Chasing Public Value? Managerial Perceptions and the Political Gap in Municipal AI Adoption

Municipalities are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) tools across multiple public service domains, and in democratic governance systems, local managers have substantial influence over these decisions. Yet we have limited evidence on what motivates local managers to use AI – a critical empirical gap given the technology’s documented risks. We hypothesize that AI adoption decisions are driven by perceptions of AI’s public value-creating potential, the jurisdiction’s operational capabilities, and support from local political environment. Using a 2024 national survey, our results suggest that managers’ perception of AI’s value is the primary driver of adoption, with operational capacity playing a partial role.