L-05 Labs project

Hüni — KI-Gemeindeassistent

KI-Gemeindeassistent für Hünenberg. RAG-basierter Chat mit Halluzinations-Stopp, Quellenangaben und Schweizer Datenhoheit.

Concept
Hüni — KI-Gemeindeassistent — Mockup preview

Problem

Citizens lose time searching for official information on deeply nested municipal websites. Hünenberg already operates a modern online services portal and the eZug app, yet the most common queries (change of address, dog registration, waste calendar) still lead to phone calls or counter visits.

Commercial chatbot solutions are unsuitable for a Swiss municipality: they hallucinate when knowledge is missing, process data outside Switzerland, and provide no reliable source citations. Static FAQs, in turn, do not scale to the breadth of real citizen questions.

Solution

Hüni is an AI municipal assistant based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). The knowledge base consists exclusively of verified municipal sources: regulations, sitemap, online services portal, waste calendar.

A strict system prompt enforces three non-negotiable rules: source citations on every substantive answer, active refusal to process personal data, and a hard hallucination guardrail — when the knowledge base does not answer a query, the response consistently escalates to the municipal office.

Architecture: hosting entirely in Switzerland, FADP-compliant data processing. Estimated operating costs for a municipality of 9,000 residents: CHF 200–400 per month.

Target audience

Primary:

  • Mid-sized Swiss municipalities (5,000–25,000 residents)
  • Cantonal administrations focused on citizen services
  • Municipal offices with high volumes of recurring queries

Secondary:

  • Municipalities with high shares of international residents (multilingual needs)
  • Municipal associations building shared-service models
  • GovTech vendors as white-label component

Tech Stack

KI-Sprachmodell (LLM) Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) JavaScript (Vanilla) HTML5 / CSS3 Serverless API Proxy Vector Database Schweizer Cloud-Hosting Python (Sitemap-Crawler) eZug API (geplant / planned)

Compliance

revDSG 2023 (Schweizer Datenschutzgesetz) EU AI Act — Risikoklasse: limited ISO 27001 (über Schweizer Hosting-Partner) WCAG 2.1 AA (geplant) eCH-0014 (Schweizer eGov-Standard, geplant) BGEID (geplant) OECD AI Principles 2019

Roadmap

Q2 2026 — Pilot

Functional prototype with curated knowledge base (~30 entries), browser-based widget and offline mirror. Hallucination tests against edge cases. Stakeholder demo to Hünenberg municipal council.

Q3 2026 — Backend

Cloudflare Worker as API proxy. Vector DB (Qdrant, Swiss hosting). Sitemap crawler for automated ingest. Friendly-user test with 50 Hünenberg residents.

Q4 2026 — Go Live

Production launch on huenenberg.ch. Analytics dashboard for administration (most frequent queries, escalation rates, usage patterns). Iterative knowledge base refinement.

2027 — Scaling

Adoption by 2–3 additional Zug municipalities. Full multilingual support (FR / IT / EN). eZug-eID integration for personal, authenticated queries.

References & Reading

  • Lewis, P. et al. (2020): Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks. arXiv:2005.11401.
  • Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC): Guidelines on the use of AI in public administration, 2024.
  • Federal Chancellery: Digital Switzerland Strategy 2024–2027.
  • Canton of Zug: eZug — Digital Administration 2026, Strategy Paper.
  • OECD (2023): Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence — Public Sector Application.

FAQ

How does Hüni prevent hallucinations?
Hüni may only answer based on the provided knowledge base. If no official source is found, the response is standardised: "I have no official data on this. Please contact the municipal office." This rule cannot be overridden in the system prompt.
Are personal data processed?
No. Hüni actively refuses to process personal data (names, social security numbers, tax numbers, account numbers) and requests their deletion. The knowledge base contains exclusively public municipal documents.
Where is the data hosted?
All data is hosted in Switzerland and falls exclusively under Swiss data protection law (revFADP). The knowledge base contains only public municipal documents — no personal data.
How current is the knowledge base?
In the pilot, the knowledge base is maintained manually. For production, a nightly sitemap crawler is planned that automatically reindexes huenenberg.ch. Static PDFs are re-ingested when versions change.
What does it cost to run?
Estimated CHF 200–400 per month for a municipality of 9,000 residents at moderate usage (~3,000 queries per month). Main cost items: Anthropic API calls, vector DB hosting, Cloudflare plan.
Can other municipalities adopt Hüni?
Yes. The architecture is municipality-neutral. Adapting it for a second municipality typically takes one to two weeks: swap knowledge base, adjust branding, reconfigure system prompt.
What happens with legally binding queries?
Hüni explicitly does not provide legally binding information and consistently refers to the municipal office whenever such a query is suspected. This restriction is transparently communicated in the disclaimer and anchored in the system prompt.
Which language model is used?
Claude Sonnet 4 from Anthropic, chosen for its excellent Swiss-German and Standard-German capabilities as well as EU hosting. The system is model-agnostic — switching to Mistral, Aleph Alpha or other European providers is prepared.
Case Study

Case Study

A Swiss municipality of 9,000 residents tests an AI assistant that makes citizen services available 24/7 — without the risks of commercial chatbots.

Hünenberg is among the most digitally advanced municipalities in the Canton of Zug. With the eZug app, an established online services portal, and an active Energy City Gold strategy, basic digitalisation is long since completed. The next question: how can AI tools deepen citizen services without compromising cantonal standards of data sovereignty and legal certainty?

The Hypothesis

A tightly curated RAG bot, fed exclusively from official municipal documents and equipped with a hard hallucination guardrail, could answer the most common citizen queries — change of address, dog registration, waste calendar — without human effort while cleanly escalating complex requests to administration staff.

The Prototype

A fully functional prototype with 30 knowledge base entries, a browser-based widget, and explicit hallucination tests against typical consumer-AI weaknesses ("What are next Saturday's lottery numbers?") was built in 14 days. The system strictly enforces source citations and consistently refers to the municipal office when no official source is available.

The Path to Production

The pilot is designed as a modular architecture: a sitemap crawler replaces the manual knowledge base, an API proxy solves security, the vector database preserves data sovereignty. All data in Switzerland, FADP-compliant. Estimated operating costs: CHF 200–400 monthly for a municipality of 9,000.

The key difference from Chatbase and commercial solutions: Hüni is not allowed to improvise. What is not in the source is not said.

More projects

What should we build together?

This project is part of our lab research. If you need something similar — your own AI tool, dashboard, custom workflow — talk to us. Every engagement starts with an honest assessment, not a sales pitch.