Digital Innovation Initiative

Purpose

The City of Sandy Springs is at the forefront of digital innovation in mid-sized local government. Established in 2025, the City's Digital Innovation Initiative brings together the work of technical teams housed within multiple city departments under a unified digital transformation strategy.

At Sandy Springs, we are committed to using technology and innovation to deliver better services to our residents and improve how we work. Our approach is practical and focused on real results—we test new ideas, measure their impact, and scale what works.

Current Projects

AI-Powered Chatbot

Developed by the City’s Digital Development Team in partnership with BizzTech, the Sandy Springs AI Assistant is backed by a centralized knowledge base and can answer questions in natural language, guide website navigation, and enable resident self-service from any device, 24 hours a day. It is also multilingual, allowing residents to interact with the City in more than 100 languages.

AI Assistant User Guide

Developing the Sandy Springs AI Assistant

Enterprise AI

Encouraged by the success of the City’s 2025 AI Pilot and the 2,800 hours of staff time saved, the City scaled Artificial Intelligence for all Staff members in the summer of 2026. The City continues to evolve its governance frameworks, policies, and ensuring the responsible use of AI.

Digital Innovation Platform

The City is evaluating vendors to deliver a comprehensive solution for Ticketing, Asset Management, and Citizen Request Management. With a goal of transforming and improving the City’s service delivery, the platform would replace a legacy system with modern and integrated technology. Additional features would further improve collaboration across departments and allow for sharing data more accessible to the public, where appropriate.

The new platform will enable better customer service, improve information access, and provide a foundation for advanced analytics and AI. Vendor selection is anticipated to be completed in summer 2026 with implementation to begin immediately following.

AI-Assisted Permitting

Community Development staff, in partnership with the City’s permitting and licensing software vendor OpenGov, are collaborating on new AI features that aim to reduce the number of cycles a permit is reviewed on average. The first phase, focused on the intake of applications and documents, is under review with feedback and iteration to be completed by summer 2026.

Future phases will include plan and data quality followed by substantive review support which will continue to be developed throughout the latter part of 2026.

Overlook Park Bird Sightings Digital Signage System

Discover how the City digitized the traditional park bird sightings whiteboard utilizing publicly available bird sighting data. Read the City Blog Post (opens in new tab)

Media Coverage: GovTech (opens in new tab) | Route Fifty (opens in new tab) | Forbes (opens in new tab)

Agentic AI

Our Community Development Staff in partnership with the City’s Permitting and Licensing software vendor, OpenGov, are collaborating on new AI features that aim to reduce the number of cycles a permit is reviewed on average. The first phase, focused on the intake of applications and documents is under review with feedback and iteration to be completed by the end of June 2026.

Future phases will include plan and data quality followed by substantive review support which will continue to be developed throughout the latter part of 2026.

Initiative Structure

The Digital Innovation Initiative is led by the Director of Data Strategy, Analytics, and AI Integration, Keith McMellen.

Governance

There are multiple layers of governance including a Steering Committee and Technical Working Group. These groups meet monthly to set priorities, review use cases, and discuss policy matters.The Steering Committee sets the high-level objectives and strategies for the data management team. Membership is comprised of department leads and City Management. The Technical Working Group is the implementation arm for the Steering Committee, recommending solutions for the priorities. Members are from various levels and functions within the City.

Digital Development Team

The City's Digital Development Team (opens in new tab) is an interdepartmental group working within the City's Communications and IT departments. The team develops software and information systems that meet the unique needs of our organization and the citizens we serve.