The City of Menlo Park recently launched Laurel, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, to respond to community members’ questions about city services.
Laurel is run by Citibot, a company that nearby cities, such as Palo Alto, Burlingame, and South San Francisco, already use. According to Kendra Calvert, Menlo Park’s Public Engagement Manager, in the weeks since its official launch, Laurel has already received 462 questions—a number comparable to cities with established Citibot assistants.
Residents have asked Laurel about permits, administration, and parks and recreation. Its information comes directly from the city’s website, Xplor Recreation, the city’s Park and Recreation software, and Accela, the city’s building permit portal.
“We’re looking at all the responses to make sure that the responses are accurate and continually updating the website to confirm [the] information that’s available,” Calvert said. Members from specific departments, like administration, library, and public works, also review Laurel’s responses for their department to verify its answers.
“Accessibility is a high priority for Menlo Park,” Calvert said. Menlo Park’s website and weekly newsletter can both be translated, and Laurel is available in over 70 languages. Most questions have been in English, and the second most common language is Spanish. Laurel has also received queries in Chinese, Bangla, Arabic, and Punjabi.
As cities add virtual assistants to their websites, they catch up to modes of communication already familiar to people. “People want to have information right away,” Calvert said. “We’re constantly changing and pivoting to make sure that we can do that.”
Ultimately, Laurel’s goal is to provide people with answers they need more conveniently. Calvert has found Laurel helpful to both community members and City employees. “One of my colleagues was able to use Laurel when someone came in for a question, and they were able to pull it up quickly with Laurel,” she said. “People can still reach out and call. They can still email. [We’re just] trying to reach people where they want to communicate.”
