Nara City: One Year Since the Establishment of the AI Special Department - Nara City's AI Utilization Initiatives in Fiscal Year Reiwa 7 (2025)

Nara City established its AI Utilization Promotion Division on April 1, 2025, a pioneering move among Japanese municipalities. Over the past year, the division has actively implemented and verified AI technologies to enhance operational efficiency and citizen services. The report details specific achievements for the first year of establishment. From fiscal year Reiwa 8 (2026), the division will be reorganized into the "AI and Administrative Reform Promotion Division," integrating administrative reform functions previously handled by the Finance Division. This aims to powerfully advance more effective administrative and financial reforms by maximizing the power of AI and digital technologies, going beyond mere operational improvements.

Topics/Achievements: Enhanced staff literacy: Generative AI service utilization rate among section chief-level employees increased from 38% to 74% after training. Operational efficiency: Achieved approximately 17,200 hours (about 17.5 person-months) of work time reduction in the second half of fiscal year Reiwa 7 (2025) through generative AI services. Next-generation cloud phone system: Introduced Zoom Phone. By conducting system bidding prior to call center outsourcing bidding, the bid price from call center contractors was reduced by two-thirds, saving approximately 50 million yen annually. Expanded AI consultation: 24/7 AI-powered consultation services have expanded to support areas such as childcare, women's specific concerns, and seniors (dementia) starting this fiscal year. Sensitive information infrastructure: Verification is underway for building and utilizing new infrastructure to securely handle sensitive information.

Why promote AI now? To address societal changes like labor shortages due to population decline and diversifying citizen needs, by maximizing technology to solve regional issues. This leads to operational efficiency, improved citizen services, and sustainable administrative management.

Main Initiatives in Fiscal Year Reiwa 7 (2025): The AI Utilization Promotion Division, established in April 2025, led efforts to understand needs, formulate guidelines, and develop utilization environments to promote AI use across the entire city government. Needs Assessment: AI questionnaires for all employees (April, September, February), business challenge extraction through interviews with each division. AI Utilization Guidelines: Revised generative AI utilization guidelines (3 times). Utilization Environment: Built secure and appropriate generative AI utilization environment, introduced general-purpose generative AI services for all employees.

Operational Efficiency with Generative AI Services: Steady efficiency improvements, primarily in document creation, summarization, and proofreading. Achieved 17,200 hours (approx. 17.5 person-months) of work time reduction in the latter half of last fiscal year. Metrics (as of March Reiwa 8 / March 2026): Users: 572 (out of 1,843 eligible employees) Usage: Approx. 1 billion characters (approx. 2.5 million manuscript pages) Work time reduction: 4,300 hours (calculated by the introduced generative AI service) Specific Use Cases: Meeting minute creation: Uploading meeting recordings to generative AI for instant transcription and summarization. Explanation document creation: Using generative AI to create explanation documents based on institutional guidelines, including slide structure, diagrams, and anticipated Q&A. Reading national notifications: Instructing generative AI to explain complex attached documents in an easy-to-understand manner.

Human Resource Development and Knowledge Deepening: Rapidly sharing the latest AI knowledge and enhancing the literacy of each employee to accelerate AI utilization in operations. Content/Initiatives: Collaboration with external organizations: Exchange of opinions with the Digital Agency and other advanced local governments, inviting advisors.