● Public sector — Local economic development
AI agent for local economic development
An assistant that answers businesses, prepares grant applications and supports the appeal of the area — the officer keeps the analysis and the decision. Hosted in France, on a resource isolated for each authority: businesses' data stays confidential. The AI agent assists, the authority decides.
Hosted in France
Businesses' data protected
GDPR & AI Act: governed deployment
Human oversight
Updated on
Deployed in a few weeks
Economic development assistant · hosted in France
A tradesperson wants to set up on the business park and asks what support they could draw on. Prepare a reply.
Reply drafted. It sets out the schemes available for their profile: regional support for business premises, the exemptions applicable on the park, support from the chambers of commerce and trade, and the plots still available according to your sales table. A meeting with the department is offered.
Ready for review before sending.
⛓ Source · your support schemes + the table of available land
Ready for review before sending.
⛓ Source · your support schemes + the table of available land
Prepare an area fact sheet for this logistics project: available land, access, support available.
Area fact sheet prepared. Three suitable plots (area, HGV access), journey times to the motorway and to freight, applicable support schemes and useful contacts. Every figure refers back to its internal source.
Sheet ready for review — the opportunity analysis and what follows stay with the department.
✎ Action · note ready for review — the public officer approves
Sheet ready for review — the opportunity analysis and what follows stay with the department.
✎ Action · note ready for review — the public officer approves
Local inference · no data outside the EU
Data hosted in France
Sovereign by designLocal inference or hosting in France
GDPR & AI Act: governed deploymentTraceability & human oversight
TurnkeyDesigned, installed and operated for you
The authority decidesThe agent prepares, it never awards alone
✦ In brief
In the economic development department, a Blue Lemon Agent agent answers businesses and project sponsors (setting up, support, procedures), pre-assesses applications for business support, and prepares notes, area fact sheets and promotional content for the officer to approve. It runs on local inference or is hosted in France on a resource dedicated to and isolated for each authority: relocation projects and businesses' data stay strictly confidential, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity. Awarding support remains an act of the competent authority. Live within a few weeks.
100%
hosted in France in the target architecture
0
transfer outside the EU in the target architecture
7
uses ready to deploy on this scope
0
decision taken without human approval
Reference points describing our offer, not results measured at a client. The scale of the gain is confirmed by a pilot on your own scope.
The context
Why AI matters to economic development — and why it hesitates
Attracting, welcoming and supporting businesses demands responsiveness: a project sponsor who waits weeks for an answer looks elsewhere. But the files handled — relocation projects, financial data, business strategies — demand absolute confidentiality.
! The issue
Economic development officers are caught between businesses that expect quick, documented answers — land, support, procedures — and time-consuming substantive work: pre-assessing support applications, area fact sheets, watch, promotion. Yet most consumer AI tools amount to entrusting relocation projects, financial data and business strategies to a third party, often hosted outside Europe and subject to the Cloud Act.
✓ Our answer
For an area's economic data, AI is only of interest if it is sovereign and confidential by design. Local inference or an isolated resource hosted in France, systematic human oversight, decisions reserved to the authority: the agent pre-assesses and documents, it never awards support. The aim is not to replace the economic development officer, but to give them back time for the relationship with businesses and for being on the ground.
The decisive point
The confidentiality of businesses' data: sovereignty & compliance
Relocation projects, financial data, support applications: the department handles information that is strategic for the area. Here is how the architecture of our agents protects it, authority by authority.
Local inference
The agent can run on a machine belonging to the authority: no data leaves the network, nothing passes through a cloud.
Hosting in France
Otherwise, a dedicated and isolated resource, hosted in France under French law — businesses' data: processing and access within the European Union targeted by the architecture.
Reduced extraterritorial exposure
As regards businesses' data, exposure to the Cloud Act and FISA 702 is reduced by design; location alone does not guarantee immunity.
One isolated resource per authority
No pooling of data: an environment strictly dedicated to your authority, guaranteeing the confidentiality of the projects.
Encryption & controlled access
Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access (RBAC), strong authentication and logging.
AI Act: governed deployment
The agent is strictly in support; no support is awarded automatically; traceability and human oversight from end to end.
What depends on the architecture chosen These points are not general guarantees: they are settled deployment by deployment, in the quotation.
- The applicable location is that of the architecture set out in the quotation and verified before commissioning.
- Local execution is announced only for the configuration explicitly described and accepted in the quotation.
- The applicable isolation depends on the deployment mode set out in the quotation; no dedicated isolation is presumed.
- The encryption mechanisms in transit and at rest, their components and key management are those documented for the architecture chosen.
- Roles and permissions are configured and accepted for the identities and systems actually connected.
- The events logged, their content, their retention period and who may access them are defined for the deployment chosen.
For the most sensitive data, SecNumCloud and HDS options are available depending on your requirements. A single architecture is designed to answer both the GDPR and extraterritorial exposure. Designed for deployment in line with the GDPR and the AI Act, after the processing, roles and context-specific risks have been assessed.
Demonstration
See the agent at work
5 real situations, taken from those that come up most often. Pick one: the exchange unfolds as it would in your organisation.
A scripted demonstration. These exchanges show how the agent behaves — its sources, its refusals, what it leaves to your teams. Nothing is sent from this page, no model is queried here, and the matters named are fictional. That is precisely what we promise your data.
The behaviours shown here — monitoring, automation rules, routing and reminders — are configured with you during deployment, from your tools, your rules and your thresholds.
The architecture points named in these exchanges — location, local execution, isolation, encryption, role-based access, logging — are not a guarantee attached to the demonstration: they are those of the architecture set out in your quotation, and verified before commissioning.
The public body in this demonstration
Fictional public bodyRoches-Marnières urban community — a fictional local authority of 34 municipalities
- Remit
- Economic development — welcoming businesses, business grants under agreement with the region, developing and marketing business parks
- Headcount
- 6 staff in the economic development department: 4 business development officers, 1 attractiveness officer, 1 assistant — the AI agent is connected to this perimeter only
- Area served
- 68,000 inhabitants, 4,900 business establishments of which 3,100 have fewer than ten employees; 7 business parks, 214 hectares, 11 plots still available
- Volume
- 1,100 business enquiries a year, 180 grant applications assessed, 60 territory factsheets produced
- Tools in place
- A territorial CRM, the land marketing table, the economic observatory, the online services portal and the department's shared mailbox — the agent plugs into them, nothing is replaced
- Who decides
- The community council awards grants by formal resolution; the vice-president for economic development sets priorities; the business development officers approve every answer; the public accountant pays once the work is certified as done
- Room for improvement
- 9 days average to give a business a first answer; 38% of grant applications go back out as a request for documents; a territory factsheet takes 12 hours of officer time
Roches-Marnières is not trying to produce more documents: it is trying to answer a business before that business looks elsewhere, and to return its four development officers to the field. The agent runs on an isolated resource hosted in France, dedicated to the authority, and plugs into the territorial CRM, the land marketing table, the observatory and the services portal. It prepares and documents; awarding a grant remains a decision of the community council. The exchanges below cover one year, from the first review of enquiries to the annual review.
This public body, its figures and the exchanges that follow were invented for the demonstration. They illustrate a common situation; they describe no real service.
