Inside Dublin City Council’s AI Lab

About this episode

The episode explores the practical applications of AI within Dublin City Council's AI Lab, focusing on data readiness and its impact on public sector efficiency.

What does AI actually look like inside a local authority? In this episode of Transform Gov, Dublin City Council’s AI Lab team — Khizer Ahmed Biyabani and Richie Shakespeare — explain how they are moving beyond AI hype to deliver practical tools that improve consistency, save time and build trust. From preventing contradictory council answers to searching decades of records in seconds, they share what works, what doesn’t, and why 80% of AI success comes down to data. Why Listen How AI prevents conflicting public-sector responses Turning 1990s PDFs into instant search results Training 500+ staff and shifting sentiment from fear to confidence Why data readiness matters more than the AI itself Timeline 00:00 — What the AI Lab is and why it exists 03:30 — Why a sandbox approach matters 11:30 — Training 500+ staff and changing AI sentiment 21:27 — “Ctrl+F on steroids”: AI for council questions 22:04 — Searching records back to the 1990s 24:29 — The truth: data preparation is 80% of the work 27:00 — Building control use cases and operational impact 32:40 — Scaling AI safely in local government AI in government, digital transformation, local government innovation, generative AI, public…

People in this episode

Host: Maeve Kneafsey

Guests: Khizer Ahmed Biyabani, Richie Shakespeare

Topics covered

• AI in government
• digital transformation
• local government innovation
• public sector technology
• data governance

Keywords

• AI
• local authority
• data preparation
• public sector
• smart cities
• digital government

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Dublin City Council

Places: Ireland

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