Madrid's regional government installed EU-funded AI avatar kiosks, branded SOL, in 33 municipalities under 20,000 residents for tourism, administrative, tax and municipal information in natural language, in a four-month trial with no results published yet.
33
Municipalities piloting SOL kiosks
4 months
Pilot duration
Details
Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Comunidad de Madrid - Consejeria de Digitalizacion
Period
December 2025-April 2026 pilot
Region (NUTS)
ES30
Keywords
citizen engagement, digital government, rural and small-municipality digitalisation
Context
Many of Madrid's smaller municipalities (under 20,000 residents) lack staff/budget to modernise citizen services. In December 2025 the region's Consejeria de Digitalizacion installed AI avatar kiosks ('SOL', built by Bravent) in 33 municipalities.
Activities
Each kiosk answers tourism, location, administrative, tax and documentary questions by voice or text; financed through EU funds under the EDIH Madrid Region initiative, part of Spain's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. Each municipality has four months to gauge take-up before deciding whether to keep the tool.
Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Consejeria de Digitalizacion, Bravent (vendor)
Conditions for success
sufficient public take-up during the four-month trial to justify keeping or expanding the tool
The UK's Government Digital Service piloted GOV.UK Chat, a retrieval-augmented generative-AI assistant answering citizens' tax, benefits and visa questions — …