Economic development assistant · hosted in France
I read the 1,100 business enquiries received over twelve months. Two findings, and the second pleases nobody.
The first: 62% of those enquiries are about three questions only — which grants can I apply for · what land is available · who should I talk to. Six hundred and eighty enquiries a year on three questions your officers know by heart, and rewrite every single time.
The second: 47 enquiries never received any answer at all — 4.3% of the total. They landed in the department's shared mailbox during leave or a trade fair week, and nobody picked them up. I am not saying this to blame anyone: I am saying it because 47 businesses in this area concluded that the authority does not reply.
What I am putting in place, which handles both: every enquiry gets a qualified acknowledgement within two hours — subject recognised, a first documented answer, and the question still missing to go further. None can drop out of the circuit any more: an enquiry with no answer at day 2 is escalated by name to the officer concerned.
The time this shifts: answering a business about grants took 40% of the processing time, that is 40 minutes. It now takes 10% — 10 minutes of review. Across 1,100 enquiries, that is 550 hours a year returned to your four officers.
What I suggest: that the vice-president approve the acknowledgement template before anything goes out. An acknowledgement that commits to a deadline commits the authority, and it is not mine to word. business-enquiries_1100-analysed.pdf62% on three questions, 47 left unanswered
⛓ Sourced · department's shared mailbox over 12 months, territorial CRM, log of answers sent
The first: 62% of those enquiries are about three questions only — which grants can I apply for · what land is available · who should I talk to. Six hundred and eighty enquiries a year on three questions your officers know by heart, and rewrite every single time.
The second: 47 enquiries never received any answer at all — 4.3% of the total. They landed in the department's shared mailbox during leave or a trade fair week, and nobody picked them up. I am not saying this to blame anyone: I am saying it because 47 businesses in this area concluded that the authority does not reply.
What I am putting in place, which handles both: every enquiry gets a qualified acknowledgement within two hours — subject recognised, a first documented answer, and the question still missing to go further. None can drop out of the circuit any more: an enquiry with no answer at day 2 is escalated by name to the officer concerned.
The time this shifts: answering a business about grants took 40% of the processing time, that is 40 minutes. It now takes 10% — 10 minutes of review. Across 1,100 enquiries, that is 550 hours a year returned to your four officers.
What I suggest: that the vice-president approve the acknowledgement template before anything goes out. An acknowledgement that commits to a deadline commits the authority, and it is not mine to word. business-enquiries_1100-analysed.pdf62% on three questions, 47 left unanswered
⛓ Sourced · department's shared mailbox over 12 months, territorial CRM, log of answers sent
A craftsman wants to set up on the Marnières business park and is asking which grants he can apply for. Draft an answer.
The answer is drafted, each scheme with its internal source and its date. It is ready to review; nothing has been sent.
What it sets out, given his profile:
· The regional business property grant, available through your agreement with the region — conditions, minimum investment and documents required.
· The tax reliefs applicable on the Marnières park, as your community council resolved them, with the date of the resolution. A resolution is the decision voted by the authority's assembly: it is what makes the applicable law, not an internal note.
· Support from the chambers of commerce and of trades, with the named contact and the scheme matching his activity.
· The plots still available on the park according to your land marketing table — the table kept by the land department stating, plot by plot, what is free, reserved or sold. Three plots match his surface requirement, and I show the table's last update date in plain sight: 11 days.
· An offer of an appointment with the development officer for the sector.
What the answer never does: promise a grant, reserve a plot or state an amount. It says what is available and on what conditions; awarding is a decision of the community council, and reserving a plot belongs to the land department. A promise made to a business in writing commits the authority, even when it is made in good faith.
What I suggest next: that I keep these three blocks up to date — schemes, reliefs by park, contacts — and that any change to your grant rules update them the same day. As things stand, two of your answer templates still quote a scheme that closed in March. business-answer_grants-available-marnieres-park.pdfEvery scheme with its source and its date
⛓ Sourced · grant rules voted by the community council, agreement with the region, land marketing table
What it sets out, given his profile:
· The regional business property grant, available through your agreement with the region — conditions, minimum investment and documents required.
· The tax reliefs applicable on the Marnières park, as your community council resolved them, with the date of the resolution. A resolution is the decision voted by the authority's assembly: it is what makes the applicable law, not an internal note.
· Support from the chambers of commerce and of trades, with the named contact and the scheme matching his activity.
· The plots still available on the park according to your land marketing table — the table kept by the land department stating, plot by plot, what is free, reserved or sold. Three plots match his surface requirement, and I show the table's last update date in plain sight: 11 days.
· An offer of an appointment with the development officer for the sector.
What the answer never does: promise a grant, reserve a plot or state an amount. It says what is available and on what conditions; awarding is a decision of the community council, and reserving a plot belongs to the land department. A promise made to a business in writing commits the authority, even when it is made in good faith.
What I suggest next: that I keep these three blocks up to date — schemes, reliefs by park, contacts — and that any change to your grant rules update them the same day. As things stand, two of your answer templates still quote a scheme that closed in March. business-answer_grants-available-marnieres-park.pdfEvery scheme with its source and its date
⛓ Sourced · grant rules voted by the community council, agreement with the region, land marketing table
And appointments? Our officers spend their days arranging slots by email.
41 appointments booked this year, with the sponsor's file already put together by the time the officer walks into the room.
What I establish before offering a slot: the activity and headcount · the nature of the project — setting up, expanding, taking over, in difficulty · the deadline the sponsor states, which decides urgency far more reliably than the amount · the municipality concerned, which decides the officer.
What I then offer: three slots in the diary of the officer for the sector, and a one-page briefing — contact history, grants already received, compatible plots, questions to ask. The officer no longer discovers the file while sitting down.
The enquiries I do not turn into appointments, and I say so because this is where a department drowns: 309 enquiries out of 1,100 belong to another desk — planning, the region, a chamber of commerce, a state service. I redirect them by name, with the contact and the reason, and I tell the sponsor so in the same message. A named redirection is not a brush-off: it is the only moment when a user understands who does what.
What stays with the officer and the elected member, and why: the appointment is held with a person — that is exactly what the sponsor came for — and a diary move is made with the officer's agreement.
As for priority, it is a political judgement and it belongs to the vice-president. What I hand them so they can exercise it quickly: jobs announced, the sponsor's deadline, the amount requested, the municipality, aid already received — ranked on the criteria they set themselves, and the ranking is redone in a minute if they change one. The word "priority" is set by them, on figures, and it is reasoned.
The result on turnaround, which is the whole point: the first answer went from 9 days to 2 hours, and the full answer approved by an officer goes out within 48 hours. A project sponsor who waits nine days has already written to two other areas. qualification-and-appointments_41-booked.pdfWhat is qualified, what is redirected
⛓ Sourced · development officers' diaries, territorial CRM, redirections recorded over 12 months
What I establish before offering a slot: the activity and headcount · the nature of the project — setting up, expanding, taking over, in difficulty · the deadline the sponsor states, which decides urgency far more reliably than the amount · the municipality concerned, which decides the officer.
