Catalonia to create Directorate-General of AI

The Catalan government will create a Directorate-General of Artificial Intelligence, Efficiency, and Data in the Administration.

The body is expected to become effective by the summer.

This is one of the executive's commitments after receiving ten proposals from a commission of experts working for the past five months on administrative reform.

In addition, the government also wants to create a new portal for all aid and subsidies, except those linked to social rights.

Authorities calculate that the new system would let them reduce the time it takes people to be granted the aid from 7.4 to around 5 months from the moment of application.

Carles Ramió, president of CETRA, the group working on the proposals, explained on Thursday that they wanted to propose the most "urgent" measures sooner, even though they have ten months to work on their report.

With these first steps, they want the public to see that progress is being made in the reform and that it is going "in the right direction."

Artificial intelligence

The executive wants AI to permeate government policies and intends to use it as a tool to modernize, simplify, and make administration and its processes more efficient.

The executive wants its services to be proactive in the procedures that citizens carry out on a recurring basis. The group of experts proposes that the administration should be the one to detect people who are likely to need a procedure and offer it to them directly.

The executive plans legislative reform this year to allow the transfer of data between administrations and hopes to have it completed by 2026. The intention is to use AI tools to streamline these processes.

It's also planned to use artificial intelligence to simplify urban planning and environmental procedures.

The focus is particularly on the processing of reports, which is what extends deadlines the most, according to the government.