Season 2: Episode 5 - Tech and AI in Community Engagement (Festive Special!) Artwork

Collectively Speaking

A new podcast series, looking at the big issues in the built environment, hosted by industry expert and LDN Collective Founder Max Farrell.

The LDN Collective is a network of built environment experts and creatives fighting to improve people’s lives and the planet’s prospects.

Each episode Max will chat with members and clients of the LDN Collective.

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Collectively Speaking

Season 2: Episode 5 - Tech and AI in Community Engagement (Festive Special!)

December 11, 2024 • Max Farrell • Season 2 • Episode 5

For the 5th episode in the second series of LDN Collective podcasts, tackling the big issues in the built environment, we decided to LEAP outside our comfort zone! 🚀

🤖 Recorded live at our recent event exploring the impact of technology and AI on community engagement, we started with an open mic session where all 50 attendees had the opportunity to share their stories.

📚 This was followed by presentations from pioneers like ECF, Commonplace, Digital Urban, Hello Lamp Post, Concept Culture and Grosvenor. We finished with a lively panel discussion and there was a LOT of food for thought.

Hopefully see you at our next event in the New Year, likely to focus on community engagement and regional planning. Our January podcast will be on Net Zero Neighbourhoods with Hannah Jewkes 🎉

Find out more about the LDN Collective at
https://ldn-collective.com/

1:00:00

[Music]Welcome everybody tothis very specialedition ofCollectively Speaking.This is a bitdifferent in that weare going to hear lotsof voices today.We're here at theSeven Dials Club inCovent Garden and lotsof reallyinteresting guestsand speakers at anevent which is goingto look at theevolving nature ofcommunity engagementand particularly therole of technology andartificialintelligence and howthat's startingto change things forbetter or for worseand that's one of thethings we'regoing to get intoand find out moreabout today.My first guest herewho we're going tohear from as a speakergiving apresentation later toois Matt Rain fromDigital Urban. DigitalUrban is reallyinteresting becauseit's getting intothat space around howdo you engage andcommunicate withpeople in a way thatperhaps younger peopleare becoming more andmore accustomed tobecause it usescomputers but also inthe sense of gamingand the metaverse andvirtual reality and soreally interested tohear moreabout that Matt.Welcome and maybe youcould tell us a bitabout yourself and howyou got intothis in the firstplace. Yeah greatthanks Max, thanks forhaving me. Mybackground really ispublicsector. I workedfor the first 10 yearsof my career in policeagencies, mostrecently the NationalCrime Agencyso my background isabout human behavior.At that time it wasabout understanding,analyzing andinterpreting offenderbehavior. It'ssomething that's kindof a common themethat's always runthrough my careeranalyzing,interpreting,understanding and thentrying to change humanbehavior because fromthat I moved intolocal authorities andI mainly dealt withlearning anddevelopment,organizationaldevelopment sotraining people interms of leadershipand other skills aswell and then I sortof moved into regenwhile I was in thelocal authorities andI used my backgroundin engagement andhuman behavior andunderstanding that totry and help and bringthat to a regensituation and now I'mjust really trying tointerested and tryingto while I'mstill tryingto analyze andinterpret humanbehavior now my rolereally is aboutinfluencingit as well.Brilliant and I didsee you had a bit of ashowcase at theNational Urban DesignConferencerecently and there wasa real buzz aroundthat and you had yourVR goggles andpeople were ableto experiencedifferent types ofenvironments, how theymight be in thefuture. Canyou tell uswhen you're engagingpeople in that way,what's the bigdifference betweendoing that or the moreconventional sort ofexhibition boards in aroom, in a town hallor you know yeah,interesting to knowwhat you think thedifference is. Well Ithink there's amassive difference,I think there's anumber of factors thatI think these digitaltools are reallybeneficial whenit comes to communityengagement. I thinkthe first one isinclusivity, it makesinformationmuch easier tounderstand, it's muchmore visual the toolsthat you that we use,it's a virtualreality, we have avideo game versionoften of proposalsthat we have, we havean interactivetouch table and weknow that the averagereading age forexample in England isbetween that of an11 and 14 year old,the NHS tailors theircommunication to thatof a nine yearold audience.What I findfrustrating I thinkfrom maybe localauthorities andplanning in general isthe overlycomplex technicalnature of some of theconcepts that you'retrying to communicateto the generalpublic and if you're amember of the publicwith a with a nationalaveragereading age or loweror your English isn'tyour first language oryou find it difficultto you have adifferent learningstyle to maybe somepeople who gathertheir information fromreading asmany people do,you can often find theconsultation processquite exclusive so ourtools arereally good atincluding people,getting people in,actually having fun apublic consultationevent as wellwhich I think has itsmerits too, so itreally makes adifference in terms ofinclusivity,it makes a hugedifference in terms ofpeople's understandingof schemes, ifyou can immersesomebody within theproposals then they'remuch more likely tounderstand what theymean for themso we often find thatpeople as I'm sureeverybody does are abit nervous when itcomes to change orthings that are new,we hear the term nimbybanded around quite alot but actually whatwe find isthat if we can immersethem within the futureof their place thenthey're muchmore likely tounderstand thereasoning behind whythings are done andactually understandwhat that future placewill look like andthey also often talkabout how things feltas well, how did itfeel to them andwe can enhance how itfeels with staging sowe did a magic carpetride for Folkestonewhere we had afan going which gavethe experience asthough they wereflying through theair, we'veworked with theRHS where we playedwith scent and buzzingsounds and bees to tryand really transportpeople intothe place or theproposals that they'reseeing and we can findthat's reallyimpactful in termsof their understandingbut also in terms oftheir behaviour aswell, if people canmake thoseemotional connectionsto future placesthey're much morelikely to understandthem and maybewant to go back tothem as well so whenpeople come off of ourexperiences ifthere are gooddevelopments out therethey're often moresupportive of them,they may have come inbeforehandnot being verysupportive of them butwe find that we canchange their mind andin the same token ifthere's a reallyshoddy developmentthere it's reallyclear to see that fromthe outset, you stickit in a virtualreality or a videogame it's really clearto see the the rubbishdesign out there sowe're giving benefitto good proposalsbecause we're lettingpeople see them intheir true lightbut we're also shininga light on those thosebad ones as well whichI think as you know anurban designprofessional I thinkyou and many otherslistening will bepleased to hear.That's absolutelyfascinating and I'mlooking forward totrying it out notleast the the magiccarpet just to takethat sort of one stepfurther becauselistening to whatyou're saying it'salmost as though themore immersive and themore realistic anexperience can be themore likely itis someone is going tohave a more meaningfulresponse so where doesthat have tostop so forexample in terms ofdifferent senses youknow you mentionedsound and smell youknow with withclimate change peopleare going to haveexperiencing differenttemperatures andseeing how much shademakes a difference anddo you think that thatone day we'll be ableto be in asituation where wecan experience aproject you knowoverseas that might beyou know 50 degreesoutside andand a lot less insideor that type of thing.Yeah it's notsomething that we'vethought about yetI have now and nowyou've mentioned itmaybe we could dosomething in the UAEin a sauna orsomething and you knowget to feel helpfulit's really light butyeah we couldabsolutelyexperiment with that Ithink that's a it'sagain one of the manyuses of thetools that we haveis that they arereally versatile andflexible and that wecan we're all on ournext our latestproject is always ourbest one and we'realways trying newthings on our latestprojects we'vegot a this week infact in Ramsgate inKent we've developed avirtual realityhovercraft rideacross the the highstreet and the and theharbor area ofRamsgate so we'realways looking todevelop and innovatewith our tools and dosomething differentand capture theimaginationespecially bespoke toplaces Ramsgate youmight know has ahistory of thehovercraftused to get the crosschannel hovercraftthere to France backin the 80sso we're alwayslooking looking forthat angle I thinkwith places to make itreally relevantfor the localcommunity and the andthe clients that wework with.My next guest