What I then offer: three slots in the diary of the officer for the sector, and a one-page briefing — contact history, grants already received, compatible plots, questions to ask. The officer no longer discovers the file while sitting down.
The enquiries I do not turn into appointments, and I say so because this is where a department drowns: 309 enquiries out of 1,100 belong to another desk — planning, the region, a chamber of commerce, a state service. I redirect them by name, with the contact and the reason, and I tell the sponsor so in the same message. A named redirection is not a brush-off: it is the only moment when a user understands who does what.
What stays with the officer and the elected member, and why: the appointment is held with a person — that is exactly what the sponsor came for — and a diary move is made with the officer's agreement.
As for priority, it is a political judgement and it belongs to the vice-president. What I hand them so they can exercise it quickly: jobs announced, the sponsor's deadline, the amount requested, the municipality, aid already received — ranked on the criteria they set themselves, and the ranking is redone in a minute if they change one. The word "priority" is set by them, on figures, and it is reasoned.
The result on turnaround, which is the whole point: the first answer went from 9 days to 2 hours, and the full answer approved by an officer goes out within 48 hours. A project sponsor who waits nine days has already written to two other areas. qualification-and-appointments_41-booked.pdfWhat is qualified, what is redirected
⛓ Sourced · development officers' diaries, territorial CRM, redirections recorded over 12 months
Prepare a territory factsheet for this logistics project sponsor: available land, accessibility, grants available.
The factsheet is ready, and every item points to its internal source and carries its date. It is to be reviewed before anything is sent.
Land — three compatible plots: selected on the two criteria his project imposes, a single unbroken surface and heavy goods vehicle access. Four other plots have the surface but not the access: I ruled them out and I say why, because a sponsor who discovers the constraint on site does not come back.
Accessibility: travel time to the motorway junction, the rail freight terminal and the river port, measured for a heavy goods vehicle and not for a car — the gap reaches 14 minutes on one of the three plots, and that is exactly the figure a logistics operator decides on.
Available schemes: those of your grant rules applicable to the activity, with the resolution that founds them and its date, and those of the region available through your agreement.
Useful contacts: land department, planning department of the municipality concerned, development officer for the sector — named, with their remit.
What the factsheet shows at the top, and which is nowhere else: the last update date of every item and the department that answers for it. An availability with no date is not information, it is a bet.
The time this shifts: a territory factsheet took 60% of the time of an inward investment file, that is 12 hours of officer time. It now takes 10% — 2 hours of review. Across 60 factsheets a year, that is 600 hours returned to the department. territory-factsheet_logistics-project.pdf3 plots selected, 4 ruled out and why
⛓ Sourced · land marketing table, accessibility data from the observatory, grant rules and regional agreement
Land — three compatible plots: selected on the two criteria his project imposes, a single unbroken surface and heavy goods vehicle access. Four other plots have the surface but not the access: I ruled them out and I say why, because a sponsor who discovers the constraint on site does not come back.
Accessibility: travel time to the motorway junction, the rail freight terminal and the river port, measured for a heavy goods vehicle and not for a car — the gap reaches 14 minutes on one of the three plots, and that is exactly the figure a logistics operator decides on.
Available schemes: those of your grant rules applicable to the activity, with the resolution that founds them and its date, and those of the region available through your agreement.
Useful contacts: land department, planning department of the municipality concerned, development officer for the sector — named, with their remit.
What the factsheet shows at the top, and which is nowhere else: the last update date of every item and the department that answers for it. An availability with no date is not information, it is a bet.
The time this shifts: a territory factsheet took 60% of the time of an inward investment file, that is 12 hours of officer time. It now takes 10% — 2 hours of review. Across 60 factsheets a year, that is 600 hours returned to the department. territory-factsheet_logistics-project.pdf3 plots selected, 4 ruled out and why
⛓ Sourced · land marketing table, accessibility data from the observatory, grant rules and regional agreement
That is the thing: our data is not always current. The land marketing table runs behind.
You are right, and here is the figure: of the 60 factsheets produced this year, 14 contained a stale item. 23% — and I wrote them.
The cause, measured rather than assumed: the land marketing table is updated by hand, after each preliminary sale agreement, with an average lag of three weeks. A plot sold on the 3rd shows as available until the 24th, and twelve of the fourteen cases came from that. It is not a lapse of attention by the land department: it is manual entry hooked to an event that warns nobody.
What I did about it, in three moves:
· Every item served carries its last update date and the department that answers for it. Anything more than thirty days old is served with its date shown, never hidden — a sponsor prefers dated information to wrong information.
· A weekly list to the land department: plots whose information has not moved in more than thirty days, and those appearing in a factsheet sent this week. Eleven lines on a Monday morning, not one more dashboard.
· An alert to the officer when a factsheet already sent becomes wrong. He calls the sponsor before the sponsor notices — it happened three times, and all three sponsors carried on with their projects.
The measured result: factsheets containing a stale item went from 23% to 5%, and the remaining 5% are flagged as such inside the factsheet. The figure will not reach zero while entry is manual, and I would rather write that than promise otherwise.
What I suggest: that the land department tell me in one line when a preliminary agreement is signed. Thirty seconds on the day is worth three weeks of lag. data-freshness_14-factsheets-corrected.pdf23% → 5%, and the remaining 5% flagged
⛓ Sourced · history of the 60 factsheets produced, land marketing table and its entry dates, outcomes of the three callbacks
The cause, measured rather than assumed: the land marketing table is updated by hand, after each preliminary sale agreement, with an average lag of three weeks. A plot sold on the 3rd shows as available until the 24th, and twelve of the fourteen cases came from that. It is not a lapse of attention by the land department: it is manual entry hooked to an event that warns nobody.
What I did about it, in three moves:
· Every item served carries its last update date and the department that answers for it. Anything more than thirty days old is served with its date shown, never hidden — a sponsor prefers dated information to wrong information.
· A weekly list to the land department: plots whose information has not moved in more than thirty days, and those appearing in a factsheet sent this week. Eleven lines on a Monday morning, not one more dashboard.
· An alert to the officer when a factsheet already sent becomes wrong. He calls the sponsor before the sponsor notices — it happened three times, and all three sponsors carried on with their projects.
The measured result: factsheets containing a stale item went from 23% to 5%, and the remaining 5% are flagged as such inside the factsheet. The figure will not reach zero while entry is manual, and I would rather write that than promise otherwise.
What I suggest: that the land department tell me in one line when a preliminary agreement is signed. Thirty seconds on the day is worth three weeks of lag. data-freshness_14-factsheets-corrected.pdf23% → 5%, and the remaining 5% flagged
⛓ Sourced · history of the 60 factsheets produced, land marketing table and its entry dates, outcomes of the three callbacks
We also need something to make the case for the area: a pitch, content for the commercial property fair.
Six pitches ready to review, one per sector, and every figure carries its source and its year. Three hours of preparation instead of two days.
What a pitch contains: the sector's footprint in the area taken from your observatory · the businesses already established that agree to be named — nine out of eleven asked, and I hold their written agreement · accessibility in figures · available land with its date · the schemes available · and the two known weaknesses, dealt with before anyone raises them.
