Cities across the U.S. are reimagining how technology can drive smarter, faster and more sustainable growth. As communities race to modernize infrastructure and meet rising demands, artificial intelligence and agentic AI are emerging as transformative forces — enabling predictive maintenance, real-time citizen engagement and adaptive, data-driven governance built for the future.

In Texas, the city of Kyle illustrates this transformation vividly. Once a town of fewer than 10,000 residents just 15 years ago, it has surged past 70,000 — now ranked as the second-fastest-growing city in the U.S. To meet that rapid demand, city leaders are using AI to optimize public services, address infrastructure challenges and craft digital-first citizen experiences built for scale, according to Jesse Elizondo (pictured), assistant city manager at the City of Kyle in Texas.

The city of Kyle’s Jesse Elizondo discusses public sector AI implementation with theCUBE.

“Anyone in the public sector knows that when you have that kind of hockey stick growth, it puts stress on your infrastructure. It puts stress on your roads, on your water, on your wastewater,” Elizondo said. “But one thing most people don’t think about is that it puts stress on your software and your customer experience that you’re providing for your residents. As we continue to grow, we know that we not only need to fix the problem of this hockey stick growth we’ve had with residents about the customer experience, but also look toward the future, which is utilizing AI.”

Elizondo spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier and Gemma Allen at Dreamforce, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They talked about how the city of Kyle is modernizing citizen engagement, streamlining operations and building smarter cities — all while saving taxpayer money. (* Disclosure below.)

Empowering city employees with agentic AI

Far from replacing jobs, agentic AI has empowered Kyle’s staff to do more with less. Call center agents, for instance, now use an internal AI assistant with access to the city’s “brain stem” — a unified data system containing ordinances, resolutions, council discussions and project timelines, Elizondo explained.

“One of the things that we did when we first utilized AI was that we were getting thousands and thousands of calls during the day,” he said. “But one of the use cases we’ve used was during the second and third shifts. After 5:00, we don’t get a tremendous amount of calls. It wasn’t enough to validate a full-time employee to take those calls. We have this system, this AI system that sits on top of our CRM, our 311. It knows everything about service requests. It can do all kinds of intake.”

By unifying systems through Salesforce Inc. and AI, Kyle reduced software redundancy and staffing overlap — saving more money than it cost to implement the entire 311 system. This shift reflects a broader theme across the public sector: AI isn’t about reducing headcount but amplifying capability. It enables smaller cities with limited budgets to punch up and deliver enterprise-grade services, Elizondo added.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Dreamforce:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dreamforce. Neither Salesforce, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE