San Jose City Clerk Taps AI to Open Council Meetings

The city of San Jose is looking to AI to make its City Council meetings more accessible to residents, regardless of the language they speak or prefer.

The City Clerk’s Office began using Wordly, an AI translation platform, on April 16 to provide City Council meeting participants with real-time translation and caption services for more than 50 languages. The service can be accessed through smartphones, computers and video displays.

“San José is a city of innovators, and our government should be too — we’re continuing to test new tools that allow us to serve the public more effectively, efficiently and equitably,” Mayor Matt Mahan said in a press release. “I want to thank the Clerk for championing an AI solution offering real-time language translations of City Council meetings for our residents.”

According to the press release, the city is home to more than 1 million residents, more than half of whom speak a language other than English. The most commonly spoken languages are Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Residents must bring their own devices to access translation and captioning services.