City of Austin
A pilot with the city that runs the country’s 10th-largest review backlog.
The City of Austin and Noetic are running a pilot to test whether AI pre-review can clean up site plans before they enter the city’s formal review queue. The pilot launched April 2026. The first AI-assisted submissions are going through the Development Services Department in May 2026.
“Noetic is addressing the site plan review challenge with an AI-driven review solution that has the potential to transform the way we do business.”
Dr. Johnson’s endorsement came after the first review of the product in January 2026.
Why the city is doing this
The Development Services Department’s own data shows the problem. In February 2026, DSD reported that 85% of recently submitted applications had to be rejected for completeness issues — not substantive code failures, but missing pieces that triggered another cycle. Every rejection sets a project back weeks. That number was cited by KVUE in its May 2026 coverage of the pilot.
Catching the issues that drive completeness rejections — and the recurring substantive issues that drive multi-cycle review — is exactly the work an AI system can do reliably. The pilot is the city’s test of whether a private platform can shoulder that work without giving up the rigor of the review.
What the pilot actually is
Civil engineering firms run a Noetic review on a site plan before submitting it to the city. The city has agreed to eventually waive its own completeness check on Noetic-backed submissions, so the plan moves directly into formal departmental review. The city measures whether plans that came through Noetic produce fewer review cycles and faster approvals.
The pilot is not a procurement contract. The city is not paying Noetic. Civil engineering firms pay Noetic on a per-project basis, and the city participates because better submissions mean shorter queues.