Our January 2026 Semiannual Update introduces a suite of products and capabilities designed to meet these needs. Over the last six months, we’ve focused our efforts on harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to automate routine tasks, deepening data integration for better decision-making, and providing specialized support for federal agencies. Whether you manage a small municipality or a large federal department, these updates provide the infrastructure you need to serve your community effectively.
Innovating with purpose: The rise of intelligent agents
The most significant shift in our January update centers on how agencies interact with the public through automation. We’re moving beyond simple chatbots to deploy sophisticated, context-aware agents.
GXA channel expansion: SMS, voice, and social (Preview)
Granicus plans to expand Government Experience Agent (GXA) to make it easier for residents to interact conversationally using their preferred channels, including WhatsApp threads. With this update to GXA, residents will be able to use voice commands to submit requests and ask questions or transfer to a live agent. This expansion makes resident-to-agency interactions via GXA more natural, intuitive, and convenient by providing multichannel options for engagement without having to type out a narrative — reducing friction and providing more accessible options.
GXA: Workflow agents (Preview)
The GXA platform sets the standard for accurate, secure, empathetic, and responsible AI in the public sector. We are now introducing a suite of workflow AI agents to GXA to help agencies redefine what is possible in resident and staff interactions using advanced AI orchestration. The new agents combine conversational generative AI with task classification and routing, tightly integrating across key systems of records to elevate public-facing and staff experiences with reliable, real-time service delivery and complex workflow automation.
Unlike traditional bots that rely on rigid scripts, workflow agents use adaptive reasoning and contextual understanding to handle complex, nuanced questions. They can also leverage multiple data sources and tools to speed up service access, reduce friction, and provide accurate, personalized answers. If a resident needs to submit a pothole service request or understand the trash pickup schedule for their address, GXA collects real-time data like location or images to resolve the query immediately. When a resident wants to stay informed, GXA enables them to swiftly locate and interpret details about the city council, planning commission, budget committee, and other public gatherings.
This AI workflow platform — built with orchestration to coordinate activities across multiple agents — reduces the burden on your front-line staff and allows them to focus on complex cases that require human empathy and judgment. And with continuous optimization from our team of experience experts, you get more than technology — you gain confidence in adopting AI at your own pace, aligned to your most critical outcomes.
GXI Professional
The Government Experience Insights (GXI) suite is growing to include GXI Professional, designed to empower agencies with actionable, data-driven insights that drive meaningful outcomes. GXI Professional breaks down data silos, curating insights across digital service delivery, audience engagement, and operational performance. By leveraging advanced AI and behavioral telemetry, it transforms raw data into clear, actionable recommendations tailored to each agency’s goals. With a focus on continuous improvement, GXI Professional enables agencies to diagnose challenges, track progress, and optimize their use of the Government Experience Cloud (GXC) platform, ensuring every insight leads to measurable impact.
Unifying the citizen view with Granicus Customer Data Platform (CDP)
Siloed data remains a primary barrier to effective government service. When resident data lives in disconnected systems, agencies struggle to understand the full scope of a citizen’s needs.
Granicus CDP (Preview)
The initial release of the Granicus CDP will enable users to build segmented audiences using demographic attributes and rich metadata, and activate those otherwise inaccessible, highly targeted email lists for personalized outreach campaigns through Engagement Cloud. In future releases, the Granicus CDP will break down data silos and create a unified profile for each resident. This platform will aggregate interactions from emails, website visits, service requests, and public meetings into a single, secure view.
With the Granicus CDP, you move from reactive service to proactive engagement. If a resident frequently interacts with the same department and content — such as parks and recreation or social services — you can tailor future communications to align with their interests. This holistic view enables you to deliver relevant information to the right people at the right time, fostering trust and increasing satisfaction with public services.
Elevating the federal standard
Federal agencies operate under unique constraints, requiring solutions that meet the highest standards of security and scalability.
Federal Experience Cloud (FXC)
We developed Federal Experience Cloud specifically to address the complexities of the federal landscape. This dedicated environment combines our most powerful engagement and communications tools into a suite authorized for federal use.
Federal Experience Cloud streamlines how agencies deliver digital services. It combines technology, analytics, and expert services to make outreach smarter and more efficient, helping agencies reach the right people, understand their needs, and guide them through complex processes efficiently and securely.
Federal Experience Cloud integrates secure authentication methods, ensuring citizen data remains protected while simplifying access to benefits and services. By consolidating these tools, we help federal partners reduce IT sprawl, lower maintenance costs, and deploy new digital services faster than ever before.
Product taxonomy update
Last year, we began the process of simplifying our product names for a more descriptive taxonomy. You’ve likely seen those new names in use on our site and in our guides and success stories; soon, you’ll be seeing them in-app, as well.
You can find a quick rundown of the new taxonomy in our last semiannual update and a full explanation of each new capability name in this blog.
Enhancing core capabilities
Beyond our major launches, this update includes numerous enhancements across the Granicus platform to improve daily operations and system reliability.
AI-Powered Search Summaries
Later this year, Granicus is introducing AI-Powered Search Summaries to its Website & CMS solutions, a breakthrough capability designed to help government agencies deliver answers faster and more accurately.
Imagine a resident asking, “How do I apply for a business license?” Instead of scrolling through pages of content, AI-Powered Search Summaries instantly delivers a clear, concise answer — saving time for both citizens and staff. Powered by GXA, with built-in guardrails to ensure safe interactions, this capability will help agencies reduce call volume, improve self-service, and make every interaction more accessible and effortless.
Improved reporting dashboards
We updated our reporting interface to provide clearer insights into engagement metrics. New visualization widgets allow you to track email open rates, website traffic, and meeting attendance trends at a glance. You can now schedule automated reports to share key performance indicators with leadership, ensuring transparency in your operations.
Strengthened security protocols
Security remains our top priority. The January update introduces stricter authentication protocols for administrative access. We also expanded our audit logs, giving IT directors a more detailed history of system changes and user activities. These updates ensure you remain compliant with evolving cybersecurity mandates.
Accessibility refinements
We refined our public-facing templates to meet updated accessibility standards. These changes ensure digital content created within our systems works seamlessly with screen readers and other assistive technologies. By prioritizing accessibility, we help you make government services available to every member of the community, regardless of their ability.
More updates to the government experience solutions you rely on
Granicus developed new capabilities for our customers across the areas of Engagement & Sentiment, Customer Service, Governance & Transparency, Regulatory & Compliance, and Simpleview (destination marketing solutions).
Each capability listed is noted as “Available,” meaning it is currently available for use, or “Preview,” indicating the capability is planned for a coming release.
Innovative engagement solutions that elevate security, deliver data-driven insights, streamline participant management, and foster inclusive, impactful community engagement through advanced feedback collection, analytics, and seamless integration.
Updates include Granicus’ Communications, Sentiment & Feedback, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Websites & CMS capabilities.
AI-Powered Text Analysis (Preview): Analyze large volumes of qualitative, open-ended community feedback to identify themes and quantify trends. New capabilities will include automated bulk thematic categorization; AI sentiment summary; manual control to edit, delete, or move themes; and easy export options.
Participatory Budgeting (Preview): Empower residents to shape public spending to foster transparency, shared ownership, and better results for everyone. Create a community board with upcoming projects and initiatives, define the available budget limits, and allow the community to allocate points or dollar value to each board item, giving the community a voice in how public funds are spent.
Phishing Resistant MFA for Subscribers (Available): Increase security measures, ensure compliance, and simplify citizen access to online services with phishing resistant multi-factor authentication for subscribers. (Compliant with federal requirements under M-22-09.)
Fees and Charges Module (Available): Simplifies the creation and maintenance of various fees that municipalities might assess. Create, manage, and update fees and charges dynamically throughout the service lifecycle, streamlining management, improving transparency for residents, and reducing administrative workloads. Includes bulk fee import, a searchable interface, and WYSIWYG for fee data.
Document Libraries (Preview): Streamline the process of displaying and organizing large volumes of documents in a searchable interface, saving administrators time, improving consistency and usability, and supporting transparency by making public documents easier to manage, organize, and access.
Agenda OE Integration (Preview): Display Agenda OE events on the Websites & CMS VE calendar widget, providing a more complete view of all scheduled meetings and events in an automated process. Will include automated syncing and inclusion of Agenda OE events and filterable categorization of meetings and events.