that wehave here with ustoday is Tianan fromHello Lamp Postgreat name andan organization I'veheard about but Idon't know a hugeamount about so I'mreally interested tofind out more I knowyou're going to begiving a presentationthis afternoon but canyou tell usyou know a bit aboutyou and yourbackground and andabout Hello Lamp Postand and what that isexactly. I'll try anddo the short versionmy background has beenmostlycommercial so started afew ventures in thepast all allpredominantly focusedon really softwarebusinesses but beforethat actuallycoincidentally myexperience and mycareer started off inreal estate andsurveying soactually looking backit gave me a lot ofunderstanding abouthow we as society usephysical places how weinteract with them howwe influence them andhow we feedback about them soactually you knowlookingretrospectively gaveme a great groundingfor foundingHello Lamp Postand fast forward alittle bit so foundedHello Lamp Post withmy twoco-founders in 2018and the short storyreally is we providedigital assistance forany place so that canbe a basicallya digital staff memberfor anything from anairport a public parka shoppingmall a officebuilding a residentialbuilding whatever thatmight be and for thoseorganizationsand companiespublic or private itallows them to extendtheir team so to havea digital staffmember in a homein an office buildingin a hospital givingpeople information inthe moment alsosupporting them butalso importantlygathering theirfeedback gatheringtheir sentiment theiropinions allof the time inreal time and thattakes the format of achat interface sosomeone will comeacross in thatplace in that specificlocation so whether itbe a hospital waitingroom or adesk in an officebuilding and they'llinteract using theirtheir phone via sms orscan the qrcode and they'reinto a friendlydigital assistant chatso it's really a wayfor to better connectpeople societycommunities audienceswith the organizationsthat run those placesokay reallyinterestingi'm lookingan image in thebackground of a humanhand and a robotichand and i'm wonderingdoes hulla lamppost actually extendto having a robot thatmight do that the chatbox type thingor is it alwaysthrough the app andthe phone uh no planshas yet to havephysical robots butthat's not to saynot to say that won'thappen in the futurebut at the moment yeahit's purelysoftware sowe're trying to lowerthe barriers soactually there's noseparate app for auser to downloadthey just scan the qrcode or sms a phonenumber so they don'teven need to have asmartphonenecessarily and ifthey scan the scan theqr code it just opensup a browser so theydon't needan account or a loginor a separate app todownload so we reallywant to lowerthe barriersto entry for us peopleusing a place to getinformation andsupport butalso for councilsor landlords orwhoever they are notonly to better supportmore people butunderstand theirneeds better so it soif we're talking abouta built environmentproject andit's sort of veryearly days beforethere's a sort of evena concept or a schemebut you're wanting tofind out whatpeople think aboutthat area that placethe name hullo lamppost suggests youmight even havethe qr codes up onlamp post it yeah andand then how does thatthen sort of evolve asit might getinto sort of planningconstruction do youstay with the processall the waythrough or yeahabsolutely i mean oneof our motto is reallyis is meet peoplewhere they are one ofthe kind ofearly observationsthat we found iscertainly when itcomes to engagementand gatheringopinions andfeedback is it'smostly desk based yesyou have kind ofin-person events butthat perhaps onlymeets a small segmentof of the audience ora community so beingable to meet peoplewhere theyare in that placethat's relevant forthat consultation oror projectallows you to bethere every step ofthe way so yeah itmight be it might besigns in a park forexample or whateverthat site is thatlocation is thatallows people tointeract and thesystem can askpeople questionsand their opinionsonce it goes intoconstruction then youknow hoardings can goup you know we'reworking on a siteolympia site inkensington in inlondon and there'ssigns ontheir holdingsgathering people'ssentiment and opinionsand feedback rightthrough tooperational so oncesomething exists youknow the consultationand engagementshouldn't stop thereyou know at theend of the day you'restill providing aplace and a servicefor people you shouldyou should listento those end usersokay and so we're nowabout to kick off theformal proceedings andwe're goingto start with an openmic session we're inwe're in the sevendials