With the tournament moving to North America in 2026 (the United States, Canada, and Mexico will share hosting duties) it presents both a challenge and an opportunity for cities.
The 2026 World Cup will expand from 32 to 48 teams, bringing in an estimated 6 million attendees, with 75% coming from abroad. Cities must not only prepare for the influx of people but also know how to communicate with them once they arrive. While English is the world’s most spoken language, one study shows 37 languages with at least 50 million speakers worldwide.
While this might seem daunting, there is hope thanks to artificial intelligence.
Meet the multilingual challenge head on
With millions of visitors converging on host cities for the World Cup 2026, the volume and diversity of communication needs will far exceed standard operations. Visitors will rely on city services, transit guidance, safety alerts, and venue logistics, often in languages other than English.
At the same time, city staff face a spike in inbound requests, questions at kiosks, overburdened phone lines, and on-site information desks. Without a modern solution, the risk of gaps multiplies.
By deploying a multilingual, always-on digital agent, cities can proactively address visitor needs. Many inquiries can be resolved via self-service, freeing staff for more complex issues. Visitors who receive clear, timely responses are more likely to feel confident, follow guidance, and contribute to a safe, positive event atmosphere. And that benefits both visitors and host-city residents.
Government Experience Agent (GXA) is purpose-built for government, unlike generic chatbots. With integrations into the broader Government Experience Cloud (GXC), it draws on validated, jurisdiction-specific content and supports multilingual, plain-language responses.
For a World Cup host city that means:
- Instant visitor chat support in dozens of languages covering stadium directions, transit schedules, safety protocols, and service inquiries.
- Seamless fallback to human agents for nuanced or high-priority cases.
- Data-driven insights into visitor queries, enabling cities to refine communications over time.
Deploying GXA to deliver the visitor experience
To start, the city must consolidate its source content — such as transit info, venue guides, emergency instructions, and local service directories — into a format the agent can reference. Since GXA allows customization via admin console, agencies maintain policy consistency and brand alignment.
With more than 100 languages supported by GXA, host cities can proactively address non-English-speaking visitors. The agent’s plain-language, human-tone responses help reduce misunderstanding and confusion.
Inquiry volumes will surge on match days and fan-zones. GXA’s 24/7 availability allows cities to scale support without recruiting new staff overnight. City call centers and information booths handle fewer routine queries, focusing instead on high-impact situations.
GXA provides analytics on user intent, content gaps, and service bottlenecks. Cities can monitor what visitors ask most often, refine source content, and adjust workflows — making the system smarter, faster, and more reliable over time.
Integrating with city services and workflows
The digital agent also connects with city services beyond the event: parking queries, transit disruptions, lost-and-found, emergency alerts, and public health advisories. Using GXA, host cities extend their digital service delivery capability across the board.
During the World Cup, service requests and inquiries will spike. GXA helps triage them by directing users to self-service portals, submitting form requests, or routing them to the correct department. That prevents overload in legacy systems and ensures visitors and residents get guidance when they need it.
When a visitor needs to report a lost passport, get transit directions in Arabic, or understand a crowd-control announcement in Uzbek, GXA can step in. This helps cities meet the needs of residents and visitors, boost safety, and foster a more inclusive experience.
Preparing your city for 2026 and beyond
Host cities should begin curating multilingual content ahead of time: venue maps, transit instructions, safety questions, accommodation info, FAQ sets. Preparing this content allows the agent to hit the ground running.
Not all inquiries are routine. Cities must identify when GXA should escalate to human agents, when service requests should route to departments, and how system alerts tie into agency operations. Clear workflows reduce confusion during high-stress game-day moments.
Track usage volumes, languages used, error rates, and user satisfaction. Use these metrics to refine content, identify trending issues (for example, transportation bottlenecks), and improve both the digital agent and service operations.
While the World Cup is finite, the infrastructure built for it can serve the city long after. The multilingual communications platform, AI-driven support, and integrated service workflows all contribute to a stronger, more connected government. The investment becomes part of your future digital-service backbone, not just a one-time event tool.