Innovative end-to-end service delivery enhancements, including generative AI experiences, seamless business process automation, and increased visibility into actionable data insights, to break down barriers between residents and the services they rely on and to empower efficiency gains and error reduction for government staff.
Updates include the Forms & Workflow and Service Request Management capabilities.
GXA Service Request Integrations (Preview): Allow residents to create, track, and manage service requests through a single conversational interface with GXA integrations for OneView and govService (Firmstep). This new digital enabled automation — powered by advanced capabilities like intent detection, image analysis, and ESRI maps — allows citizens and customer service teams to resolve requests faster and with smarter workflows without having to navigate multiple systems.
Forms Publishing Review (Available): Ensure clarity and consistency across all published forms — right inside the Forms & Workflow capability — with an added governance review step. Administrators can review and edit minor issues or send major changes back with notes as part of the scheduled workflow.
Updated Login Experience (Preview): The new login user interface for Forms & Workflow improves the customer experience while laying the foundation for the upcoming single sign-on (SSO) integration.
Reports — Formerly Insights (Available): Keep track of your digital transformation and ROI with purpose-built Forms & Workflow Reports. Includes high-level summaries and exportable detailed data, as well as governance and payment insights for compliance audits and budgeting needs.
Enterprise-Grade Identity Management (Available): Secure, scalable, future-ready authentication for Service Request Management (Firmstep), covering all migration activities to standard Azure External Identities for UK and US customers.
Real-Time Reporting Additions (Available): Turn your complex data into actionable insights in real time. Integrate ticket data, PII fields, group structure, channel, and decreased data into Amazon Redshift via event-driven pipeline. Includes improved UX/UI, query performance, and stability sorts, as well as performance enhancements for real-time reporting workflows.
Case Viewer Enhancements (Available): The redesigned, mobile-responsive experience gives agencies the tools to manage complex cases efficiently and reduce operational risk. Includes accordion-style grouping, favorites/pin option, and expanded case display.
Cyber Essentials Certification (Available): Proactive, strengthened cybersecurity compliance helps UK agencies meet mandatory requirements, safeguard sensitive data, and work confidently with certified partners.
Employ best-in-market public meeting and record request management solutions alongside superior experience services and deep data insights to ensure compliance and recover valuable staff time for high-priority projects.
Updates include Agenda, Meeting, Video, Boards & Commissions, and Records Request Management capabilities.
GXA Minutes and Agenda Integrations (Preview): Help residents easily understand local government minutes and agendas with a new AI-powered conversational agent that directly integrates to Agenda LE (Legistar). This update transforms complex public meeting documentation into simple, accessible answers by surfacing meeting schedules, agenda items and item history, voting records, decisions, and roll-call details in clear, plain language, reducing staff workloads by automating common inquiries with verified answers.
Self-Managed Video Captioning (Preview): Avoid costly non-compliance penalties and lawsuits and expand access to important public meeting information with automated closed captioning for live and on-demand video. New features will include real-time AI-generated captioning, multi-language support, and searchable captions to ensure compliance and accessibility (WCAG 2.1AA standards).
Self-Managed Video Built-In Network Diagnostic Tool (Available): The Network Readiness Check feature within the Osprey UI verifies whether all required Granicus parts and services are accessible for successful streaming. This tool helps customers quickly identify network configuration issues that can prevent streams from starting or performing reliably.
Agenda Management Feature Additions (Preview): Customer-requested improvements, including addition of a Microsoft Excel export feature for Agenda LE, making it easier than ever to sort, filter, manipulate, and analyze information outside the application, and custom item numbering in Agenda PE, allowing users to create and manage multiple customer numbering formats and assign them to specific file types, including different prefixes, patterns, or numbering rules.
Public Portal Document Search and Accessibility (Preview): Customer-requested improvements, including enhanced, full-text document search on the public View Page in MediaManager (MeMa) and WCAG 2.2-compliant public portal in Agenda OE.
Request Forum (Preview): Ditch the scattered notes and emails and collaborate faster with internal, threaded conversations. Staff can post, reply, and keep context tied to the request through a modern, chat-style interface. Includes @mentions for clarity and exportable history for audits or litigation.
Build a stronger community with digital permitting, licensing, compliance, planning and development, and code enforcement tools that ensure public safety, drive economic growth, and improve the customer experience.
