The Village of Oak Park, Illinois, is embracing cutting-edge public sector technologies, launching Oak Parker,” an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered resident engagement solution that now acts as the government’s always-open, always-welcoming front door.
Oak Parker recently debuted to the village community — built on Granicus’ public sector tuned Government Experience Agent (GXA) — designed to quickly and accurately answer community questions 24/7 without staff intervention. In its first weekend live, the tool handled dozens of resident interactions that would have otherwise required staff attention during business hours and multiple follow-up calls and in-person visits for the residents.
The launch is an excellent example of how to quickly and intentionally operationalize AI solutions while ensuring security and accuracy at scale.
The secrets to Oak Park’s strategy:
- Improved service: Viewing AI as a tangible opportunity, not a novelty trend, with real potential to better meet resident needs.
- Faster insights: Prioritizing the launch of GXA quickly but thoughtfully, bringing Oak Parker to life in just four weeks to deliver instant answers to residents.
- Better access: Understanding that real value comes through continuous iteration based on live interactions and feedback.
- Intentional use cases: Grounding the initiative in the goal of providing residents with 24/7 access to information and services, meeting them where they are, whenever they need support.
A smarter, savvier site
Oak Park had already invested in a modern website, built on the Granicus Service Cloud platform, but the chatbot helped surface a new layer of insight.
“The tool is already helping us optimize what we have on our site, there were things we assumed people knew of or knew how to find — and we’re learning that wasn’t always the case.”
Dan Yopchick
Chief Communications Officer
The team reviewed hundreds of pages during implementation, refining content and improving navigation based on how the agent interpreted real user questions. AI insights revealed gaps in how information was previously structured and accessed. What started as the deployment of an AI agent quickly became a broader content strategy exercise.
Unlike typical AI deployments, GXA’s standard implementation includes a robust User Acceptance Testing (UAT) process where Granicus experts work with government leaders to address 250–500 customized questions to rigorously test the agent’s responses. These questions are tailored to each customer’s local context and aligned with top resident inquiries, helping uncover content gaps and website issues while guiding future refinement. Customers can also conduct unlimited second-round testing, ensuring accuracy and consistency before moving forward.
The impact of 24/7 access on a community
Oak Park’s driving goal behind adopting GXA was expanding access. “We really wanted to be more accessible all the time,” Yopchick said. “If someone has a question at one or two in the morning, or over the weekend, they can get an answer right away.”
Initial data about early responses showed how important that access is to the public:
- Nearly half of interactions occurred outside regular business hours (weekends or after operating hours).
- More than 40% of interactions were from residents trying to complete a task, not just find information.
- 43% of all interactions were related to parking, permitting, and payments, with nearly a quarter of all questions focused on parking.
This highlights one of the most immediate benefits of AI-powered engagement: meeting residents where they are, on their schedule, while saving everyone time by addressing frequently asked questions. Oak Park also expects GXA will reduce call and email volume by resolving routine questions digitally, and free up staff to focus on more high-impact work.
Speed as a strategy
Similar government technology projects often stretch over months. The Oak Park team had no desire to follow typical timelines. Speed matters — not just for getting the service up and running quickly, but also for getting fast access to insights that help tune the experience during the early rollout.
Oak Park leaders made GXA an immediate priority — aligning teams early, streamlining decisions, and maintaining a disciplined focus on quality throughout the process. As a result, GXA was launched in roughly four weeks, driven by a clear need to build trust and demonstrate value quickly without sacrificing the rigor needed for long-term success.
“We wanted to get it live as quickly as possible and start collecting data to show how it’s being used and how it’s working,” said Yopchick.
The communications team coordinated across departments to divide work on content updates and dedicate the compressed timeline to thoughtful testing and refinement. Even after launch, the team approaches GXA as an evolving product, using early insights to continuously improve the experience.
Building confidence through real-world results
Like many communities, Oak Park’s leadership had questions about AI. To address these concerns, the village structured its rollout around measurable outcomes. “We’re looking at things like positive versus negative feedback, usage patterns, and where we can improve,” explained Yopchick. “Even when people leave negative feedback, it helps us make the system — and our content — better.”
Early results have been encouraging. Internal stakeholders — from department directors to a technology-focused citizen commission called the Civic Information Systems Commission — actively tested GXA and reported strong performance, even on nuanced or department-specific questions.
The system is improving continuously as this input comes in, creating a feedback loop that strengthens both the agent and the underlying content.
Better data, better answers, better service
A generic AI tool would not have worked for Oak Park. The village built Oak Parker with GXA because it is grounded in trusted, local data sources so its outputs are always accurate and relevant.
“It only responds when its confidence score meets a conservatively set threshold, ensuring the information closely matches the user’s question,” Yopchick wrote in a memo to the Village Board in December. “This approach minimizes the risk of ‘hallucinations’ and ensures responses remain grounded in verified agency data.”
In addition to its main website, the village incorporated multiple trusted sources — including its municipal code, business-focused content, and information from partner agencies like libraries and school districts. This cohesive approach addresses the common resident frustration of navigating fragmented government websites to get information from different sources. The agent acts as a unified access point, simplifying complex service ecosystems into a single conversational experience.
Some concerns were raised about whether the agent could distance residents from staff — a potential issue Yopchick was quick to address. Residents can still call or contact staff directly during business hours. But for quick, transactional questions, the agent provides an additional, convenient option. “There are always going to be people who want to call,” Yopchick noted. “But in an ideal world, more people can find what they need quickly online.”
A roadmap for other agencies
Oak Park’s experience offers a clear set of lessons for agencies looking to empower public service with help from an AI agent:
- Prioritize resident access: Design around how residents actually seek help, so they get answers faster and with less effort.
- Use launch prep to fix content gaps: Ensure you’re working with a team of public sector AI experts to test, catch, and correct missing, outdated, or conflicting information before it impacts residents.
- Pressure-test with tough stakeholders: Involve critical reviewers early to ensure the experience stands up to real scrutiny.
- Connect trusted sources for better answers: Integrate cross-department and local agency information to handle complex, real-world questions.
- Continuously improve with real data: Act on feedback and usage insights to refine and strengthen the experience over time.
“You go to non-government websites, and a lot of them have something like GXA. It’s become normal in our daily digital lives,” Yopchick said. “To be able to have that experience on a municipal site is a real advantage. It helps you optimize what you’re already doing and connects you to constituents in ways that maybe you haven’t been able to in the past.”
