Raleigh, North Carolina, has deployed Alli, an agentic AI bot that resolves IT service tickets, to help four human technicians support about 13,000 devices and 4,400 city staff. The city co-developed Alli with ServiceNow, which calls it an L1 IT Service Desk AI Specialist. Raleigh is the first city government to use the product, according to ServiceNow.

The city and ServiceNow built Alli together in a live help desk with real tickets, users and feedback. Raleigh CIO Mark Wittenburg said the department would ideally have nine to 12 technicians, but currently has four and does not expect to add staff. The city sought faster ticket resolution and improved customer service with its existing team.

ServiceNow said Raleigh’s production environment exposed the agent to varied employee requests, changing priorities, incomplete information and workflow exceptions. The city’s feedback helped the company adapt the tool; ServiceNow says capabilities developed through the partnership are now available to its other customers, including cities, counties, state agencies and businesses.

Alli builds on Ral-E, an earlier ServiceNow agent that guided and routed workers to city knowledge resources in areas including IT and human resources. ServiceNow said Alli can resolve complete workflows. Its learning continues through an “AI Orchestrator,” which critiques how well it completes tickets; city IT officials can investigate low scores to identify missing data, insufficient access or tasks beyond its capabilities.

Raleigh trained and verified the bot before deployment, following an approach Wittenburg compared with training a human help-desk technician. At a City Council retreat on September 18, councilmembers raised concerns about rogue agents, job displacement and budget costs as more systems use AI. Wittenburg acknowledged risks from agentic AI and said the city is participating early to understand their effects and establish controls. He said human staff currently guard information because industry governance has not caught up, and Raleigh and ServiceNow are working on safeguards to keep agents within programmed limits.

Raleigh, North Carolina, has deployed Alli, an agentic AI bot that resolves IT service tickets, to help four human technicians support about 13,000 devices and 4,400 city staff. The city co-developed Alli with ServiceNow, which calls it an L1 IT Service Desk AI Specialist. Raleigh is the first city government to use the product, according to ServiceNow.

The city and ServiceNow built Alli together in a live help desk with real tickets, users and feedback. Raleigh CIO Mark Wittenburg said the department would ideally have nine to 12 technicians, but currently has four and does not expect to add staff. The city sought faster ticket resolution and improved customer service with its existing team.

ServiceNow said Raleigh’s production environment exposed the agent to varied employee requests, changing priorities, incomplete information and workflow exceptions. The city’s feedback helped the company adapt the tool; ServiceNow says capabilities developed through the partnership are now available to its other customers, including cities, counties, state agencies and businesses.

Alli builds on Ral-E, an earlier ServiceNow agent that guided and routed workers to city knowledge resources in areas including IT and human resources. ServiceNow said Alli can resolve complete workflows. Its learning continues through an “AI Orchestrator,” which critiques how well it completes tickets; city IT officials can investigate low scores to identify missing data, insufficient access or tasks beyond its capabilities.

Raleigh trained and verified the bot before deployment, following an approach Wittenburg compared with training a human help-desk technician. At a City Council retreat on September 18, councilmembers raised concerns about rogue agents, job displacement and budget costs as more systems use AI. Wittenburg acknowledged risks from agentic AI and said the city is participating early to understand their effects and establish controls. He said human staff currently guard information because industry governance has not caught up, and Raleigh and ServiceNow are working on safeguards to keep agents within programmed limits.