Name in original language
Cali ResuelVÉ. Librería de Conocimiento
Initiative overview
Santiago de Cali, Colombia’s third largest city with approximately 2.5 million inhabitants, faces persistent challenges in reducing delays and inconsistencies in citizen attention. The City’s One-Stop Window operates across in-person, phone, and virtual channels, managing around 1,000 daily requests. The city’s institutional offering comprises 225 procedures, 36 other administrative processes and 3 public information access queries. Fragmented information sources and lack of uniform guidance have historically generated delays, confusion, and reduced trust in public institutions.
To address this issue, the City—through the Department of Administrative Development and Institutional Innovation (DADII), with support from the IDB’s Knowledge for Results (K4R) initiative—implemented the Knowledge Library. The solution emerged from a Lean/Kaizen diagnosis of citizen service processes, combining continuous improvement, institutional knowledge management and AI to strengthen frontline staff capabilities. The initiative consists of a virtual assistant powered by large language models (LLM) combined with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
In its first phase, the tool supports public servants working across all citizen attention channels, providing immediate access to consistent and updated official information on procedures and administrative requirements. The system uses artificial intelligence to understand questions posed in natural language and generate relevant, context-aware responses in real time. Its outputs are grounded exclusively in verified institutional data, supporting accuracy and reliability. By design, it is not fully generative, preserving human oversight and maintaining the central role of frontline officials in citizen interaction. This creates an “augmented humanity” approach in which AI acts as a cognitive co-actor, supporting public servants by combining technological efficiency with human judgement and empathy.
The initiative aims to reduce response times, improve consistency of information, and strengthen institutional knowledge management. By enhancing the capacity of public officials, it contributes to more transparent and accessible government processes. A second phase, currently under development (by October 2026), will support post-earthquake recovery by integrating information on procedures and assistance pathways established by municipal entities for affected residents. The library may subsequently evolve into a broader digital tool (chatbot) accessible directly to citizens, offering a scalable and trustworthy example of AI adoption in subnational government.