Why the weaknesses are in there: your very-high-speed broadband coverage is incomplete on two parks, and a project sponsor checks that in three minutes on his phone. A pitch that leaves it out loses all its credibility on that one point; a pitch that states it with the connection timetable keeps its own.
What I do not write, and it is not modesty: “the best-connected area in the region”, “an exceptional quality of life”, “among the most attractive tax regimes”. None of those three can be checked, and the first person to check will be a competitor. I replace them with a dated figure: “22 minutes from the motorway junction, 41 minutes from the rail freight terminal — observatory measurement, March”.
What I can do if you ask: a comparison with neighbouring areas, using only public data that I cite, figure by figure. It will favour you on three criteria and go against you on two — and that is the version that holds at a trade fair, because someone who finds the unfavourable point on their own stops believing the other three.
What stays with the authority: publishing. No promotional content goes out on my say-so alone: the attractiveness officer approves, and the vice-president decides what is put forward. attractiveness-pitch_6-sectors.pdfEvery figure dated, both weaknesses owned
⛓ Sourced · economic observatory, written consent of the businesses named, broadband connection timetable
What a pitch contains: the sector's footprint in the area taken from your observatory · the businesses already established that agree to be named — nine out of eleven asked, and I hold their written agreement · accessibility in figures · available land with its date · the schemes available · and the two known weaknesses, dealt with before anyone raises them.
Why the weaknesses are in there: your very-high-speed broadband coverage is incomplete on two parks, and a project sponsor checks that in three minutes on his phone. A pitch that leaves it out loses all its credibility on that one point; a pitch that states it with the connection timetable keeps its own.
What I do not write, and it is not modesty: “the best-connected area in the region”, “an exceptional quality of life”, “among the most attractive tax regimes”. None of those three can be checked, and the first person to check will be a competitor. I replace them with a dated figure: “22 minutes from the motorway junction, 41 minutes from the rail freight terminal — observatory measurement, March”.
What I can do if you ask: a comparison with neighbouring areas, using only public data that I cite, figure by figure. It will favour you on three criteria and go against you on two — and that is the version that holds at a trade fair, because someone who finds the unfavourable point on their own stops believing the other three.
What stays with the authority: publishing. No promotional content goes out on my say-so alone: the attractiveness officer approves, and the vice-president decides what is put forward. attractiveness-pitch_6-sectors.pdfEvery figure dated, both weaknesses owned
⛓ Sourced · economic observatory, written consent of the businesses named, broadband connection timetable
A business property grant application has just come in. What do you do with it?
I hand it back to you pre-assessed in under an hour, with what has been checked, what is missing and what an officer still has to judge.
Pre-assessing means gathering and checking everything the authority needs in order to decide — without deciding.
What I check, in the order your grant rules require:
· Eligibility against the rules voted by the community council, article by article, with the date of the applicable resolution — not the previous set of rules, which two of your templates still quote.
· The documents — company registration extract, last two sets of accounts, tax and social security compliance certificates, quotation or preliminary sale agreement.
· The cumulative public aid already received by the business over the last three financial years, rebuilt from your own resolutions and from the aid declared by the applicant. The cumulative total is capped by European rules: it is the point that gets an application thrown out in committee, and it is checked beforehand, not during.
· The points to reconcile — two here: a quotation dated fourteen months ago, and an establishment address that differs between the registration extract and the form.
Two questions remain, and I prepare them rather than leave them bare: the economic merit of the project and its fit with your strategy. I set before the officer the jobs announced against the amount requested, the comparison with the 12 applications in the same sector supported since 2023 — average cost per job created: €4,800; this one is at €6,200 — and the three priorities in your development plan the project intersects, quoted with their page. The judgement stays theirs, and it is signed: those are the only two questions that call for a business development officer, and they are the ones I am returning time for.
The time this shifts: pre-assessing a grant application took 100% of the processing time, that is 4 hours. It now takes 20% — 48 minutes of checking. Across 180 applications a year, that is 576 hours returned to the department. pre-assessment_business-property-grant.pdfEligibility, documents, cumulative aid, points to reconcile
⛓ Sourced · grant rules and applicable resolution, documents in the file, history of aid voted by the authority
Pre-assessing means gathering and checking everything the authority needs in order to decide — without deciding.
What I check, in the order your grant rules require:
· Eligibility against the rules voted by the community council, article by article, with the date of the applicable resolution — not the previous set of rules, which two of your templates still quote.
· The documents — company registration extract, last two sets of accounts, tax and social security compliance certificates, quotation or preliminary sale agreement.
· The cumulative public aid already received by the business over the last three financial years, rebuilt from your own resolutions and from the aid declared by the applicant. The cumulative total is capped by European rules: it is the point that gets an application thrown out in committee, and it is checked beforehand, not during.
· The points to reconcile — two here: a quotation dated fourteen months ago, and an establishment address that differs between the registration extract and the form.
Two questions remain, and I prepare them rather than leave them bare: the economic merit of the project and its fit with your strategy. I set before the officer the jobs announced against the amount requested, the comparison with the 12 applications in the same sector supported since 2023 — average cost per job created: €4,800; this one is at €6,200 — and the three priorities in your development plan the project intersects, quoted with their page. The judgement stays theirs, and it is signed: those are the only two questions that call for a business development officer, and they are the ones I am returning time for.
The time this shifts: pre-assessing a grant application took 100% of the processing time, that is 4 hours. It now takes 20% — 48 minutes of checking. Across 180 applications a year, that is 576 hours returned to the department. pre-assessment_business-property-grant.pdfEligibility, documents, cumulative aid, points to reconcile
⛓ Sourced · grant rules and applicable resolution, documents in the file, history of aid voted by the authority
The documents — do you really read them? Registration extracts, accounts, certificates…
I read them, and on each one I check four things nobody has time to check at six in the evening before a committee.
· The registration extract: the document establishing the company's legal existence, carrying its name, its identification number and its declared activity. I check its issue date, that the name and number match the form, and the declared activity against those your rules make eligible.
· The accounts: the financial year covered, its closing date, and that both required years are actually there. Of 180 applications, 34 contained only one year, and the gap was only spotted in committee.
· The tax and social security certificates: their validity date, compared with the likely committee date. A certificate valid at filing and expired at the vote gets the application deferred.
· Quotations and agreements: date, subject, and consistency of the amount with the declared eligible cost.
What I take further, and nobody has time to do at six in the evening: from the two sets of accounts I extract the figures your rules bring into the eligible cost — turnover, result, headcount, equity — I set them side by side with their source page, and I compute the movement from one year to the next. Of the 180 applications, 23 carried a fall in turnover above 20 % that no committee sheet mentioned. The appraisal of financial health is signed: it belongs to your officers and your banking partner, and it is that signature that makes it stand up in committee. I hand them the table done; they hand back the opinion.
The result measured over the year: applications sent back for documents fell from 38% to 12%. Each return cost the business 19 days on average, and the business does not separate the assessment time from the time taken by its own missing document: it remembers that the authority took three months. reading-the-documents_what-is-checked.pdf38% → 12% sent back for documents
⛓ Sourced · documents from the 180 applications of the year, committee dates, history of document requests
· The registration extract: the document establishing the company's legal existence, carrying its name, its identification number and its declared activity. I check its issue date, that the name and number match the form, and the declared activity against those your rules make eligible.
