Chanhassen’s Journey to Reclaim 160+ Staff Hours Every Month with Madison AI

In Smaller Governments, Every Staff Hour Counts

Smaller jurisdictions often face unique challenges: leaner teams, tighter budgets, and increasing demand for transparency, engagement, and speed. For Chanhassen, Minnesota — a city with approximately 85 full-time staff — embracing AI was less about tech buzzwords and more about creating capacity in their organization.

From Curiosity to Capacity: Chanhassen’s AI Journey

Like many smaller jurisdictions, Chanhassen, Minnesota — a city of 26,000 residents with 85 full-time staff—faces the challenge of doing more with less. For Assistant City Manager Matt Unmacht, adopting AI wasn’t about buzzwords; it was about creating capacity. While general-purpose tools sparked interest, they lacked the specificity and safety that local government needed. Madison AI offered a tailored solution: an AI model trained only on Chanhassen’s documents of authority and built specifically to tackle their everyday work.

While general-purpose tools sparked interest, they lacked the specificity and safety that local government needed. Madison AI offered a tailored solution: an AI model trained only on Chanhassen’s documents of authority and built specifically to tackle their everyday work.

AI Built for Everyday Work in Chanhassen

We built an AI model and purpose-built agents for the City of Chanhassen to support the Administration and Governance workflows for everyday work for City Management, Clerks, Department Leaders, and Electeds. This isn’t a generic chatbot. It’s a purpose-built, custom AI model designed to tackle everyday work, like drafting staff reports, answering policy questions, looking up past decisions, and accessing institutional knowledge—quickly and accurately.

A Day with Madison AI in Chanhassen

What does it actually look like to use AI in local government? In Chanhassen, it means applying Madison AI to everyday work, like writing reports, looking up past decisions, or researching peer cities. Here are 3 validated use cases that show where Madison AI is delivering real impact in Chanhassen today.

Use Case #1: Drafting Staff Reports

Staff reports are key in helping leaders make informed decisions by providing clear analysis and thoughtful recommendations. Madison AI speeds up the process by handling data gathering, drafting, and formatting so that staff can spend more time on strategy and insight.

Use Case #2: Topic Research/Institutional Knowledge

When experienced planners and knowledge workers retire, their knowledge doesn’t need to leave with them. Madison AI electrifies document archives and allows staff to search historical decisions, projects, and council items instantly, cutting research time from hours to minutes.

Use Case #3: Researching Comparable Cities

Instead of time-consuming outreach to other cities, Chanhassen uses Madison AI to pull examples of policies developed by neighboring communities, halving the time needed to draft recommendations.

Madison AI + Chanhassen – Reclaiming 158 Hours of Staff Time Every Month

Chanhassen’s journey with Madison AI proves that AI isn’t a future concept—it’s a practical tool making a real impact today. Chanhassen has shown how AI can remove the administrative burden and let staff focus on what matters. With an approach rooted in responsible adoption, real use cases, and a strong feedback loop, the city has created a model that’s scalable, secure, and staff friendly. The result? More informed decisions, faster workflows, and real-time savings for their city. What could you do with 160+ hours of additional staff time every month?