City of Raleigh cuts IT desk costs 66% with ServiceNow

Raleigh's move builds on a decade of running IT, HR, facilities, and security workflows on ServiceNow, which gave the city a deep knowledge base to draw from. That existing data likely made it feasible to deploy AI agents that could resolve requests end-to-end rather than just route them. The first agent, Ral-E, guides employees through self-service and answers questions, achieving a 98% deflection rate. Building on that, the city put Alli, its L1 IT Service Desk AI Specialist, into production to handle complete workflows from start to finish. Help desk staff oversee Alli's work and keep her knowledge accurate and current, preserving a human check on the process. The city reports 66% lower IT service desk costs achieved by redirecting staff time, 98% of AI-generated incident summaries accepted as-is, and 20+ workflows automated through ServiceNow's Autonomous Workforce. Raleigh is now extending the model to residents, connecting Ral-E and Alli to the 'Ask Raleigh' portal to serve nearly 500,000 residents. This suggests other municipal governments with similar ServiceNow investments may look at Raleigh as a test case for applying AI agents to citizen-facing services.