The city of Hamburg is taking determined steps to advance the testing and comprehensive introduction of AI technologies to empower citizens and the administration effectively and efficiently. Despite the slow adoption of AI in public administration and city services, Hamburg is committed to overcoming these challenges.  

To enable the start of the AI era and promote innovative projects, the city has set up the InnoTecHH Fund - unique in the German administration - under the leadership of the Senate Chancellery. This fund aims to provide the necessary AI expertise and technical resources to prioritize, develop and successfully launch impactful AI pilot projects. This initiative reflects Hamburg's proactive approach to integrating advanced technology into its urban and administrative framework, setting an example for other cities and regions.

Merantix Momentum has been supporting the InnoTechHH Fund since the end of 2022 in bringing AI expertise and experience to the Senate Chancellery and accelerating the introduction of AI in the city's processes. This includes the development of a structured AI innovation process that encompasses holistic processes and consulting services from the idea to the evaluation, prioritization, piloting and testing to the implementation of AI-supported use cases.

The implementation strategy encompassed several dimensions:

1. AI innovation process of the InnoTecHH Fund: A multi-stage process from support in idea generation through a rigorous evaluation and prioritization process - taking into account technical, economic, data protection, organizational, ethical and regulatory aspects - to the technical implementation, operation and monitoring of developed and purchased AI solutions.
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2. Strategic implementation and scaling advisory: Training, advising, and developing blueprints to transition from individual, department-specific AI pilot projects to state-wide scalable AI products across various municipal sectors, spreading solutions and leveraging scale efficiencies.
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3. AI governance: Development and implementation of an innovative AI governance process in collaboration with city administration departments and leaders, adhering to the new AI regulation (AI Act), ethical guidelines, and all existing regulations.

The implementation of the new system has streamlined the process, reducing the detailed evaluation, selection, and funding commitment of use cases to three months. In the first operational year of the InnoTecHH Fund (2023), over 120 AI use cases from all eleven city agencies were evaluated, with 19 now in development and 8 being scaled city-wide.

Hamburg is leveraging a wide range of AI technological innovations, including chatbots, large language models (LLMs), computer vision, predictive systems, and anomaly detection. In partnership with Merantix Momentum, the city has successfully deployed several strategic and operational AI projects:

1. LLMoinThis LLM tool, similar to ChatGPT but optimized for public administration with a focus on data protection, security, and user-friendliness, aims to improve the efficiency and quality of administrative processes. Through strategic and technical support in developing LLMoin, and employing innovative methods, Merantix Momentum has helped Hamburg advance this product, setting a new standard for AI integration in public administration.
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2. AI-based chatbot for housing benefits: Designed to assist citizens with the housing benefit application process, which has become more complex due to legislative changes. This chatbot helps reduce incomplete submissions and tackles the increased processing workload, effectively handling language barriers and improving user experience.
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3. Chatbot for the Urban Data Platform: The Urban Data Platform (UDP) makes a wide range of geo-related data and information publicly available. However, it is often difficult for users without special technical skills, such as data science, to find the relevant information. An AI-based chatbot prototype can access the various data sets on the Urban Data Platform, link them and evaluate them effectively. This enables citizens, companies and authorities to receive low-threshold answers to their geo-related questions without having to have any knowledge of the data sets or their processing themselves.
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Press release 09.12.2024