OUR WORK

municiPal AI: From One Municipality’s Problem to a National Solution

Bright Light Digital was deep in a website migration project with the City of Kawartha Lakes when a hard truth became clear. No amount of navigation restructuring, copy refinement, or page reorganization was going to solve the core problem: residents knew the information they needed was on the city’s website. They just couldn’t find it.

Kristy Guthrie, Bright Light’s Founder and Principal Strategist, saw a different path forward. What if the website had an AI-powered search tool, trained exclusively on Kawartha Lakes’ own content, that could get residents to the right answer fast? Working alongside development partner Troon Technologies to bring that vision to life, it quickly became clear that Kawartha Lakes wasn’t an outlier. Municipalities across the country were wrestling with the same challenge. That realization was the spark for municiPal AI: a purpose-built, Canadian-owned AI search solution led by two female founders, now making an impact in municipal governments nationwide.

It was a powerful idea that needed strategy, planning, and robust testing. Bright Light Digital shaped the solution from the ground up, translating the founding vision into a clear strategic direction, then staying involved through every stage to make sure the final product was exactly what municipalities need.

SERVICES ENGAGED:

Our Solution 

Partnering with municiPal AI’s innovative leaders, we:

  • Led client research, discovery, and strategy to ground every decision in real municipal needs

  • Developed the product concept around an AI embedded search, a deliberate choice that prioritizes residents finding answers over a chatbot solution

  • Provided UX direction to meet the standards municipalities are held to

  • We translated institutional knowledge into a format the system could understand and act on

  • Led AI response design and testing, ensuring each municipal instance answers only from approved, municipality-specific content and in the appropriate voice and tone

  • Drove risk reduction across content, compliance, and governance, building strict security standards and guardrails

  • Managed stakeholder testing and client feedback cycles

  • Supported implementation end-to-end

  • Led performance strategy and insight development to measure results and demonstrate impact after go-live

  • De-risked the process at every stage so the final product holds up under real-world conditions

The Results

First in Canada

On October 1, 2025, municiPal AI launched with the City of Kawartha Lakes, the first municipality in Canada to go live with an AI-powered search platform of this kind.

From Vision to Launch in Under a Year

A complex, regulated-sector AI product moved from founding idea to market-ready deployment without losing clarity, consistency, or intent along the way.

A Product Ready to Deploy

Rigorous training and testing drove each model to 97% accuracy before user testing even began, a standard municiPal AI can stand behind in every sales conversation.

Built to the Standards Municipalities Require

Accessibility requirements, guardrails, and compliance standards were built in from the start giving municipal IT and leadership teams a product they could trust.

A Growing Municipal Footprint

Multiple municipalities onboarded and a full pipeline that proves the market is ready for a product that produces measurable results and impact.

Built to Last Beyond Launch

The strategy, structure, and guardrails Bright Light put in place gave Troon a foundation to build from, and gave municiPal AI a product that stays consistent across every new deployment.

Bright Light Digital was critical at every step of municiPal AI’s journey. From the first discovery conversation to go-live, they brought the strategic clarity, municipal knowledge, and rigorous testing standards that turned a powerful idea into a product that municipalities could trust. When the stakes were high and the complexity was real, Bright Light was exactly the partner we needed: experienced, reliable, and ready to work.

Kerry Fraser
Co-Founder and COO, municiPal AI

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