How can a city improve the way it listens, responds and serves its people? For a megacity like Beijing, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming part of the answer.

Through the "Swift Response to Public Complaints" reform, Beijing's 12345 citizen hotline has handled 180 million requests from residents and enterprises over the past seven years, with a resolution rate of 97.3% and a satisfaction rate of 97.7%.

Today, AI is making the 24/7 service smarter. Inside the hotline center, large screens display real-time service data. Charts show call volumes by time period.

Operators can track daily, weekly and monthly indicators, including incoming calls, workload and connection rates.

Each operator works with a dual-screen setup. The main screen handles calls, records requests and generates service cases.  

The other provides access to a knowledge database, allowing operators to quickly search for policies and solutions while speaking.

The AI assistant helps operators recognize callers' intentions, convert speech into text, generate service records, and recommend the right departments for follow-up, allowing staff to focus more on listening and solving problems.

By reducing repetitive tasks, AI allows operators to spend more time understanding people's real needs.

The technology gives the city sharper eyes, faster responses and a deeper understanding, addressing everyday public needs with smarter solutions.