Gem is not a standalone technology or an individual virtual assistant, but a collective facility for municipalities.
Together we develop a virtual assistant and apply AI in municipal services. By working together, municipalities share knowledge, costs, experience and development capacity.
Not consecutive steps, but four things that happen alongside each other all the time.
One collective movement of municipalities building better digital services together.
Municipalities contribute practical questions, knowledge and priorities. Together we decide what Gem should be able to do and which developments add value. Not each municipality separately: developing together is better and cheaper.
Contact with a virtual assistant is only valuable if residents can trust it.
Municipalities work together on correct, up-to-date and understandable answers, including with generative AI. The focus is not on the technology, but on the quality of the service.
Gem is not a supplier's virtual assistant, but a government facility.
No dependence on a single supplier, but joint steering on values, risks and development — with sovereign technology, together with partners such as VNG, BZK and ICTU.
What one municipality learns becomes valuable for all municipalities.
Every experience, improvement and investment benefits the entire municipal community. This makes innovation faster, safer and more widely applicable.
Gem is not a product you simply purchase. It is a shared facility that municipalities contribute to and benefit from together.
This creates a future-proof solution available to the shared municipal practice.
The technology matters. But public values determine how we use it.
Participating municipalities help develop the technology, the quality of answers, governance, implementation and preconditions such as privacy, security, accessibility and transparency.
Municipalities contribute practical questions, knowledge and priorities. Together we decide what Gem should be able to do and which developments add value. Partners such as VNG, BZK, ICTU and knowledge partners support the collaboration.
Even though the virtual municipal assistant runs on technology, the effort is and remains human work. Your colleagues join the meetings that suit their role on a structural basis. Municipalities collaborate at three levels:
Contact with an AI-powered virtual assistant is only valuable if residents can trust it. Within Gem, municipalities work together on correct, up-to-date and understandable answers, including with generative AI.
The focus is not on the technology, but on the quality of the service. All municipalities contribute relevant knowledge: reliable support based on municipal knowledge, experience and quality agreements.
An LLM (large language model) is the language model that processes language and formulates answers. RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) lets the model base its answers on selected information sources, rather than on what the model itself "thinks it knows".
Municipalities jointly keep a grip on the choices around LLM and RAG, steer on values and jointly manage the risks and further development with sovereign technology.
Participating municipalities help develop preconditions such as privacy, security, accessibility and transparency. Together they commit to sharing available expertise in areas such as information security, privacy, sustainability, ethics and legal matters.
The joint choices are recorded in shared documentation and papers that are relevant to all municipalities, such as the vision on virtual assistance in public service delivery.
Gem is fully open source under the EUPL licence and built according to the Common Ground principles. That makes the technology reusable and transparent: no vendor lock-in, no licence fees.
In cooperation with partners such as VNG, BZK, ICTU and knowledge partners, municipalities build an open, reusable and scalable facility.
Together we discover what your municipality can add to the Gem collaboration. Every municipality brings knowledge, experience and practical questions.