Polimill builds Japan's next-generation public AI infrastructure

A startup built a generative AI platform for municipal government work in Japan, designed to make public-sector operations more efficient by centralizing and organizing fragmented administrative information across thousands of municipalities. The platform addresses a structural problem where government employees spend so much time on daily operations that they have little capacity to incorporate citizen input into policymaking. The system uses OpenAI's technology to provide specialized AI tools for tasks like assembly responses and legal searches, and is now used by about 1,050 municipalities and roughly 550,000 public employees across Japan. The startup's approach of creating a common foundation rather than separate tools aims to prevent service gaps between municipalities and support Japan's government during a worsening labor shortage.