Updates include the Short-term Rentals and Permitting, Compliance, and Licensing (PCL) capabilities.
User Interface Improvements (Preview): Updates to PCL Enterprise (AMANDA) will modernize the back-office, collaboration, and administration UI so users get a more intuitive experience that reduces effort and supports future enhancements.
Advanced People Search (Preview): New search attributes — People Role and Folder Type — in PCL Enterprise will enable quick identification to easily distinguish between people with the same name and confidently select the correct individual to attach to a license or permit, reducing errors and improving efficiency.
API Gateway (Preview): Improved system integrations with PCL Enhanced (SmartGov) will include a more secure API solution to pass financial and other data between systems. The upgrade will also include versioning and rate limiting to better support seamless integrations.
Citizen Portal Redesign (Available): PCL Enhanced’s new simplified, intuitive portal experience guides citizens through the application process with cleaner navigation, better information architecture, and more user-friendly workflows.
Digital Plan Integration (Preview): Additional API endpoints within PCL Enhanced and coordinated vendor-side (Avolve) integration ensures stability and compatibility in electronic plan review workflows.
New Mobile Inspection App (Preview): The new inspection app for PCL Enhanced (currently in Beta) establishes a foundational mobile experience that enables inspectors to work efficiently in the field.
Complainant Address for Hotline (Available): Capture complainant’s address when reporting issues through the telephone hotline, improving data accuracy, completeness, and regulatory compliance on an ongoing basis.
Confidently keep up with the ever-evolving tourism and events industry using advanced customer relationship management (CRM), content management system (CMS), data and insights offerings, and expert destination marketing services, along with a suite of purpose-built tools and partner integrations.
Updates include capabilities across the Destination Solutions product suite.
MINT+ Meeting Match (Preview): Meeting Match helps destination management organizations (DMOs) focus on the right meetings, with smarter relevance scoring, profile-level matching to reduce inactive or misaligned meetings, and clear indicators showing when a meeting is known, favorited, rejected, or synced to CRM.
Ticketed Event Feed Integration with CMS (Available): The ticketed event integration for venue customers now provides more consistent updates — on an hourly basis — to better support the announcement of new events with minimal delay between the ticketing office and website. Additional updates offer the ability to overwrite specific event information, including images and description details.
Extranet Integration with Data Engine (Available): New feature enables self-service, partner-specific reporting embedded directly into the Extranet experience. Users can now configure a single report and scale it across all hotel partners.
Document Canvas with Data Engine (Preview): Create reports with fully customizable layouts using a drag-and-drop canvas to spotlight the most important data, improving clarity, brand alignment, and storytelling while increasing efficiency for staff.
Customizable Booker Detail Pages in Eventsforce (Available): The main booker details page is now fully customizable, with the ability to add or remove questions, insert custom text, and adjust the page layout to suit users’ workflows. Booking details have been consolidated into a single page that includes questions.
Enhanced UTM Parameters in Eventsforce (Available): The “Add Link Tool” has been updated to allow event organizers to add UTM parameters to email links. Parameters are now preserved when attendees access event websites, preventing loss of campaign data.
Abstract Submissions in Groups and Ticketing in Eventsforce (Preview): Collect, review, and assign session outlines and details directly into event programs with an end-to-end abstracts workflow all in one system. The upgrade will allow for flexible online reviewing and the ability to assign abstracts directly to sessions in the event program without re-keying or duplication.
Microservices MyApps (Preview): All Simpleview solutions will be available in one place, MyApps, allowing users to centrally manage their profile information, view all products they have access to, and manage security and other settings.
Want to stay up to date on the latest features and enhancements?
Check out our
Product Release Notes for detailed updates and notifications about what’s new at Granicus.
Looking ahead
The progress detailed in the January 2026 Semiannual Update reflects our commitment to empowering government leaders. By integrating intelligent automation, unified data, and secure federal solutions, we provide the foundation for a more responsive and efficient public sector.
We invite you to explore these new features and consider how they can transform your agency’s operations. As you implement these tools, we remain dedicated to supporting your mission to deliver superior government experiences.
For detailed documentation on these updates, please visit the Granicus Support Portal or contact your success consultant to schedule a walkthrough.
