Three practical ways AI could save your council time next week

You know that being a part of a busy local council means wearing more hats than most people could ever imagine.

One moment you’re preparing agendas, minutes or reports. The next moment you’re handling finance or audit. You might be focused on delivering the council's services, responding to a resident’s query, advising councillors, or keeping policies up to date.

That’s before you even get to the communications side of the role:

• Newsletters

• Updating the website

• Social media

• Engagement exercises

• Public meetings

• Press releases

  
  

Many council staff we speak with say the same thing: there are simply never enough hours in the day.

That’s where AI is helping. Not as a replacement for professional judgement or local knowledge, but as a way to take some of the weight off. Here are three practical ways councils are already using AI tools:

1. Capturing Notes and Actions

Do you ever finish a staff meeting with pages of notes and the task of having to shape them into accurate and concise action points?

AI transcription tools can take a recording and turn it into a full transcript, with key moments highlighted and action lists created.

Tools that can help include:

• Otter.ai is particularly good if you want to search back through a conversation later; type in a keyword and jump straight to that section of the meeting.

• Fireflies.ai integrates neatly with Teams and Zoom, so meetings are recorded, transcribed and stored automatically.

  
  

Tip to get started: try using these tools just for one meeting a month at first. Compare the AI draft with your own notes and actions. You’ll quickly see how much time you could save.

2. Finding the Right Words for Social Media

Do you ever get a creative block, wondering what to post on the council's social media?

AI writing tools can suggest post ideas, give you a few versions of the same caption, or even rework a longer piece (such as a press release) into a short social media update.

Tools that can help include:

• Canva’s Magic Write sits right inside the popular online design platform, so you can generate social media captions as you create social media graphics.

• Grammarly not only helps with spelling and grammar, it can also refine social media posts so they read clearly and strike the right tone.

Tip to get started: take a council update you’ve already written (e.g. a newsletter story) and drop it in. Ask the tool to create three versions of a social media post. Even if you only use one, you’ll (rarely) need to start from scratch again.

3. Making Complex Information Easier to Digest

Do you ever need to turn a long report, dense spreadsheet or report into something summarised that councillors, residents or stakeholders can more easily digest?

AI can pull out the key points, suggest headings, and create a short summary you can then refine.

Tools that can help include:

• ChatGPT can take a block of text and produce a plain-English summary in under a minute. You can even ask it to “explain this for a non-specialist audience.”

• Microsoft Copilot works directly inside Word, Outlook and Excel, so you can highlight a section of text or a spreadsheet and ask it to summarise.

Tip to get started: pick a single document you know well, paste it in, and compare the AI’s summary with what you’d produce yourself. The first time you see it cut an hour’s work down to ten minutes, you’ll know where it fits best.

None of these tools take away the expertise, care or local knowledge you bring. But they can return something that’s often in short supply in many local councils: time, clarity and a little more breathing space.

Remember that best practice is to be careful about what 'personal data' you put into any kind into AI software or tools. Make sure you're aware of how each AI tool uses the personal data that you do share with it.

We’d love to hear how you’re using AI in your council. If you’ve found a tool or approach that saves time or makes life easier, let us know by emailing hello@breakthroughcomms.co.uk.