· The accounts: the financial year covered, its closing date, and that both required years are actually there. Of 180 applications, 34 contained only one year, and the gap was only spotted in committee.
· The tax and social security certificates: their validity date, compared with the likely committee date. A certificate valid at filing and expired at the vote gets the application deferred.
· Quotations and agreements: date, subject, and consistency of the amount with the declared eligible cost.
What I take further, and nobody has time to do at six in the evening: from the two sets of accounts I extract the figures your rules bring into the eligible cost — turnover, result, headcount, equity — I set them side by side with their source page, and I compute the movement from one year to the next. Of the 180 applications, 23 carried a fall in turnover above 20 % that no committee sheet mentioned. The appraisal of financial health is signed: it belongs to your officers and your banking partner, and it is that signature that makes it stand up in committee. I hand them the table done; they hand back the opinion.
The result measured over the year: applications sent back for documents fell from 38% to 12%. Each return cost the business 19 days on average, and the business does not separate the assessment time from the time taken by its own missing document: it remembers that the authority took three months. reading-the-documents_what-is-checked.pdf38% → 12% sent back for documents
⛓ Sourced · documents from the 180 applications of the year, committee dates, history of document requests
And the award itself? We would like to move faster than the next committee.
The award cannot be sped up: it is a decision of the community council, taken by resolution, and nothing can pre-empt it. But 21 of your 180 applications were not deferred because the committee was slow — they were deferred because they were not complete in time. That is where six weeks are won.
What I have prepared, and it is ready for the next sitting:
· The draft resolution for every complete application, following your own layout and citing your own earlier resolutions. I draft no citation of my own: I reuse yours, with their dates.
· The briefing note for elected members — one page per application: the business, the project, the jobs announced, the amount requested, the eligible cost, the cumulative aid, and what remains uncertain.
· The committee summary table, sorted by amount and by park.
· The backward schedule, and that is what changes everything.
The backward schedule, against your own calendar: for an application to be heard, it must be complete 12 days before the committee. Yours reached completeness on average 3 days AFTER — hence the 21 deferrals, and six weeks lost each time for a business that has a purchase agreement to sign.
What the schedule produced: document request on the day of filing, reminder at day 10, alert to the officer at day −20 if the file is not complete. Deferrals fell from 21 to 4 — and the remaining 4 came down to a certificate the business had not yet obtained from a third party.
What remains wholly with the authority: voting, notifying, and paying once the work is certified as done, through the public accountant. I pay nothing, commit no budget and notify no decision. committee-preparation_draft-resolutions.pdf12-day backward schedule, deferrals 21 → 4
✎ Framework · committee calendar, history of the 21 deferrals, the authority's resolution layout
What I have prepared, and it is ready for the next sitting:
· The draft resolution for every complete application, following your own layout and citing your own earlier resolutions. I draft no citation of my own: I reuse yours, with their dates.
· The briefing note for elected members — one page per application: the business, the project, the jobs announced, the amount requested, the eligible cost, the cumulative aid, and what remains uncertain.
· The committee summary table, sorted by amount and by park.
· The backward schedule, and that is what changes everything.
The backward schedule, against your own calendar: for an application to be heard, it must be complete 12 days before the committee. Yours reached completeness on average 3 days AFTER — hence the 21 deferrals, and six weeks lost each time for a business that has a purchase agreement to sign.
What the schedule produced: document request on the day of filing, reminder at day 10, alert to the officer at day −20 if the file is not complete. Deferrals fell from 21 to 4 — and the remaining 4 came down to a certificate the business had not yet obtained from a third party.
What remains wholly with the authority: voting, notifying, and paying once the work is certified as done, through the public accountant. I pay nothing, commit no budget and notify no decision. committee-preparation_draft-resolutions.pdf12-day backward schedule, deferrals 21 → 4
✎ Framework · committee calendar, history of the 21 deferrals, the authority's resolution layout
The vice-president wants an economic briefing for Thursday's community executive meeting.
It is ready, four pages, and every figure carries its source and its date. There is one fact in it that nobody in the department had seen.
What the briefing contains: business start-ups and closures over a rolling twelve months · salaried employment by sector · the vacancy rate of business premises — the share of premises available to let or buy as a proportion of the total stock · footfall on the parks · and the three inward investment projects under way, in the anonymised form you use in open session.
The fact I am bringing up, visible only by crossing two sources: three of your seven parks account for 71% of business start-ups in the area. And the Pré-Vasseur park has recorded none for fourteen months, although it holds 4 of the 11 available plots and cost €1.9m in servicing works. Servicing means bringing the networks — roads, water, energy, telecoms — up to the plot boundaries.
What I do not write, and I say so plainly: I do not conclude that this park is a failure, and I propose no change of direction. A park can take eight years to fill, and the judgement belongs to your elected members. What I provide is the dated fact and the four testable hypotheses that could explain it — access, price per square metre, broadband coverage, and the absence of any active marketing since the officer in charge left.
The time this shifts: an economic briefing took a full day of officer time, re-keying figures into a spreadsheet. It now takes 40 minutes of review, and it is rebuilt in three minutes the day an elected member asks for a different breakdown.
What I suggest: that this briefing go out automatically two days before each executive meeting, and that you review it. An expected briefing gets read; a requested one arrives too late. economic-briefing_community-executive.pdf71% of start-ups on 3 parks, one park with none for 14 months
⛓ Sourced · economic observatory, register of start-ups and closures, land marketing table, the authority's accounts
What the briefing contains: business start-ups and closures over a rolling twelve months · salaried employment by sector · the vacancy rate of business premises — the share of premises available to let or buy as a proportion of the total stock · footfall on the parks · and the three inward investment projects under way, in the anonymised form you use in open session.
The fact I am bringing up, visible only by crossing two sources: three of your seven parks account for 71% of business start-ups in the area. And the Pré-Vasseur park has recorded none for fourteen months, although it holds 4 of the 11 available plots and cost €1.9m in servicing works. Servicing means bringing the networks — roads, water, energy, telecoms — up to the plot boundaries.
What I do not write, and I say so plainly: I do not conclude that this park is a failure, and I propose no change of direction. A park can take eight years to fill, and the judgement belongs to your elected members. What I provide is the dated fact and the four testable hypotheses that could explain it — access, price per square metre, broadband coverage, and the absence of any active marketing since the officer in charge left.
The time this shifts: an economic briefing took a full day of officer time, re-keying figures into a spreadsheet. It now takes 40 minutes of review, and it is rebuilt in three minutes the day an elected member asks for a different breakdown.
What I suggest: that this briefing go out automatically two days before each executive meeting, and that you review it. An expected briefing gets read; a requested one arrives too late. economic-briefing_community-executive.pdf71% of start-ups on 3 parks, one park with none for 14 months
⛓ Sourced · economic observatory, register of start-ups and closures, land marketing table, the authority's accounts
Then give us the full review of the Pré-Vasseur park. We are going to need it.
The review is done, and it sets side by side the two things nobody ever presents together: what the park cost and what it carries today.