club in commongarden and it'sprobably best knownfor having um comedynights and that's whatsort of gaveus the idea offollowing a similartype of format whereanyone can sayanything about thetopic and uh no holdsbarred so uh it wentreally well the lasttime we did this let'ssee if we can do itagain now we'retalking about a morespecific topic my nameis um john littel umi'm one of theco-founders ofbeater streets um astreet designvisualization softwarecompany i i mean ithink the potentialis huge um i mean i ialso think it's kindof a catchall term forlots of thingsat the momentwhere we kind of youknow ai sounds um likerobots are taken overthe worldterminator styleand what we actuallymean is kind ofmachine learning insome instances andactually incrementaluh tools that reallysupport other toolsand and make them moreefficient soum i mean i'mgenerally quiteexcited about itparticularly with itspotential to help uswith the quitemundane task of of umsorting throughresponses and and thatkind of stuff but aspeople havetalked about earlierthere are some risksassociated with thatin that wekind of throwthe baby out with thebath water and and byadopting all thistechnology weforget about thereally important partof communityengagement which isfundamentally thehumanelements around itfei cannings londonbarrow at wardenforest to be honest ithink we're on thestart of the journeyin terms of how we useum some of the moreadvanced tools umwe've certainlyused platformslike um commonplacewhich i think hasproved really reallyum valuable interms of how wereach more diversecommunities um butit's been about makingsure that weum ask the rightquestions um that weyeah we target theright information andwe gain thatfeedback in in thebest possible way toinform our decisionsum so we just had totake what a i guessquite an informedapproach to how we dothat and and thenmaking sure that wethen followthrough with thatinformation and we canactually utilize it tobest effect so my nameis that youand mills i'm theco-founder of blocktype we're atechnology companythat helps propertydevelopers andplanners understandhow much housing theycan fit on a site souh and i thinkit's going tochange everything thisis more than a toolit's the first timewe're building atechnologythat can actuallygenerate informationwhich isindistinguishable fromfrom fromhumans right andi think uh when wehave a technology thatcan do that it becomesincredibly hard toknow what isreal and what isn'tright information ischanging everything somy name is suresh i'mfrom boydenand i recruit c-suiteindividuals into theirsocial housing sectormy concern is if if aai is a learning toolit's the data that'sgoing into it which isgiving usanswers back for whatwe're looking for butif the data isn'tthere from segments ofsociety are we or willit thereforeleave out certainaspects and and giveus answers that don'tcover everybody andtherefore are wereally representingsociety and those inin particularlydisadvantaged areascorrectly orfairly and it's andit's such a powerfulthing i think uhanother one of themembers here talkedabout how it can itcan create thingsrather than reactwhich is even scarierbecause whatwhat are you sayingthen you can create orfabricate a voicewhich hasn'tnecessarilyengaged you think youhave a thought processor it can create athought processaround coming upwith a an essence ofwhat would be said bythose individuals andgive you thatnarrative so even ifthey haven't engagedyou're trying tocreate the narrativeto engage with thatagain is quite scaryand i guess forsomebody who's alittle bit maybe i'mnot in tune with itenough to understandthat the the power forme was always thepersonal relationshipis this going to allowus to just getto more people that'sall it is and um yeahso it's been afascinatingconversation so farokay well that was afantastic uh open micsession so manyinteresting viewpointsand experiences fromfrom a really diversegroup um coming at itfrom all differenttypes of angles so forme some ofthe really mostimportant takeawayswere that ai ischanging rapidly andit's now used by mostpeople on a dailybasis ai tools candefinitely helpcapture feedback fromgroup discussions in avery helpful way buthuman experience ofthose discussions isalso essentialto gain that sortof full picture thefull insight there'sobviously uh risksassociated with aithat has a uh you knowdoes cause concern andthe things like biasor or the ability tocreateinformation that'sindistinguishable fromwhat a human mightcreate and also ithink what really cameacross from thatsession was thatthere's no silverbullet with ai andthat the