Public AI for every commune
An open-source guide to life situations in Switzerland, where a public model draws the path and only official sources are allowed to answer.
A guide, not an oracle
Moving house, enrolling a child, finding transport, understanding costs: life in Switzerland is a sequence of steps spread across federal, cantonal and communal pages. For the Swiss {ai} Weeks challenge “Build a public AI service”, I built a prototype where a person describes their situation in their own words and Apertus, the Swiss public model, draws the branches and steps of their journey.
The model is a guide, not an oracle. Every link comes from a curated catalogue of official pages, ch.ch, the canton of Vaud and the communes of Nyon and Saint-Cergue, and two labels are kept apart on purpose: what an official source establishes, and what the model explains. Changing an earlier answer previews the steps it affects before anything is applied.
Exhibit 1DiagramRead left to right
A guide, not an oracle
From a sentence in the person’s own words to a tree of steps grounded in official pages. The model proposes; the catalogue decides what can be linked; the labels keep the two apart.
What it taught me, and what is missing
The Apertus key never reaches the browser; a small server-side proxy, started on demand, holds it. I entered alone, which made the entry ineligible for judging, and I recorded a silent demo instead of a pitch. Public AI Switzerland later asked for a recorded session to understand and promote the idea.
One limit is on the record because it should be: in a test, the model inferred a nationality the person had never given. Before anything like this becomes advice people rely on, it needs reviewed local information and checks on the questions left unanswered. That is the work I would like to do next, with a commune willing to try.
Exhibit 2TimelineFilled points are my milestones; hollow points are the context they sit in
A few weeks in 2026
- 2026September: rebuilt as a dynamic mapThe person writes their situation; the model draws the branches; links come only from the catalogue.Source
- 2026Swiss {ai} Weeks, ZurichA solo entry and a silent demo video.Source
- 2026October: a recorded session with Public AI SwitzerlandIntroduction, one slide, a short demo and what I expect public AI to do for communes. Recorded by Public AI Switzerland; the link appears here once they publish it.Source
Exhibit 3ResourcesOpen the thing itself, not a description of it