Council set to spend £630k learning how to bring its bills down

AUTHORITY USING Al EXPERTS TO HELP MAKE ‘SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS’

- SAM GREENWAY Local Democracy Reporter

A MIDLAND council is pinning its hopes of keeping council tax bills down on 'artificial intelligence' (AI) but it will cost £630,000 in the process.

Cash-strapped Solihull Council is embracing the Al revolution as a way to make 'significant savings, it had revealed.

But the process will mean employing three new people over two years at enormous cost, prompting questions from councillors.

The authority has been one of the early adopters of Al with staff using it to write and record notes quicker.

But it is now going to adopt Al for more systems such as telephone and web queries, with reports of councils elsewhere making millions in savings.