effectivenessof the tools reallydepends on on how theyare used we've heardfrom uh two of ourspeakers who havegiven presentationsabout their particularsort of platforms andnow we're going tohear from othersincluding ollieollie is the directorfounder of ECF whichstands for engagecommunicate facilitateand they'vebeen doing that onprojects and campaignsreally globally in inuh in london but alsouh and andthe rest of the uk butalso in sydney andaustralia and i thinkit's reallyinterestingto hear fromollie about theirexperience of howthings have changedand how they're usingthese differentplatforms some of whomwe've heard fromalready but alsoothers like forexample wild streetsthat are very close tomy heart as aaugmented reality appthat also has a lot ofdata aroundecosystem services sopeople can see andimagine what theirurban spaces wouldlook like with moregreenery trees andplants and thenunderstand what impactthat's having in termsof biodiversity airquality flood risk andso on so let's hearfrom ollie now helloeverybody ollieverdeet from ECFhere there's a wholesuite of differentplatforms that are outthere some of whichwe've worked withand some of which wehaven't when i startedout doing communityengagementabout 15 years agonone of this stuffexisted really so tosee it develop overtime has been it'sbeen quiteimpressive hellolamppost we've donesome exciting workwith them both inlondon and umin australiaaround using theirhumanistic chatbot tofacilitateconversations in thepublic realmand then i know thatwas streets no max hashad some involvementwith them they'redoing somereally exciting stuffaround augmentedreality virtualreality particularlyaround public realmimprovements and we'rereally excited to seehow that develops andi i think these typesof initiativesreally do help toprovide the communitywith mechanismsthroughwhich to actuallyfeedback in it what icall a low frictionway so there are timepoor individuals outthere in acommunity that don'twant to turn up to apublic exhibitiondon't want to come toworkshops butthey will engage withthese types ofplatforms the digitalurban team they'redoing some reallyexciting stuff aroundvirtual reality andaugmented reality andi think this has gotthe power to reallytransform that actualphysical engagementexperience that we'reimmersed in dayto day so thosedrop-in events thosepublic exhibitionsthose workshops can bereally enhancedby good artesianintelligence goodvirtual realityproducts and i thinkthis is uh there'sgoing to be lots ofthis sort of stuffcoming forward overover the yearsand in terms ofthe quantitative andqualitative analysisone of the problemswe've found over theyears is thatthematically coding orcoding up data forsentiment is a verytimeconsuming operationat the moment andthere are now a coupleof tools that havecome online that willhelp you do thatwe've used citizenslab we haven't usedfuture fox yet butwe've spoken to theteam there andyou know the promisehere is that 80 to 90percent of some ofthat codingand analysisparticularly on thequalitative side thatwe're doing at themoment could be doneby effectivelymachinery and thatwould really free youup to do more work toget peopleparticipating in intothe process and that'sit that's uh hopefullya little bit of awhistle-stop tour onsome of thethings that we'retrying to consideraround artificialintelligence we'rereally excitedthis will be a greatconversation today i'mlooking forward tohearing how itgoes and whatthe outcomes are andenjoy the afternoonthank you very much ithink what for mecould be a reallyinteresting case studyis the work that umtanisha rafudin hasbeen doing withanother one of ourmembers roomie bowsit's a case study inum what success lookslike when you docommunity engagementproperly but it alsoreally started to usetechnology and ai inquite aninnovative waywelcome tanisha you'rehere today to talkquite specificallyabout one of theprojects you workedon with another one ofour members roomiebows and that was inneeston in and it wasworking withbrent council and justinterested to know abit more about thatproject and how theystarted tomaybe adopt some moreprogressive ideasaround the use oftechnology because iknow it's alwaysdifficult for localauthorities to to takeon sort of new newinnovation without itbeing fully triedand tested say so yeahtell us a bit moreabout that absolutelyso as part of theirapplicationto the mayor oflondon's civicpartnership programrun by the gla brentcouncilcommissioned us asthe design team madeup of santa spentonarchitects roomie bowsand where pathwaysmeet and conceptculture to develop astrategic vision