Half of Poland's Local Governments Are Testing AI, but Only a Quarter Have Made It Permanent

Artificial intelligence is moving beyond a website add-on in Polish local government and becoming part of everyday resident services. Since late 2025, Katowice has offered a round-the-clock virtual clerk, Wroclaw became the first city in the country to roll out an AI chatbot for parents enrolling children in schools and preschools, and Poznan is automating reminders about overdue taxes using voicebots. Data from GUS (Poland's Central Statistical Office) and the Union of Polish Metropolises show this is no longer a handful of isolated experiments but a broad, if uneven, trend.

What has actually changed in local offices

The virtual clerk in Katowice answers residents' questions about administrative matters and makes it easier to navigate the Public Information Bulletin, working around the clock with no queues. Krakow has developed a similar tool that lets people quickly search information about procedures handled by the city hall and municipal units, and additionally uses AI for drafting documents, translations, and image analysis to count pedestrians and vehicles for safety planning purposes.

Poznan went a step further, deploying voicebots that handle appointment scheduling and automatic reminders about overdue taxes, along with the ISAB system for analyzing cybersecurity threats. Gdansk has given all employees access to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for routine office tasks. Lodz is preparing a municipal AI Center to coordinate rollouts across different local government units, while Lublin plans to use AI for crisis management and forecasting demand for social services.

The numbers nationwide

The scale of the phenomenon is visible in GUS data on the use of information and communication technologies in public administration units for 2025. AI-based solutions have been deployed by 15 percent of gminas and 23 percent of powiats, while among marshal offices the figure already reaches 50 percent. By comparison, 51 percent of central government units have deployed AI, showing that local governments are still catching up to the central level.

The ability to handle matters online is offered by more than 38 percent of gminas, 26 percent of powiat offices and 69 percent of marshal offices. Electronic document management systems are now used by all marshal offices, but are still missing in one in seven gminas and one in twelve powiat offices. In 2025, 75 percent of gminas provided ICT training, up from 59 percent in 2023, and 88 percent of powiats did so, up from 73 percent the year before.

Will officials lose their jobs

A report by the Union of Polish Metropolises reveals another dimension of the trend: one in two officials in the surveyed cities already use tools like ChatGPT or Copilot privately, though systemically, meaning as part of officially deployed and supervised processes, AI is running in only 27.5 percent of local governments. It is most often used to support administration, promotion and tourism, and public safety.

Currently, the deployment of AI-based solutions is not aimed at reducing employment - Joanna Nowak, department head at the Poznan City Office

The Poznan official stresses that automation mainly covers repetitive tasks. She notes that voicebots informing taxpayers about outstanding balances on their accounts help reduce the number of formal reminders issued by the office, easing the burden on staff handling debt collection. A similar tone comes from Krakow, where the city hall stresses that AI systems do not replace people in decision-making.

Artificial intelligence does not independently carry out processes or parts of them, and does not take part in decision-making - statement from the Krakow City Office

Barriers and risks

Despite the optimistic statements, officials admit that deployments face real obstacles. Among the local governments surveyed by the Union of Polish Metropolises, 56 percent of respondents cited skills gaps among staff and 52 percent cited legal uncertainty as the main barriers. On top of that come the risk of hallucinations producing false information, fragmented and poor-quality data in older systems, cybersecurity gaps, the opacity of black-box algorithms, and the costs of infrastructure and hiring specialists.

Deployments are also shadowed by the EU AI Act, which imposes additional obligations on public administration for high-risk systems. The director of Lublin's IT department says that, eventually, AI is meant to support dynamic, real-time city management, covering crisis management, transport network optimization and forecasting demand for social services, a far broader scope of use than today's chatbots.

Eventually, AI is meant to support dynamic, real-time city management: crisis management, transport network optimization, forecasting demand for social services - Grzegorz Hunicz, director of the IT and Telecommunications Department at the Lublin City Office

What it means for residents

For the average resident, the difference is practical: a question about a filing deadline or a procedure at the vehicle registration department can be put to a chatbot at any hour, instead of waiting for office hours or standing in line. In cities that have gone further than simple chatbots, like Poznan or Krakow, automation also covers payments, reminders and analysis of municipal data, which genuinely shortens the time it takes to handle matters. At the same time, the uneven pace of adoption across gminas, powiats and marshal offices means the quality of digital service a resident gets still depends heavily on where they live.