From Council Plans to Procurement Insights: Practical Ways AI Can Support Better Work

AI is quickly moving from an abstract future concept to a practical workplace conversation, and that shift was clear at every Local Government Procurement Networking Event I attended across Tamworth, Coffs Harbour, Canberra, Orange, Sydney and Albury.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to present The Productivity Shift: Simple Ways AI Can Help You Work Better, with each session reinforcing the same message: councils are becoming more focused on how AI can support real work in practical and responsible ways.

The questions are no longer just about whether to explore AI. They are becoming more useful and grounded: where can it save time, what information is appropriate to use, and how can it support better work without replacing good judgement?

The opportunity in existing council plans

The networking sessions focused on a simple idea: AI does not always require new systems, complicated technology or entirely new ways of working.

Sometimes, the opportunity is in the documents and information councils already have.

Community Strategic Plans, Delivery Programs and Operational Plans contain valuable information about community priorities, organisational commitments and future activities. The challenge is not whether the information exists. It is the time required to read it, find what matters and translate it into something useful.

Could AI help identify the key themes within a lengthy plan?

Could it help connect strategic priorities with project delivery?

Could it provide an initial view of future procurement activity?

These were some of the practical questions explored during the sessions.

From strategy to procurement planning

One demonstration used a publicly available Community Strategic Plan to identify major themes and consider what they could mean for everyday project delivery.

Themes such as resilient infrastructure, environmental sustainability and local economic participation were then used to prompt early procurement questions:

• What whole-of-life requirements should be considered?
• Should sustainability expectations be reflected in the specification?
• Could local participation, social value or supply-chain considerations be relevant?

The purpose was not to ask AI to develop strategy or make decisions. It was to help surface relevant information and create a starting point for discussion.

A second demonstration used a Delivery Program and Operational Plan to organise existing commitments into a preliminary view of activities that might require future procurement.

From there, AI helped structure early thinking around timeframes, project dependencies and potential procurement workload. It was also used to identify possible specification guardrails, including work health and safety, service levels, reporting, sustainability, commissioning, handover and whole-of-life value.

The result was not a completed procurement plan or tender specification. It was a clearer starting point that still needed local knowledge, professional expertise and the right review processes.

That distinction matters.

In other words, AI helped move the thinking forward without taking the decision-making away from people.

Small shifts can create meaningful value

One of my strongest reflections from the networking events was that productivity does not always require major transformation.

It can begin with a small improvement to a regular task.

Saving time when reviewing a plan, preparing an internal briefing, summarising a meeting or structuring the first version of a document may appear modest. But when those tasks are repeated across teams and throughout the year, the collective benefit can be significant.

This is particularly important in local government, where teams regularly work across complex documentation, competing priorities and significant governance responsibilities.

Starting with the right task

For organisations beginning to explore AI, the best first step may also be the simplest: choose one low-risk, repeatable task involving information that is appropriate to use.

This might include asking an approved AI tool to:

• summarise a publicly available plan
• identify commitments relevant to a project

A simple prompting rule shared during the sessions was:

Be clear about what you want the tool to do and how you want the response presented.

For example:

“Using this publicly available Community Strategic Plan, identify the three themes most relevant to infrastructure procurement. Present the response as a table showing the theme, why it matters and where it appears in the plan. Use only information contained in the document.”

The response should then be checked against the source, refined with local knowledge and progressed through normal review and approval processes.

Keeping people and purpose at the centre

One of the biggest takeaways from these sessions is that AI is most valuable when it supports the work people are already trying to do.

There was a real sense of curiosity in the room at each event. Not just about what AI can do, but about how it could help teams save time, make better use of existing information and create more space for the work that needs human experience, context and care.

The shift has already begun. The opportunity now is to take that interest and turn it into practical, thoughtful action that helps councils work smarter, support their teams and continue delivering value for the communities they serve.

Written by: Adita Das, Project Coordinator, LGP