andaction plan to set outa roadmap totransform neestontown center into athriving neighborhoodthrough meaningfulengagement with thelocal communityso the council briefwas very clear that wehad to reach as manyvoices aspossible and they wereparticularly keen toreach the typicallyunheard voices but thekey thing i'd like tooutline herewere the projectconstraints we had avery tight time scaleand a very tightbudget so we werecommissioned towardsthe end of december of2023 to deliver thisaction plan by thebeginning ofapril 2024 and so themajority of thecommunity engagementactivities were runbetween februaryand march and as mostpeople will knowthat's not enough timeto run meaningfulcommunity engagementand so we did usedigital tools we diduse technology we diduse um ai andinterestinglyenough it was brentcouncil's own haveyour say platform andwe were veryfortunate to have acouncil officer rearegenitor officerbruna at the time whowas very much allabout using technologyusing ai uh using theright digital tools toyou know bring thecommunity alongwith us in thejourney but obviouslywe were limited withbudget in distance andso we were limited andso we endedup using brentcouncil's own platformand exploring moreadvanced tools buthaving said that theplatform did the jobwe were able to launcha digital engagementcampaignasking the communityabout their prioritiesand their aspirationsfor the town's towncenter and what the aitool allowedus to do was sentimentanalysis very quicklyand it produced veryclever graphics andreports andgraphs and word cloudswhich we could theninput into theengagement report andagain we wererunning to very verytight timescale thedesign team you knowlong hours workingtogether toproduce this massivereport so it helped alot in terms ofefficiency anddelivering the finaloutput and the finaloutput was anengagement andco-design report whichfed into theaction planand it was all aboutand the vision was allabout delivering afairer safergreener healthierconnected and morediverse neisden andi'm pleased to sharethat the bid wasultimately successfuland secured 3.1million of funding forbrent council for asubstantial level ofimprovementfor neisden towncenter wow that's areal success story andi know how hard it isto to win thosebids for governmentfunding that are so soin demand so tell meyou know whenyou did thatengagement and you youyou asked people abouttheir sentimentsthat's that's reallyinterestingso it was more abouthow they felt aboutthe place orparticular ideas orwhat reallyneeded to changeand what didn't um canyou think of anythingspecifically that cameup that maybe wasuh interesting thatyou hadn't thought ofthat came through thatprocess thatended up beingpart of the bid or nosadly no i think thesentiment analysiskind ofreflected what wealready understoodwhile we met with wellthrough the in-personengagements as well umthe residents feelneglected they feelthat the councilhasn't paidattention to themover other surroundingareas and othersurrounding towncenters and you couldfeel that soi wouldn't say that itit shared anything newbut i think it enabledpeople tobe honest andupfront about whatthey felt sadly andfeel like they've hada chance and then feellike they'vehad a chance to say soi think that wasimportant to empowerpeople with the righttools and givethem that voice andfeel like you knowthey've had anopportunity to to saysomething okay andthat is valuable initself isn't it andand you know the thingabout using digitaland technologyis it enables you todo a lot more with alot less humanresource and that isthe big issue forcouncils at the momentisn't it where theyare very strapped forcash but also theyjust don'thave this the staffother than for sort ofemergency services andand uh you know socialcare and education andso on so did you thinkdid you find that wasa a keypart of it thattechnology enabled youto do i suppose morewith less yes that'sdefinitely one thing iwould liketo highlight given thefact that we had todeliver this projectwithin twomonths uh timeit made things mucheasier much quickerand we were able tofloat the the campaignfor a coupleof weeks um with moretime and more budgetuh what i would haveliked to have done isconduct morefar-reaching socialmedia campaignsperhaps using otherplatforms like ticktock as an example toreach the youngervoices the nextgeneration gen z genalpha whose voices arealso equally valuableand um around thecampaign for a coupleof more weeks andagain that's wishfulthinking maybe inthis case buthopefully next timethat's definitely alesson uh the teamwill takeforward to have toto to push for