Apolitical just released their list The Government AI 100, which “celebrates the public servants from around the world leading on AI adoption, capacity building and regulation within government. From driving innovation to safeguarding ethical use, from India to Mexico, these leaders are focussed on delivering better outcomes for citizens.”
Apolitical is the world’s largest community of public servants, with a mission to build 21st century governments that work for people and the planet. Apolitical is used by 250,000 public servants and policymakers in 160 countries to find and share best practice through communities of peers, and to upskill with flexible online learning on 21st century government priorities.
I am thrilled and deeply honored to be recognized alongside so many inspiring and influential individuals shaping the future of AI in the public sector. This recognition is not just a personal milestone — it reflects the incredible work we achieve together at CityLAB Berlin and the Technologiestiftung Berlin. I am immensely grateful to my colleagues for their dedication, creativity, and shared commitment to driving innovation for the common good.
From Prototype to Best Practice
Although I have no idea how the selection process actually works, I suspect our inclusion has a lot to do with Parla, our AI assistant for handling written requests (Schriftliche Anfragen). Development kicked off in autumn 2023, culminating in a February 2024 release. Since then, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive — and plentiful.
Parla on a smartphone
Parla is the perfect prototype: it solves a pressing, real-world problem that government officials and politicians face almost daily — sifting through more than 14,000 documents to find useful information and compile a meaningful summary. With Parla, that process is dramatically faster. It’s also a shining example of how AI can make a tangible difference in everyday workflows, which has sparked dozens of inquiries from other administrations and organizations curious about how we made it all happen.
Our technology is easy to share (since Parla’s code is open source, just like everything we do at CityLAB), but perhaps even more compelling is how we navigated regulations. Privacy concerns and GDPR requirements loom large whenever government data is involved. Luckily, we could take a shortcut with Parla: the written requests are already publicly accessible on the PARDOK website of the Berlin parliament. This allowed us to use OpenAI’s API directly without needing to host our own large language model.
Since Parla’s release, we’ve developed many more AI-powered prototypes and hope to roll them out soon. Large language models are among the most disruptive technologies of the past decade, especially in the daily work of public servants. I’m excited to continue exploring cutting-edge tools to tackle real-world challenges and to share our insights with the broader community for better, smarter solutions.
That’s me :)
Check out all the amazing people on the 2025 list here: Apolitical: The Government AI 100.