How a team of 30 is automating zoning research and staff reports like an organization twice its size with Madison AI.
Cody Einfalt, Acting City Manager for the Town of Los Altos Hills, oversees one of the leanest municipal operations in the state. With a population of roughly 8,500 residents and a dedicated staff of just 30 employees, there is no room for elongated administrative hours.
Throughout his time with the Town, Einfalt and his team recognized a looming challenge: the loss of institutional knowledge. Like many agencies, Los Altos Hills was navigating staff retirements while attempting to deliver on an ambitious City Council work plan. To solve this, the Town became one of the first adopters of Madison AI, using the technology to make decades of past records and complex municipal codes available in seconds.
Los Altos Hills’ Search for a Solution
Sitting within Silicon Valley, the Town of Los Altos Hills has long been a forward-thinking organization. Still, its data was historically complex, with thousands of records buried in PDFs, archives, and permit systems.
Before 2024, researching a simple parcel history or a past Council action resulted in hours of manual digging through binders and legacy files. Leadership sought a solution that could move beyond basic keyword searches to a system capable of reading and summarizing unstructured data across every department.
They needed a purpose-built model. One that used only the Town's official data to ensure accuracy and eliminate the hallucinations common in generic AI tools. As one of the first adopters in the municipal space, the Town partnered with Madison AI to build a customized, secure environment that indexes and enables real-time querying of its data and resources.
“Tools like Madison Al help us retain institutional knowledge and quickly access past decisions. In a small organization like ours, that kind of support can feel like adding an experienced team member to the staff.”
Cody Einfalt, Acting City Manager
In staff time savings in 2025
Custom AI agents utilized by staff
Staff hours saved per month
Unique topics asked and answered
High-Stakes Efficiency
The small team of Los Altos Hills staff delivers high-quality services while supporting the Council's goals. Staff must manage decades’ worth of municipal data — an ongoing challenge that can create significant operational bottlenecks.
Lengthy Research Efforts
Staff often spent excessive time navigating complex procurement requirements and manually reviewing contract details.
Fragmented Institutional Records
Years of municipal data were dispersed across departments, making it difficult to locate and piece together historical decisions.
Knowledge Loss from Staff Turnover
Critical institutional knowledge was lost when employees retired or left, creating gaps that slowed decision-making and continuity.
Unlocking Los Altos Hills’ Data with AI
Analyzing Knowledge Gaps
Town leadership focused on understanding the gaps surrounding administrative governance to ensure Madison AI would address the most pressing organizational needs.
Technical Implementation and Data Consolidation
Madison AI integrated data from diverse sources, including Laserfiche, Granicus, and Accela, creating a unified data lake that is automatically indexed to keep information current.
Townwide Assistant Launch
Los Altos Hills deployed a Town-wide assistant and over 30 pre-built agents to handle core administrative workflows, such as summarizing past meeting minutes and researching Council actions.
Specialized Expansion
Following the success of the initial rollout, the Town added a community development Assistant trained on zoning codes, land-use analysis, and parcel history to support planning staff.
Full Adoption and Refinement
The system achieved widespread adoption across the organization, with staff leveraging it to bypass manual research and obtain instant answers on contracts, budgets, and planning records.
Saving $65,000 in Staff Time
Madison AI has fundamentally improved how Los Altos Hills manages its data and institutional knowledge. Staff can now quickly access answers to questions about contracts, council actions, zoning, and planning records — reducing the need for time-consuming manual research and saving 55–60 staff hours each month.
While the total cost savings may appear modest at first glance, they represent a meaningful gain for a town with just 30 employees. In a close-knit community like Los Altos Hills, that added capacity helps staff stay responsive, informed, and connected to the residents they serve.
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