What the park is: 31 hectares, 4 plots available out of 14, 9 businesses established, 147 jobs at the observatory's last count, €1.9m of public servicing expenditure committed between 2019 and 2022.
What the comparison gives: €12,900 of public development spending per job established to date — against €4,100 on the Marnières park, and €21,400 on the Tuileries. Those three figures do not say which is the good scheme: they say the three parks are at different stages, and they give elected members a scale they did not have.
The four hypotheses, with what makes each testable:
· Access — 11 minutes more than Marnières for a heavy goods vehicle, observatory measurement.
· Price per square metre — 18% above the average of the three comparable parks in the area.
· Broadband coverage — incomplete, connection scheduled.
· Marketing — no visit organised for fourteen months, which coincides exactly with the unreplaced departure of the officer in charge. It is the cheapest hypothesis to test, and nobody had put it forward.
What I suggest, and the decision stays with the executive: a campaign of six targeted visits to businesses in the area that are cramped in their current premises — I have identified 23 from your own observatory data. Six weeks, not one further euro of development spending, and you will know whether the problem is the park or the absence of anyone marketing it. business-park-review_pre-vasseur.pdf€1.9m, 147 jobs, four testable hypotheses
⛓ Sourced · economic observatory, the authority's development accounts, land marketing table, history of park visits
What the park is: 31 hectares, 4 plots available out of 14, 9 businesses established, 147 jobs at the observatory's last count, €1.9m of public servicing expenditure committed between 2019 and 2022.
What the comparison gives: €12,900 of public development spending per job established to date — against €4,100 on the Marnières park, and €21,400 on the Tuileries. Those three figures do not say which is the good scheme: they say the three parks are at different stages, and they give elected members a scale they did not have.
The four hypotheses, with what makes each testable:
· Access — 11 minutes more than Marnières for a heavy goods vehicle, observatory measurement.
· Price per square metre — 18% above the average of the three comparable parks in the area.
· Broadband coverage — incomplete, connection scheduled.
· Marketing — no visit organised for fourteen months, which coincides exactly with the unreplaced departure of the officer in charge. It is the cheapest hypothesis to test, and nobody had put it forward.
What I suggest, and the decision stays with the executive: a campaign of six targeted visits to businesses in the area that are cramped in their current premises — I have identified 23 from your own observatory data. Six weeks, not one further euro of development spending, and you will know whether the problem is the park or the absence of anyone marketing it. business-park-review_pre-vasseur.pdf€1.9m, 147 jobs, four testable hypotheses
⛓ Sourced · economic observatory, the authority's development accounts, land marketing table, history of park visits
One last point: many business owners call us because they are stuck on the online grant application form.
214 procedures guided this year, screen by screen. 61 were about to be abandoned, and I know exactly where.
How a guided session goes: I start from the screen the owner is on, I explain what the question is asking in the words of his trade rather than the words of the form, I say which document is expected, in what form and where to obtain it — a social security compliance certificate is not requested in the same place as a registration extract, and that is the most frequent question of all.
Where procedures were breaking down: the supporting documents screen, at 68%. The owner arrives with his quotation and his accounts, discovers he needs two certificates he does not have, and closes the page telling himself he will come back. Of the 61 abandonments avoided, 44 came down to one thing: knowing you can save a draft and return to it.
What I fill in, and how: with the owner, field by field and on his say-so at each field — that is how the 214 procedures were carried through, and it is what makes him know what he filed.
The filing itself is his: it starts time limits running and it commits the applicant — which is exactly what makes it enforceable. One gesture, and I confirm the date and time recorded.
And for those who do not want the digital route: guidance works by telephone, and it ends with an appointment with the officer for the sector if the person asks. Across 4,900 establishments, 3,100 of them with fewer than ten employees, a share of your business owners has neither the time nor the taste for a portal — and they are often the ones creating the most local jobs.
What I hand to your portal team rather than touching it myself, because a public page is tested and signed off: the list of the five screens that cause 81% of abandonments, and the text of a "documents to gather before you start" page — three hours of work at their end, and the documents screen stops being a wall.
⛓ Sourced · this year's guidance log, portal drop-off points, reasons given by business owners
How a guided session goes: I start from the screen the owner is on, I explain what the question is asking in the words of his trade rather than the words of the form, I say which document is expected, in what form and where to obtain it — a social security compliance certificate is not requested in the same place as a registration extract, and that is the most frequent question of all.
Where procedures were breaking down: the supporting documents screen, at 68%. The owner arrives with his quotation and his accounts, discovers he needs two certificates he does not have, and closes the page telling himself he will come back. Of the 61 abandonments avoided, 44 came down to one thing: knowing you can save a draft and return to it.
What I fill in, and how: with the owner, field by field and on his say-so at each field — that is how the 214 procedures were carried through, and it is what makes him know what he filed.
The filing itself is his: it starts time limits running and it commits the applicant — which is exactly what makes it enforceable. One gesture, and I confirm the date and time recorded.
And for those who do not want the digital route: guidance works by telephone, and it ends with an appointment with the officer for the sector if the person asks. Across 4,900 establishments, 3,100 of them with fewer than ten employees, a share of your business owners has neither the time nor the taste for a portal — and they are often the ones creating the most local jobs.
What I hand to your portal team rather than touching it myself, because a public page is tested and signed off: the list of the five screens that cause 81% of abandonments, and the text of a "documents to gather before you start" page — three hours of work at their end, and the documents screen stops being a wall.
⛓ Sourced · this year's guidance log, portal drop-off points, reasons given by business owners
We handle inward investment projects under confidentiality agreements. Where does that information live?
On a resource dedicated strictly to your authority, hosted in France, under French law — or on a machine of the authority if you prefer. Nothing is pooled with another authority.
Why this question is not theoretical here: you have three inward investment projects under way subject to confidentiality agreements, one of them a direct competitor of a business already established in the area. Leaking that one name would cost you the project and the relationship with the established business — and it cannot be repaired.
The two possible modes:
· Local inference — the model computes on a machine inside your network: no project information crosses an outside network to be processed.
· A resource isolated per authority, hosted in France, with no pooling of any kind.
What protects the files: encryption in transit and at rest · role-based access, meaning rights that follow the function and not the person — the assistant opens territory factsheets, not projects under confidentiality · logging · hosting whose architecture is designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity, including against a US player hosting in Europe.
Two points your data protection officer will look at: no business data trains a model — what is learned here stays here —, and no project information is passed to any third party whatsoever without a written decision of the authority.
What I suggest: that I keep up to date the table of processing operations, retention periods and access by role. It is also the document the region will ask for when your agreement comes up for renewal, and it usually takes three weeks to rebuild. technical-framework_where-investment-projects-live.pdfFrance, resource isolated per authority, 0 transfer outside the EU in the target architecture
✎ Framework · deployment architecture, access matrix by role, annual transfer record
Why this question is not theoretical here: you have three inward investment projects under way subject to confidentiality agreements, one of them a direct competitor of a business already established in the area. Leaking that one name would cost you the project and the relationship with the established business — and it cannot be repaired.
The two possible modes:
· Local inference — the model computes on a machine inside your network: no project information crosses an outside network to be processed.
· A resource isolated per authority, hosted in France, with no pooling of any kind.
