How AI Could Help Governments Listen More Effectively to Citizens

Artificial intelligence could make public consultations more accessible, efficient and inclusive, according to a new Policy Brief from the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Produced in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Citizen Participation examines 50 case studies from 22 countries.

The research shows how governments and civil society organisations are already employing AI to analyse public feedback, moderate discussions, answer questions and help more people take part in democratic processes.

One of AI’s most valuable abilities is making sense of large quantities of information. Public consultations can attract thousands of comments, suggestions and personal accounts, creating a considerable administrative task. AI systems can organise these contributions, recognise recurring themes and produce summaries for human officials to examine.

This could allow public bodies to understand people’s opinions more quickly without overlooking contributions simply because too much information has been submitted.

The study identifies nine principal uses for AI in citizen participation: sense-making, information development, translation, transcription, virtual assistance, facilitation, moderation, simulation and participation architecture.

Sense-making, automated translation and virtual assistance are currently among the most widespread. Translation and transcription can remove some of the barriers preventing people from participating, while chatbots can help residents locate information and discover how to contribute to consultations.

There are already encouraging examples. In Cambridge, an AI tool was used in 2024 to help analyse qualitative responses to a public consultation. It reportedly reduced the time required by approximately 50 per cent.

In Finland, the innovation agency Sitra used the AI-powered Polis platform during its “What do you think, Finland?” consultation. More than 18,000 people took part.

For governments, and for businesses supplying technology to the public sector—the potential opportunities are considerable. AI could enable participation exercises to reach larger audiences without producing an unmanageable administrative burden.

However, the report also highlights some serious risks.

Biased training data could distort the interpretation of public opinion, while systems that cannot explain how they reached their conclusions may undermine confidence in the process. People without reliable internet access or adequate digital skills could also find themselves excluded.

Public bodies may lack the specialist knowledge needed to evaluate AI systems properly. There is also the danger of becoming dependent on proprietary platforms controlled by individual technology suppliers.

The Policy Brief recommends action in three broad areas: guardrails, enablers and public engagement. Governments should establish clear rules for the use of AI, develop internal expertise and involve citizens in the design and supervision of participation systems.

The central message is that AI should support democratic judgement, not replace it. Technology may be able to sort thousands of comments or translate contributions almost instantly, but decisions must remain accountable to people.

Used carefully, AI could help governments listen to more voices and respond more effectively. Used without sufficient transparency or oversight, it could damage the very trust that citizen participation is intended to build.

The Policy Brief, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Citizen Participation, can be downloaded from the Bertelsmann Stiftung website, here:- https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publications/publication/did/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-citizen-participation

BMBI, the barometer of sales to builders and trades, expands to 92% market coverage

The year 2023 is rounding off with a significant relaunch of the Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) report, now featuring builders’ merchants sales data to builders and trades people covering 92% of GB national sales, up from just over 80%.

Launched in 2015 as a brand of the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF), BMBI uses data from GfK’s ground-breaking Builders Merchants Panel, The panel captures generalist builders’ merchants’ sales throughout Great Britain to builders and trades people who are directly involved in repairing, maintaining, and improving Britain’s 27.7 million homes. 

The recent addition to the panel of Huws Gray, JT Dove and CMO Stores, mean the data now tracks the sales of 92% of builders’ merchant branches making it the most accurate, comprehensive monitor of market performance available.

The monthly BMBI report is well used by merchants, their larger customers and suppliers and is used by construction generally. It's also caught the attention of companies and organisations outside the construction industry, who want to know what’s happening, what’s important and why. The why is provided by leading brands of building materials, components and software, the BMBI Experts, who make sense of the trends and issues for readers.

The website is regularly visited by economists and advisors, the national media, big banks, big six accountants, management consultants, private equity investors, financial institutions and Government departments. Anyone in fact who needs to know the trends and what's driving the trends in a complicated, fragmented industry.

Across the pond, readership is growing rapidly, and the BMBI website gets regular hits from the US Senate, US State Department, individual senators, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to name only a few.

“Since its inception in 2014 GfK’s Builders Merchants leaderpanel has become a key market barometer through its usage in the BMBI,” says Emile van der Ryst, Key Account Manager – Trade & DIY at GfK – an NiQ company. “It’s become a reference point for industry leaders, financial institutions, and government organisations.

“After a relaunch of the data in 2020 we're now pleased to announce the latest relaunch, which came into effect with the October 2023 dataset. The key missing market contributor, Huws Gray, is now included for the first time alongside CMO Stores and JT Dove, both well-known market players.

“This is an exciting new chapter for the service which we believe is a crucial and vital step in providing a relevant and important view of the market, especially in these challenging economic conditions.”

Mike Rigby, MD of MRA Research which produces the BMBI report says: “Once you track over 90% of builders’ merchants’ sales of building materials to builders and tradespeople the numbers are, practically speaking, the market itself, not an estimate or approximation of it. That’s a crucial distinction. It’s not like a survey or poll which takes only a small slice of the market, which is intended to represent the market, and then scales it up. However sound your sampling and rigorous your methodology, there’s a world of difference between scaling up from a small sample, and reporting on 92% of actual sales to the market.”

“The relaunch in the October BMBI report,” confirms BMF CEO John Newcomb, “is a significant step forward in establishing reliable statistics across construction. The BMF’s Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) is the closest measure there is of Britain’s small builder and trades market, and the best proxy we have to the important residential RMI (Repair, Maintain, and Improve) market.

“BMBI is as accurate a measure of the market as it’s possible to get. That’s one reason we call GfK’s Builders Merchants leaderpanel, ‘gold standard’ data. And it’s why so many decision makers and influencers regularly spend so much time poring over the reports and video debates from the BMBI Experts on www.bmbi.co.uk.”

How does your business cope with the flow of information to your potential customers?

Information used to move slowly, through traditional advertising, traditional journalists; from printing press onto paper, into the shops, onto the billboards and then to your customers. Now it's around the world in a second, and back again!

And it's not through traditional journalists either: your customers are out there right now, all over the marketplaces, speaking to each other about your products: recommending, reviewing, ranting and raving.

And they're talking about your competitors, too. And as soon as your competitor offers something better, something faster, cheaper, bigger, smaller, more colourful, who knows what, those very same customers are suddenly the mouthpieces and champions of your nemesis!

This information also moves around the online marketplace faster, a lot faster in fact, than a speeding bullet.

As an online retailer, the question you need to ask yourself is: Am I in a position to respond to customer trends in a world where information travels this fast?

If your retail technology doesn't have the customer at its very core, then sadly the answer is no.

Your internal philosophy has the customer at its heart, right? If you don't have a system that equally does, prepared for and empowering the growth you deserve, then what's the point?

Equip your retail systems for high growth with a free consultation from Open Plus.