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AI-Assisted Community Feedback and Sentiment Analysis

What it is for

Inform
  • Assists staff in writing content for city webpages and information distribution to the public.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Planning & Decision-making
  • Supports compilation of research on public sentiment from specific topics to inform civic engagement strategy and policy outreach.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Run by
Mayor's Office
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.
Shared with
Accountable organization, Download
Your copy
You cannot see the data it holds about you. What you can do

What it is for

InformPlanning & Decision-making

This system uses a large language model platform to help New York City's Office of Civic Engagement gather and analyze community feedback. It assists staff in writing content for city webpages and compiling research on public sentiment drawn from news articles and social media posts. Outputs — sentiment analyses and survey summaries — are made public through reports or press releases. No personally identifying information is collected or disclosed.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour
Anonymized data
  • Media articles, news sources, and social media posts (e.g. posts on X) used to mine public sentiment on specific topics. No identifying information about individuals is collected.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Processing

Language Models
  • Zencity uses a proprietary LLM (Zencity Organic) to generate content, suggest research questions, and summarize survey and media feedback.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Affect & Emotion Analysis
  • Sentiment analysis is performed on media sources including news and social media posts to characterize public opinion on specific civic topics.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • The LLM generates content drafts for city webpages and suggests research questions; staff review and decide what to publish or use.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human decides
  • Classifies and scores media content to produce public sentiment analysis on specific topics; staff review and decide how findings are used or published.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Outputs

About behaviour
Anonymized data
  • Sentiment analysis and survey takeaways made public via reports or press releases. Outputs characterize group-level public opinion, not individuals.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • AI-generated content drafts for city webpages and information distribution, reviewed and approved by staff before publication.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Run by

Mayor's Office
  • The Mayor's Office of Civic Engagement holds the city contract with Zencity and operates the platform to support content writing and public sentiment research.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Built by

Zencity
  • Zencity is the vendor providing a proprietary LLM platform (Zencity Organic) for sentiment analysis and content assistance. The vendor provided training on platform use and offers additional support.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Kept for

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

Shared with

Not available to me
  • No identifying information is collected or disclosed. Individual members of the public cannot access their own data through this system because none is held about them individually.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Available to the accountable organization
  • Sentiment analyses and survey summaries are available to the Mayor's Office of Civic Engagement for internal use and public reporting.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Available to download
  • Sentiment analysis and survey takeaways are made public via reports or press releases, making aggregated outputs publicly accessible.

NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report — Zencity

Stored

Not stated by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyMembers of the public may review the NYC Algorithmic Tools Compliance Report, which describes the Zencity platform's purpose, data sources, and AI features. This DTPR disclosure is publicly available. Zencity's model is proprietary and detailed technical documentation is not publicly released by the vendor.

Risks and safeguards

  • Societal & cultural harmAI-generated content for city webpages may reflect biases embedded in the proprietary LLM, potentially shaping public communication in unintended ways. Sentiment analysis drawn from news and social media may over-represent certain voices or platforms.Safeguard: The system is described as informative with human staff reviewing and deciding on content before publication; outputs are published as public reports allowing external scrutiny. The vendor provides training on platform use.