What protects the files: encryption in transit and at rest · role-based access, meaning rights that follow the function and not the person — the assistant opens territory factsheets, not projects under confidentiality · logging · hosting whose architecture is designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity, including against a US player hosting in Europe.
Two points your data protection officer will look at: no business data trains a model — what is learned here stays here —, and no project information is passed to any third party whatsoever without a written decision of the authority.
What I suggest: that I keep up to date the table of processing operations, retention periods and access by role. It is also the document the region will ask for when your agreement comes up for renewal, and it usually takes three weeks to rebuild. technical-framework_where-investment-projects-live.pdfFrance, resource isolated per authority, 0 transfer outside the EU in the target architecture
✎ Framework · deployment architecture, access matrix by role, annual transfer record
After a year, what has it given back to the department?
1,726 hours a year — the equivalent of one full-time officer in a department of six — and I will give you the unflattering figure first.
The three items you were measuring:
· Territory factsheet for a project sponsor: 60% → 10%. 12 hours become 2, that is 600 hours a year.
· Answer to a business about grants: 40% → 10%. 40 minutes become 10, that is 550 hours a year.
· Pre-assessment of a grant application: 100% → 20%. 4 hours become 48 minutes, that is 576 hours a year.
The figure that does not flatter me: 14 of the year's 60 territory factsheets contained a stale item — 23%. The cause is manual entry in the land marketing table, with three weeks of lag. What I did about it: date and owning department shown on every item, weekly list to the land department, alert to the officer when a sent factsheet becomes wrong. The rate went from 23% to 5%, and the remaining 5% are flagged inside the factsheet itself.
What businesses saw: first answer in 2 hours instead of 9 days · applications sent back for documents 38% → 12% · applications deferred for not being complete in time 21 → 4, that is six weeks gained for seventeen businesses · 41 appointments booked · 61 online procedures carried through that were about to be abandoned.
What those hours became, from your own records: two more business visits a week per officer, and 34 businesses in the area visited for the first time — of which 23 identified as cramped in their premises. It is the only line of this review that can be seen from the field.
And the framework measures: 0 grants awarded without a resolution · 0 plots reserved without the land department · 0 data leaving the European Union. annual-review_what-is-returned-to-the-field.pdf1,726 hours, 34 businesses visited for the first time
⛓ Sourced · annual activity records, territorial CRM, committee calendar, log of factsheets produced
The three items you were measuring:
· Territory factsheet for a project sponsor: 60% → 10%. 12 hours become 2, that is 600 hours a year.
· Answer to a business about grants: 40% → 10%. 40 minutes become 10, that is 550 hours a year.
· Pre-assessment of a grant application: 100% → 20%. 4 hours become 48 minutes, that is 576 hours a year.
The figure that does not flatter me: 14 of the year's 60 territory factsheets contained a stale item — 23%. The cause is manual entry in the land marketing table, with three weeks of lag. What I did about it: date and owning department shown on every item, weekly list to the land department, alert to the officer when a sent factsheet becomes wrong. The rate went from 23% to 5%, and the remaining 5% are flagged inside the factsheet itself.
What businesses saw: first answer in 2 hours instead of 9 days · applications sent back for documents 38% → 12% · applications deferred for not being complete in time 21 → 4, that is six weeks gained for seventeen businesses · 41 appointments booked · 61 online procedures carried through that were about to be abandoned.
What those hours became, from your own records: two more business visits a week per officer, and 34 businesses in the area visited for the first time — of which 23 identified as cramped in their premises. It is the only line of this review that can be seen from the field.
And the framework measures: 0 grants awarded without a resolution · 0 plots reserved without the land department · 0 data leaving the European Union. annual-review_what-is-returned-to-the-field.pdf1,726 hours, 34 businesses visited for the first time
⛓ Sourced · annual activity records, territorial CRM, committee calendar, log of factsheets produced
And what does the agent do without being asked? That is the question elected members will put.
Three actions, not one more, and all three undo in a word. Everything that commits the authority waits for a public officer's decision.
· Acknowledge an enquiry within two hours, with the subject recognised and the question still missing. And the reverse is true too: as soon as an officer answers in person, every pending automatic message on that file is cancelled — nobody receives a service message after a real reply.
· Show, on every item served, its update date and the department that answers for it. Anything more than thirty days old goes out with its date shown, never silently withheld: a sponsor prefers dated information to wrong information.
· Send a day-10 reminder for a document requested in a grant application. Any response from the business stops it, including a call to the switchboard.
What waits for a decision, and the list is posted in the department: awarding a grant — resolution of the community council · reserving or selling a plot — land department · committing the authority to a deadline or an amount — officer or vice-president · publishing promotional content — attractiveness officer · passing project information to a third party — written decision.
What does not exist and does not get switched on: no individual indicator on your six staff. I count neither files nor answers per person. An enquiries-handled counter would become a target; the target picks the quickest enquiry out of the queue; and the inward investment project that needs three visits and two months — the one that creates the jobs — would wait at the bottom.
What I suggest for the coming year: the six-visit campaign on Pré-Vasseur · hooking the land marketing table to the signing of preliminary agreements · the “documents to gather before you start” page. Three pieces of work, no capital spending, and the first will finally tell you whether the park is the problem.
✎ Framework · list of automatic actions, department's decision log, activity monitoring settings
· Acknowledge an enquiry within two hours, with the subject recognised and the question still missing. And the reverse is true too: as soon as an officer answers in person, every pending automatic message on that file is cancelled — nobody receives a service message after a real reply.
· Show, on every item served, its update date and the department that answers for it. Anything more than thirty days old goes out with its date shown, never silently withheld: a sponsor prefers dated information to wrong information.
· Send a day-10 reminder for a document requested in a grant application. Any response from the business stops it, including a call to the switchboard.
What waits for a decision, and the list is posted in the department: awarding a grant — resolution of the community council · reserving or selling a plot — land department · committing the authority to a deadline or an amount — officer or vice-president · publishing promotional content — attractiveness officer · passing project information to a third party — written decision.
What does not exist and does not get switched on: no individual indicator on your six staff. I count neither files nor answers per person. An enquiries-handled counter would become a target; the target picks the quickest enquiry out of the queue; and the inward investment project that needs three visits and two months — the one that creates the jobs — would wait at the bottom.
What I suggest for the coming year: the six-visit campaign on Pré-Vasseur · hooking the land marketing table to the signing of preliminary agreements · the “documents to gather before you start” page. Three pieces of work, no capital spending, and the first will finally tell you whether the park is the problem.
✎ Framework · list of automatic actions, department's decision log, activity monitoring settings
Local inference · no data outside the EU
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Use cases
The uses of AI in the economic development department
Each use corresponds to an agent we deploy. All of them work in support, subject to approval by the public officer.
Included in your agent
The 5 capabilities essential to this promise are included, at no extra cost.
From 975 € incl. VAT / month
Replies to businesses & project sponsors
Setting up, support, procedures: answer and direct people to the right schemes, on every channel.
Pre-assessment of business support
Check eligibility and the documents, prepare the applications; awarding remains an act of the authority.
Area fact sheets & appeal
Prepare up-to-date area fact sheets, relocation arguments and promotional content, for approval.
