{"id":769292,"date":"2025-10-28T19:46:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T02:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&#038;p=769292"},"modified":"2025-10-28T19:46:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T02:46:26","slug":"with-maps-and-ai-startup-simplifies-complex-city-planning-information","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/with-maps-and-ai-startup-simplifies-complex-city-planning-information","title":{"rendered":"With Maps and AI, Startup Simplifies Complex City Planning Information"},"author":5752,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425582,369852,11042],"tags":[164992,581,474662,351,17262],"arcnews_issues":[493219],"class_list":["post-769292","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arcgis-experience-builder","category-artificial-intelligence--ai","category-esri-startup-partners","tag-city-government","tag-digital-transformation","tag-geospatial-ai","tag-planning","tag-startups","arcnews_issues-fall-2025","arcnews_sections-collaborations"],"acf":{"short_description":"Johns Creek, Georgia, deployed Konveio\u2019s Plan Hub\u2014an AI-powered, geospatially enabled framework built on ArcGIS Experience Builder.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Johns Creek, Georgia, has long embraced innovation in its municipal services. Home to more than 80,000 people in the northern Atlanta metro area, the city has promoted many projects to improve the quality of life for residents, including large-scale redevelopments to create walkable neighborhoods and upgrading utility infrastructure. Recently, city officials applied that forward-thinking approach to communicating with residents about long-term planning.\r\n\r\nWith a quickly growing portfolio of active plans affecting everything from transportation and parks to zoning and comprehensive planning, city leaders needed a better way to centralize information, simplify public access, and provide context on policy in both documents and maps. Esri startup partner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.konveio.com\/\">Konveio<\/a> had the solution.\r\n\r\nFounded in 2020, Konveio helps community leaders communicate project details with stakeholders from start to finish. Konveio is an ArcGIS technology-connected engagement platform for planners with two flagship offerings: Engagement Hub and Plan Hub. These hubs help cities facilitate public participation, making plans and policy documents easier to access and understand."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":769293,"image_position":"left","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Konveio\u2019s solutions are built to support existing workflows, requiring no special software or training\u2014ideal for staff who typically work with PDFs and ArcGIS Online. The company\u2019s products seamlessly integrate with ArcGIS Experience Builder, enabling geospatial data to interact with policy documents in new and more accessible ways."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h2>Addressing Communication Challenges<\/h2>\r\nBefore partnering with Konveio, Johns Creek faced the same challenges common to many other municipalities. Planning documents were hosted as static PDFs across various department webpages, fragmented by topic in a way that was difficult for staff and residents to explore and cross-reference. The content was also dense, jargon-filled, and difficult to navigate.\r\n\r\nFor city staff, answering residents\u2019 routine questions\u2014such as \u201cWhat new road projects are being planned in my neighborhood?\u201d\u2014required manually searching through multiple documents, which cost time and increased the risk of misinformation. Meanwhile, the city\u2019s GIS data, which was hosted in ArcGIS Online, was not connected with these documents, so spatial insight was rarely meaningfully linked to policy information.\r\n\r\nTo address these challenges, Johns Creek deployed Konveio\u2019s Plan Hub as a new feature of the city\u2019s website. The hub is fully integrated with Experience Builder, creating an AI-powered, geospatially enabled framework for city plans that is directly embedded into the website."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h2>Accessible Information for Staff and Residents<\/h2>\r\nThe Johns Creek website now features a visually engaging, tile-based layout of adopted plans, each with its own detailed page, glossary, and AI-powered assistant that allows users to ask questions in everyday, nontechnical language, such as \u201cWhat are the long-term goals for parks in the city?\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":769294,"image_position":"right","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cKonveio has made our city plans more accessible,\u201d said Jennifer Chapman, senior communications manager at the City of Johns Creek.\r\n\r\nKonveio\u2019s Explorer view allows users to search across all plans at once or filter by status, like \u201cadopted\u201d or \u201cdraft,\u201d and provides results with clickable page references. For example, when searching for parking policies, the platform identifies which plans contain relevant policies\u2014such as the Transportation Master Plan and the Recreation and Parks Master Plan\u2014while clearly showing which documents are not relevant to prevent user confusion. The AI assistant pinpoints where each policy is mentioned and generates concise summaries to help users quickly grasp key takeaways. In a pop-up window, users can then click on links to open the source pages in the document, streamlining navigation and reducing the time it takes to find precise information.\r\n\r\nIt is Konveio\u2019s integration with Experience Builder, however, that represents the biggest transformation for Johns Creek. This is how Konveio redesigns planning communication so that, instead of being a document-based process, it is a spatially informed decision-making support tool.\r\n\r\nBy embedding Konveio into an Experience Builder app, Johns Creek allows users to interact with a citywide map layered with GIS data, including information such as park locations, zoning districts, or bike lanes, and instantly retrieve related planning policies. When a user clicks on a location like Cauley Creek Park, that triggers Konveio\u2019s AI-powered map function. The system automatically surfaces excerpts from the Recreation and Parks Master Plan that relate to that specific park, including details about its development phases, short- and long-term goals, and direct links to supporting documentation.\r\n\r\nBecause Konveio\u2019s AI search is connected to both document content and GIS layers, it acts as a real-time bridge between spatial data and narrative policy. It doesn\u2019t just show a location; it also explains the \u201cwhy\u201d behind the planning decisions made for that location.\r\n\r\n\u201cIntegrating with ArcGIS lets us explain planning decisions in a spatial context, which shows residents exactly what\u2019s planned for their community\u2014and why it matters\u2014without them having to dig through dense documents,\u201d said Chapman. \u201cOur communication is clearer, faster, and a lot more helpful.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":769295,"image_position":"left","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Furthermore, the system is adaptive. As staff update GIS layers or upload new versions of planning documents to Konveio, the integrations update automatically. This ensures that the map always reflects the latest data and insight without requiring manual syncing\u2014a major time-saver for the city\u2019s IT and planning departments."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h2>Enhancing Communication and Trust<\/h2>\r\nJohns Creek\u2019s new <a href=\"https:\/\/johnscreekga.gov\/government\/city-plans\/\">Plan Library<\/a> has significantly enhanced public access to complex planning materials. Residents can now quickly find relevant information without scrolling through entire PDFs or calling city staff. The AI assistant reduces information barriers, and glossary features help decode jargon for everyday users. Translated versions of documents support inclusivity, ensuring that more residents can engage meaningfully with the content.\r\n\r\nFrom the administrative side, the city gains visibility into what questions residents are asking, helping staff tailor future documents, FAQs, and community engagement efforts. Staff also spend less time fielding repetitive questions and cross-referencing plans, freeing them up to focus on higher-value work.\r\n\r\nPerhaps most critically, the Experience Builder integration has turned spatial exploration into an educational tool. By tying policy content to locations, Johns Creek helps residents understand not only what is planned but also why and where\u2014boosting transparency and building public trust in the city\u2019s plans for the future."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"The Esri Startup program gives emerging businesses an edge by helping them integrate spatial functionality into their products and services. Learn more about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/about\/partners\/our-partners\/startups\">Esri Startup Program<\/a>.","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>With Maps and AI, Startup Simplifies Complex City Planning Information | Fall 2025 | ArcNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Johns Creek, Georgia, deployed Konveio\u2019s Plan Hub\u2014an AI-powered, geospatially enabled framework built on ArcGIS Experience Builder.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/with-maps-and-ai-startup-simplifies-complex-city-planning-information\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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