Smart City Jena presents multifunctional chat system at "AI in local government" conference

On October 29, 2025, the Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences hosted the "AI in Local Government" symposium organized by the eGovernment Competence Centre. Representatives from science, administration and IT services discussed the current status and future potential of artificial intelligence in the public sector.

After a welcome from the hosts, Prof. Dr. Sven Müller-Grune (Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences, member of the Thuringian Digital Advisory Board and the Thuringian Standards Control Council) gave an overview of the status quo of AI in local government and initial practical experiences. Dr. Nicolas Apitzsch, Head of Department of the City of Unna, then presented the "ZaiTENWENDE" project Presented ways to develop an "AI municipality". The city of Ilmenau also presented the "Municipal Sign Language Avatar", an innovative example of the use of AI to improve accessibility.

This was followed in the afternoon by a specialist presentation by Thomas Gmilkowsky (Kommunale Informationsverarbeitung, KIV) on the technical integration of AI systems in administrative processes.

A special highlight was the presentation by Stefan Schwarz, sub-project manager of the Smart City Jena project. He presented the cooperation project "Multifunctional Chat System" - a joint AI platform for public administrations that will provide chatbots, AI assistants and automated workflows in the future. The aim is to use a low/no-code approach to enable administrative staff without an IT background to configure new use cases independently.

With his call to other administrations to join the cooperation community for the joint development of the platform, Schwarz underlined the claim of the Smart City Jena project to actively shape open, practical and collaborative AI development in the public sector.

At the end of the event, Prof. Dr. Karsten Löw (Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences) spoke about legal issues relating to the use of AI in public authorities.

"The event provided an excellent opportunity to share knowledge, experiences and solutions and to initiate new collaborations between authorities. It is precisely this cross-agency exchange that is crucial to advancing the use of AI in administration responsibly and efficiently," concluded Stefan Schwarz at
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