Automation in the age of austerity: Why local governments are turning to civic tech

Business Journals

20 hours ago

For decades, the relationship between government and technology has been complex, with Silicon Valley historically shying away from public sector contracts, instead favoring growth, scale and lean cycles over procurement red tape. But history tells a different story when government inefficiency becomes too big to ignore.
After 9/11, a group of technologists who had built anti-fraud tools for PayPal pivoted to national security, working with federal agencies to streamline data intelligence. That effort became Palantir. While national security and defense contracting is an equally vital and lucrative space in terms of government contracting work, it is far from the only area where the government could be looking for help from the tech world.
Now, government technology — once a quiet corner of enterprise SaaS (software as a service) — is returning to the spotlight, particularly with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). The drivers? Budget shortfalls, federal layoffs, post-COVID-19 labor shortages and rising public expectations for fast, digital-first service delivery. In Washington, D.C., where local revenues are projected to drop by $1 billion over the next three years, operational efficiency is no longer optional.*
One of the most overlooked inefficiencies in modern government operations is returned mail, with over 6 billion mail pieces being returned in the U.S. annually, primarily due to outdated or incomplete addresses.* The consequences of lost mail can range from inconvenient to disastrous: notices like Medicaid or SNAP renewals, tax forms, jury summons and voter materials or critical documents from health care providers and insurers may arrive past billing windows (or not at all). Additionally, private enterprises spend billions on outbound mail that never lands due to outdated addresses.
It was this problem — widespread, persistent and largely unsolved — that caught the attention of a pair of D.C.-based entrepreneurs behind a new software venture named Sapphire LLC.
After exiting two prior businesses in the private sector, the founders Almustafa El Hillo and Deron Cooper set out to identify high impact but underserved administrative problems in government. Having spent years participating in and watching D.C. government performance hearings and internal oversight sessions, one issue appeared across departments from health care to housing: returned mail. The mail was coming back by the thousands and no one had a modern solution.
Enter ReturnMail.ai, the first product from Sapphire: a cloud-based platform that automates return mail processing using AI. The product syncs with an organization's existing address book or CRM, reads uploaded envelopes, scans USPS databases for change-of-address data and reaches out to recipients automatically to retrieve updated addresses. It then syncs those corrected addresses back into the organization's system. In short, it replaces hours of manual follow-up with seconds of automated processing. The technology is currently patent pending in the U.S., filed under the provisional title: Systems and Methods for Intelligent Return Mail Processing and Address Management.
ReturnMail.ai is one of a growing wave of startups emerging with software that doesn't reinvent the wheel — it simply helps the wheel spin faster.
Governments at every level are facing personnel shortages and operational bottlenecks. Currently, agencies, public and private alike, must process each returned envelope manually. The current manual process: open it, review the undeliverable code, attempt outreach and then update records — and that's assuming an updated address is even provided. The labor cost is significant, with estimates ranging from $5 to $20 per envelope — multiply that by the thousands (or millions) of mail pieces some institutions send each month and the inefficiency compounds.
How can it be integrated into already existing mailroom practices? Currently, the conventional workflow of processing return mail is an email, text and a voice call — all sent out manually. Sapphire has automated this entire process so that an email, text and voice call can be customized to any organization with the push of a button. Specifically for the voice call, Sapphire is utilizing an emerging AI technology that can detect the tone of someone's voice and tailor its responses to better interact with the recipient of the call.
According to its founders, utilizing ReturnMail.ai cuts processing times by more than 80%, making it an invaluable new tool for large organizations and their employees alike, who will not have to spend hours tediously searching for updated addresses. While the process itself is being automated, a human will still provide oversight to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
While automation often leads to questions around job displacement, solutions like ReturnMail.ai are tools that empower teams to be more efficient and are being met with increasing interest. This is especially true in cities like Washington, D.C., where operational budgets are shrinking and the cost of inefficiency is growing. Sapphire recently began putting pilot programs in motion, with initial testing beginning with government agencies and university mailrooms, two of the many environments where return mail presents a daily operational challenge.
Many Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) firms, from call centers to helpdesks, could benefit from Sapphire's software, which it has developed with Returnmail.ai. It is the first in what could become a suite of products that automate large-scale workflows.
In the coming weeks, Sapphire will conduct demos of the product with interested organizations before officially launching it in the next one to two months. If you would like to schedule a demo or learn more about Sapphire and ReturnMail.ai, you can contact them on their website.
Discover how ReturnMail.ai is helping government agencies and businesses cut costs and boost efficiency with AI-powered automation. Learn more or request a demo at www.ReturnMail.ai.