The City Council of Florence has launched an expanded version of Festina Lente 055055, its multilingual virtual assistant designed to help residents access municipal services online around the clock. Available 24 hours a day and in 13 languages through the city’s official website, the AI-powered assistant provides information and guidance on all digital services offered by the municipality, giving citizens continuous support and easier access to public services.
Initially introduced in November 2025 as a pilot tool focused on residence change requests, Festina Lente 055055 has now been expanded to cover the full range of services provided by the City of Florence. The initiative marks the municipality’s first use of generative artificial intelligence within its digital service ecosystem.
One of the first public-sector projects of its kind in Italy, Festina Lente has evolved from a pilot programme into a permanent digital assistant available at any time. The chatbot is powered exclusively by information published on the city’s institutional portal and maintained by municipal departments, ensuring that responses are based on official and up-to-date content.
Residents can access the service by visiting the city’s online services portal and clicking on the Festina Lente turtle icon, which appears in the lower-right corner of every page. No personal information is required to use the chatbot. If users accidentally enter unnecessary personal data, the system has been trained to detect and automatically delete it within the same day. Anonymous data is retained for a maximum of six months solely for monitoring and service improvement purposes.
The system was designed and developed entirely by SILFI – Firenze Smart, using internal resources, with technological partner Ergon providing support during the most technically complex phases of development. The project is funded through European Union resources under the PN Metro Plus 2021–2027 programme.
