Artificial intelligence (AI) is essential to the development of smart and sustainable cities. Hager has explored how AI is used to optimize traffic, improve services and support climate action. The findings show that many cities are already investing in AI to address future challenges and improve quality of life.
In a largely digital world, artificial intelligence (AI) is a credible answer to many questions: How can energy consumption and production be managed more efficiently? With artificial intelligence. How can traffic problems be solved in a convenient way? With artificial intelligence. How can industrial productivity be optimized? With artificial intelligence.
Unsurprisingly, AI has become a central element in transforming cities into true “smart cities.” AI-powered digital applications are intended to help growing urban areas become more sustainable, resilient, and livable.
Cities in transition: Better to be smart
Smart cities are often thought of as a digital future, but artificial intelligence has already entered our urban environments. The question is no longer whether AI applications can change cities, but to what extent.
These applications are already in use across many regions. For Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), cities are becoming experimental spaces for testing new forms of AI and automated processes.
We are in the midst of a digital transformation of urban life: the future is here, and artificial intelligence will be part of these cities.
On the road to a smart city
Comparing cities to living organisms is not new, but it highlights a key problem many cities face when adopting a smart city concept: a lack of integrated strategies that capture the complex interactions within an urban system. Roland Berger’s “Smart City Strategy Index” from 2019 still found this to be true for 90 percent of cities.
At the same time, IMD’s Smart City Index shows that “smart cities” is a broad and active agenda, and many cities are investing in improvements. Businesses benefit, for example, from broadband and high-speed connections.
For residents, the technology itself is less important than the opportunities digitalization and AI create: improved mobility, participation, sustainability, health, education, and overall quality of life.
- Urban traffic — AI can optimize traffic flows and design better routes for public transport and service providers, resulting in fewer congestion delays, faster travel times, and reduced harmful emissions.
- Public authorities — AI helps improve citizen services and process requests more reliably. Many routine administrative tasks can be automated, freeing staff to offer more personalized support.
- Police — AI can assist in solving crimes more quickly by streamlining extensive investigations and uncovering hidden patterns.
- Healthcare — AI applications support more accurate diagnoses and accelerate pharmaceutical research, helping identify active compounds and personalize medications for better therapies.
- Education — From tutoring to university coursework, AI enables tailored learning materials and personalized instruction that enhance educational outcomes.
Smarter use of urban data
What role does AI play in building smart cities? According to research from ESI ThoughtLab, it plays a substantial role:
- 66 percent of 167 surveyed cities across 80 countries said they plan to invest more in AI in the future.
- 80 percent of those cities anticipate making those investments within three years.
AI is already part of smart city development. Digital assistants are used in two-thirds of cities, and over 70 percent report using machine learning.
The reason is clear: to harness real-time information from diverse data sources predictably and translate it into sustainable solutions for people, AI and data analytics are key success factors.
More resilient cities — enabled by AI
Mobility, education, health, environment, administration, infrastructure, economy: cities serve many functions for growing populations. Added to this are the challenges of climate change. Making cities more sustainable, resource-efficient and livable is a massive task. Artificial intelligence helps develop intelligent, data-based solutions that address the many facets of urban life. International examples demonstrate how this works in practice.
Helsingborg: Better roads
In Helsingborg, AI is used innovatively in waste collection. For several years, AI cameras have been mounted behind the windshields of garbage trucks. Integrating AI into daily waste collection reduced the time needed to map the city’s road network from nearly a year to just two weeks.
Economically, this produced significant savings—almost an 80 percent reduction in costs. The system cost roughly 700,000 SEK to procure, compared with traditional road mapping methods that focus only on pavement condition and cost between 1.5 and 3 million SEK.
Cascais: Greater efficiency
In Cascais, Portugal, tech-based services are part of daily life. The city previously lacked a comprehensive overview across vital domains like health, education, energy and public infrastructure.
That changed with a centralized digital platform. “C2” has helped make the waste system more efficient by adjusting vehicle routes based on traffic data and real-time road conditions.
The results increased sustainability: 180,000 km of travel saved, 350 tons less CO2 and approximately 7 million SEK in annual cost reductions.
Vienna: Data everywhere
The Austrian capital Vienna uses the European Commission’s Context Broker for its digital city platform. The platform is designed to present users with clear, visual, real-time information across nearly all areas of daily life.
Mobility, environmental monitoring and improved energy efficiency are among the platform’s responsibilities. It provides visualized information across domains and spares users from digging through large data sets to find the details they need.
In this way, all data is accessible without losing the overall perspective.
Innovative AI models for pedestrian flows
Large events showcase the diversity and vibrancy of urban life, but they are also logistical and safety challenges that must be managed carefully.
AI-supported solutions are being developed to monitor crowd movements in real time and, when necessary, guide flows to avoid bottlenecks. This approach can reduce long waits at major events such as concerts, festivals or sports matches.
Combining video data with crowd intelligence analysis offers benefits wherever large numbers of people gather. Researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich and the University of Wuppertal tested such technology at Lyon’s “Fête des Lumières” in 2022. In the United States, companies such as Quantum Corporation and WaitTime are working on live crowd intelligence solutions.
Greater climate resilience with AI
Artificial intelligence also plays a crucial role in designing climate-resilient cities. AI-driven systems analyze environmental data—temperatures, air quality, CO2 emissions and more—enabling targeted measures to reduce cities’ contribution to climate change. Linking this data to intelligent traffic management, energy supply and other systems has a direct impact on climate and environmental outcomes.
These systems also enable faster and better protective measures against climate impacts. In disaster risk management (DRM), AI supports early-warning systems by monitoring weather trends, identifying patterns and detecting anomalies.
Artificial intelligence is a key factor in preparing cities for the future and making them livable under changing climate conditions. New solutions are emerging worldwide through pilot projects and comprehensive smart city strategies. Some approaches are highly specialized, while others are transferable across cities and contexts. Together, these applications can raise quality of life, spur innovation and strengthen local economies. AI helps urban regions become more resilient and future-ready.