Polimill built QommonsAI with OpenAI technology to support about 1,050 municipalities and evolve into a next-generation public OS.

Polimill began with Surfvote, a platform where citizens can exchange views about politics and society. As the company worked with local governments, it saw a structural challenge: public-sector teams were consumed by daily operations and had little time to reflect citizens' voices in policy.

To expand civic participation, Polimill first needed to make government work itself more efficient. The company started building a generative AI platform for public-sector workflows and released QommonsAI in October 2024. Today, QommonsAI provides specialized AI across areas such as assembly response, public services, social welfare, and legal search. About 1,050 municipalities and about 550,000 public employees across Japan now use it. Built with OpenAI technology, QommonsAI is evolving beyond a staff productivity tool into what Polimill sees as a public OS for municipal work in Japan.

One of the biggest obstacles to bringing generative AI into government was fragmented data. Each municipality has its own workflows and document formats, and past records are scattered. For example, preparing assembly responses can require manually reviewing years of minutes to ensure an answer is consistent with prefectural policy. Even the most capable AI model cannot produce practical insight if the underlying data is not organized.

Polimill collected and standardized assembly minutes from across Japan, then used AI to add metadata and build a high-precision search foundation that works across municipalities and time periods.

The company expanded this structure beyond assemblies into welfare, laws, and other administrative domains.

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