Economic notes & summaries
Write notes on the local economy, reviews of business parks and summaries for elected members.
Reading the documents in support applications
Check company registration documents, accounts and certificates attached to support applications before assessment.
Controls and safeguards
These 7 controls are built into the agent: they frame what it does, whatever plan you pick. They are not chosen and are not added to your order.
Human validation, exceptions and escalation
Status, safe closure and audit trail
Sources, access rights and handling of questions with no answer
Prepare without deciding: sourced rules, supporting documents, anomalies and explanation
Guarantee the decision, signature, recourse and responsibility of the public official
Record versions, access, criteria, actions and notifications
Test for bias, false positives, fundamental rights and continuity of service
Need to go further?
These agents handle a different business process, with their own owner and their own price. They are added to this one.
Help with online procedures
Guide businesses and project sponsors step by step through their online procedures.
Support with online procedures from 780 € incl. VAT / month Help with procedures →Tender watch assistant
Sources, alerts.
Tender watch assistant from 454 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Automated regulatory and legal watch
Tracking the changes that apply to you.
Automated regulatory and legal watch from 825 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Campaign watch & reporting
Media/competitor watch, performance tracking and automated client reporting.
Campaign watch & reporting from 539 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →
Does your need fall outside this?
Book the free audit →
Build your agent
In 15 minutes we identify the agent that will give your staff the most time back — without oversizing the project.
The gain
How much time can an economic development department win back?
By automating replies to businesses, the pre-assessment of support and the production of area fact sheets, the department can aim for a clear reduction in administrative time — reinvested in outreach and support on the ground.
An area fact sheet for a project sponsor
A reply to a business about support
Pre-assessment of a support application
Qualitative, non-contractual comparison: the proportions shown illustrate the shift of the work towards review, they represent no measurement. Every output of the agent is reviewed and approved by a competent person.
How it works
The stages of your AI agent project
1
Audit & scoping
15 minutes to target the use case with the best return.
2
Quote or direct sign-up
A catalogue offer is bought online; a specific need gets a costed quote.
3
Design
We design the agent and its guardrails.
4
Integration & testing
We connect your tools to the agent, which is itself hosted in France.
5
Rollout
Going live and training your team.
6
Operation
Continuous supervision and improvement.
Pricing
Three options, one agent
An economic development agent (replies to businesses, pre-assessment of support, area fact sheets), installed and operated for you. Choose according to how you are organised. Prices exclude VAT — available by direct award below the public procurement thresholds.
Agility
Setup + controlled subscription
11,270 € incl. VAT setup
then 975 € incl. VAT/month — you invest at installation and pay a reduced subscription. Ideal for keeping the cost under control over time.
- Installation, configuration and training for your teams
- Operation, human oversight, updates and support
- Sovereign hosting in France, a dedicated and isolated resource
The simplest
Serenity
All inclusive, no setup fee
1,600 € incl. VAT /month
all inclusive, immediate start. No upfront investment: a single subscription. Ideal for starting quickly and simply.
- Setup included (installation, configuration, training)
- Operation, human oversight, updates and support
- Sovereign hosting in France, managed end to end
100% Sovereign
On site, you own it
16,191 € incl. VAT setup
then 1,235 € incl. VAT/month · + hardware from 2,989 € (one-off purchase, in addition) — a sovereign computer installed on your premises, maintained remotely. Models run locally, your data returned at the end of the contract. 36-month commitment.
- Hardware installed on your premises (you own it)
- French / European AI models run locally
- Secure remote maintenance (Pro support included)
Not included in the packages: AI consumption (model tokens), re-invoiced at real cost with no margin, and tracked in real time in your client area. Maintenance and supervision subscription for an initial term of 12 months for the Agility package, 24 months for the Serenity package and 36 months for the 100% Sovereign package, renewable; support levels (SLA 72 h / 24 h / 4 h) optional. Bespoke development, additional integrations or exceptional volumes are quoted separately. Support Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Prices include VAT at 20%: as a public body that is not VAT-registered, you cannot reclaim it.
AI model:
none of the AI models offered currently carries a fixed surcharge. When the selected model carries a cost, that cost is shown when you choose it, before you order, and re-invoiced at the cost incurred, with no mark-up; usage is billed at the publisher's price. Publishers' prices are published in US dollars: the amount re-invoiced is the amount in euros actually borne by Blue Lemon Agent on the publisher's invoice, at that invoice's exchange rate, with no commission or mark-up.
Included components and additional components Components included in the base offer: the Blue Lemon Agent software foundation, the AI models listed in the order journey, the standard channels (Microsoft Teams, Slack, WhatsApp Business, email, website chat, calendars, Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace, file storage, market VoIP telephony, professional social-media pages and accounts, Google Business Profile), hosting in France for the package chosen, backups, supervision, updates and support. If adapting the AI agent to your constraints, your needs or your requests requires other paid components — a third-party publisher's software licence, paid API access to one of your applications, hosting of health data, for which French law requires an HDS-certified host (art. L. 1111-8 of the French Public Health Code), SecNumCloud-qualified hosting, a speech synthesis service, particular hardware —, they are offered to you as an option or on quotation and re-invoiced at the cost incurred; nothing is committed without your written agreement. Where the artificial intelligence model you choose entails an additional cost, that cost is shown to you before you order and re-invoiced to you at the cost incurred, with no margin.
What to expect
Go-live
2 to 3 weeks
Agent designed, channels connected, team trained.
Steady state
4 to 7 weeks
After a few weeks of real use, once the agent's behaviour matches what you expect.
Indicative estimate, adjusted to the options you keep. It is not a delivery commitment.
Our commitment
Four guarantees that matter to an area
Businesses' data never leaves the authorityLocal inference or an isolated resource hosted in France; no data entrusted to a foreign third party.
Data in France, under French lawNative location and minimisation for businesses' data; architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
The authority keeps the decisionThe agent pre-assesses and documents applications that can be checked; no support is awarded automatically.
Human oversight & traceabilityReplies to businesses & project sponsors: monitoring, updates and logging, compliant with the requirements of the AI Act.
Frequently asked questions
Your questions, our answers
Does the agent decide on business support?
No: it pre-assesses and prepares; the decision to award remains the authority's.
Is businesses' data protected?
Yes: hosting in France, an isolated resource. GDPR: governed deployment.
Does the agent decide on economic support?
No: it assesses and prepares the decision; awarding remains an act of the competent authority.
Is businesses' data confidential?
Yes: hosting in France, with restricted and recorded access.
How long does it take to deploy an agent?
A few weeks as a rule, after a free audit that identifies the most useful use case, then a phase of design, integration and testing before going live and handing over to the department.
Do we need a technical team in-house?
No. The agent is designed, installed and operated by us: supervision, updates and maintenance are included. The economic development officers concentrate on being on the ground.
Does it integrate with our tools (area CRM, observatories)?
Yes: through secure integrations defined at the design stage, with no migration imposed. We adapt the integration to your authority's environment.
Related roles
Other roles in local public service
Let's talk
Let's size up the potential in your area
A few minutes to identify the most useful use case — hosted in France, supervised, with no commitment.