerate workforce development and drive inclusive economic growth,” the plan read. “By thoughtfully integrating AI into education, training and business support systems, the state can equip its residents with the skills needed for today’s jobs and tomorrow’s opportunities.”
Similarly to the state, local government officials say they will continue using AI in the future.
Blake said Prairie Robotics is offering a pilot program for recycling right now, but he hopes to make it a long-term thing.
Desentz also said he plans to continue using Placer AI. This summer he hopes to learn more about the usage of public spaces, like parks, and rivers in Mount Pleasant.
He said as society continues to move towards new technologies, city life will change as well, and more people might work from home and live in small cities like Mount Pleasant.
“As I always say with people, the genie is already out of the bottle,” Desentz said. “You're going to have to embrace it. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle.”
