How do you train an AI service agent for the public sector? Raleigh, North Carolina, CIO Mark Wittenburg likens it to onboarding a new employee. “You don't bring somebody on to the help desk and then immediately give them admin [permissions],” Wittenburg told Smart Cities Dive. “You slowly build trust over time.” Since Raleigh became the first municipality to deploy ServiceNow’s L1 AI Specialist product this past spring, its service desk costs and staff hours have declined, Wittenburg said. More public sector CIOs are exploring AI, surveys show, and providers promise big benefits for local governments. One of the tangible benefits of AI — and one government leaders seek the most — is improved efficiency. For Raleigh, the biggest time-saver has been in the service desk ticketing process, Wittenburg said. The city developed what Wittenburg describes as a “triage agent” named Ral-E. But instead of sorting trash and having space adventures like the animated robot that inspired its name, Ral-E makes sure city help desk tickets go where they’re supposed to — a process that used to be done manually. “For our help desk, which is very small, having those tickets go to the right place, to the right workflows, with the right templates, really is huge for us,” Wittenburg said. Wittenburg, who is on the ServiceNow product advisory committee, said he measures the success of new AI tools based on various factors, including time saved, work diverted and accuracy. So far, Ral-E is routing tickets correctly 98% to 99% of the time, he said. Ral-E was originally built as a chatbot for the city using generative AI with more advanced agentic AI elements incorporated later, according to Wittenburg. While generative AI can create content based on a user’s prompt, agentic AI is designed to make decisions with limited human