moretime uh to delivermeaningful engagementand gather thatsentiment analysis andempower people to haveum that voice andcertainly going backto your question aboutwhether weuncover something newi think there are alot of ideasdefinitely from uh theyouth engagement thatwe probably wouldn'thave thought about butagain because we'reyou know we'redifferent it's ofteni suppose about notnot necessarily themessage but who isdelivering the messageand i think theinteresting thingabout you knowplatforms like ticktock is there arethese influences thathave huge followingsthat people really dolisten to who areincreasinglyinterested intheir builtenvironment and feellike they areempowered to changethat orcriticize it i sawa brilliant videorecently of a young ayoung resident inhackney who was justlet's just sayhad a very um jadedview of the new oldstreet roundabout uhimprovementsafter all the moneyand time that had beenspent and it wasreally powerful muchmore so i think thanthan uh youknow watching an itemon the news you know ii would i would agreeand you know the thereis a wholegeneration out thereparticularly gens atuh gen alpha maybe theyounger millilians aswell who areuh you know andshamedly open onsocial media and youwill get unfiltered uhunrestrictedcomments and realfeedback and genuinefeedback if you careto listen i think theother elementis listening sothere's there are thetools there's there isthe tech there youknow ai isgetting moreand mature as we speakbut on the other endis are you willing tolisten youknow as the as thecouncil or as adeveloper or assomeone who you knowwho owns and managesthese assetshow much areyou willing to listenand take on board thefeedback is also apart of theconversationwell thank you so muchtanisha that's anabsolutely brilliantcase study and uh lotslots of food forthought for me themost importanttakeaways from thosepresentations werethat you know ai toolsare clearly uhincredibly helpfulwhen it comes tothings like repetitiveor or time consumingtasks and criticallythat that can free upsort of humanresourcing whichdoesn't meanthat humansare no longer neededbut they're justneeded to do differenttypes of things thatcan add value ithink we're clearlywe're still in inrelatively earlystages of ai so therethere is still a lotof skepticism outthere but the sort ofcontext setting andtransparency candefinitely help buildtrust in the use of itum there's obviously aconcern that thecommercialdrive of ai isoutpacing the ethicssomething that there'sa long history of umscience andtechnology doingover over the decadesand centuries but umwhat's always comeinto play is aboutgovernmentintervention andthrough legislationand and i think we'reseeing moreof that nowin terms of creatingthose conditions and asort of the regulatorylandscape umit's it's obviouslyimportant to everyonethat humans retainoversight and othersort of final decisionmaking power ifyou like and there hasto be human points ofcontact within thecommunityotherwise it's justtoo abstracted andyou're not getting thefull um the fullpicture in ameaningfulway i think thatone of the interestingthings that came up isthat the reach ofcommunity engagementcan definitelybe extended whetherthat's through socialmedia you knowtargeted ad campaignsbut also beingable to go out topeople and using thesetypes of innovativeengagement methodsthat are moreappealing and morecommonplace um excusethe pun for youngerpeople or people whohave english asa second language youknow it's about havinga variety of tools atyourdisposal to it makessure that the largestnumber of people cancontribute to theirplaces and howthey're developedso we're going to openup to a paneldiscussion now andinvite the audience toask questions and openit up to a widerconversation and inparticular i thinkit will be interestingto have some snippetsfrom the panel membersthe ones we haven'theard fromso far on the podcastum like Nicola fromGrosvenor who arereally embracinginnovation withinengaging with theirresidents and thepeople that thatexperience and usetheir placesand also fromDorian who is fromcommonplace anothermember of the LDNcollective who reallyare transformationalwhen when when theirplatform is used ioften say you canreally tell thedifference betweena project that's useda commonplace platformand one that hasn'tand so so let'shear from themabout what they thinkare the importantissues Dorian O'Neillfrom commonplace ithink the mainkind of benefits as imentioned in my kindof talk apart from theobvious things aroundsavings andefficiencies andhelping with the backend processes and theadmin and thelaborious tasksit's just encouragingcouncils or developersto kind of go out tomore people and ithink at themoment particularlyfor planning teamsthat areunder-resourced youknow they have theydon't havemuch staff so i thinkactually by usingtechnology and AI andtaking some of thatkind of work offthem it then enablesthem to do some of thereally meaningfulengagements so gettingout there faceto face and kind ofhaving conversationswith people yeah inthat in that way yeahcommonplacedeveloped an AIsolution with centralgovernment and threedifferentcouncils to help withefficiencies andsavings particularlyfor local governmentso the AI that we'vedeveloped helpsanalyze a lot of freetext comments as wellas kind of summarizingquestions andwe use voicecapture as well aswe're developing a newchat gpt kind of stylebot where people caninterrogatetheir consultations soin a nutshell it'sjust about helping ourcustomers to processand analyzethat information moreeffectively so forexample looking at along text comment kindof being ableto identify sentimentsand topics and beingable to kind of kindof quickly identifypatterns inthe community what'simportant to peoplewhat are the keytalking points andbeing able to quicklyreport that andvisually share thatinformation with keystakeholders andcommunities to helpbuild trust andtransparency thatthey're involved inthat decision makingand thattheir thoughtscount i think it willreally help kind ofplanning professionalsfocus on ultimatelywhat they're paid todo and their stuffthat they've donetheir degree on and ithink hopefullyit will take a lot ofstress away from thatprofession because atthe momenti think kindi think kind ofof speaking morewidely i think localgovernment andplanning teams theystruggle withrecruitmentrecruitment and toand to attract kind ofyounger people and ithink maybe some ofthat is a lotof that laboriouslaborious tasks that itasks that i justmentioned you know theadmin style stuff thatno one likes soactually beingable to kind ofpromote the sector ina more kind of moderninnovative way that'susing tech and AIand AI i thinki think will actuallyattract more peopleinto it which i thinkis needed. Hi myname's Nicolais NicolaRotrol and i lead oncommunity engagementand insights forGrosvenor. Grosvenoris a propertycompany that has over300 years ofexperience in makingand managing placesand we wear manydifferent hatsinvestor, developer,partner landlords andpartner, landlords andpart of my role ismaking surethat people in ourbusiness understandwhat they need to doto engage the variedbut wonderfulcommunities in theplaces that we workproperly. It's fair tosay that we're veryearly in our AIour AI journey butjourney but some ofthe use cases thatwe're currentlyexploring is using AIto code andanalyze qualitativeresponses in free techsurveys for exampleand also consideringhow it might makeour processes aroundcomms and engagementwith communities moreeffective tofree up our timeso that we can focuson much more importantthings. I think a goodoutcome fromthe use of AI atfrom the use of AI atGrosvenor isdefinitely making surethat our quality ofengagement isnot sufferingsuffering but thatbut that we're able tomake our processesmuch more efficient.Wow so some incredibleWow so someincredible insightsinsights there andthere and it's beensuch a brilliant daytoday and so good toget everyone together.together i hope thisI hope thisexperiment with a livepodcast with multiplevoices comes out aswell as the eventitself did andand and i hope itand I hope itencourages more peopleto come along to ourfuture events. We'revery open tosuggestions for topicsand themes. I think inthe new year we arelikely to lookat new towns,to look at new townsnew settlementsnew settlements.new settlementsclearly theClearly thisgovernment's drive tobuild one and a halfmillion homes over thenext five years isgoing to need supportfrom everybody to helpachieve thatcritical missionmission so so that'sso that's oneimportant topic butplease do let us knowany others and you cankeep up withwith the ldnthe LDN Collective andfind out more aboutdifferent projects andinitiatives by signingup to our newsletteron the website orfollowing us onvarious social mediaplatforms. So I justwant to say toeveryone that'slistening, everyonethat's listened to thevarious sortof podcaststhat we've done thisyear, the secondseries, to have abrilliant andenjoyablefestive break andbreak and look forwardlook forward tore-engaging with youall in the new year.

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Max Farrell

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