CLIENT NAME
City of Corona
AGENCY TYPE
City
AI MODELS EMPLOYED
Agency-Wide General Assistance Model
Procurement and Contracts Model
Community Development
How the City of Corona is cutting through administrative complexity, streamlining research, and empowering over 70 active users.
The City of Corona's Chief Information Officer Chris McMasters is one of local government's most forward-thinking voices on AI. He doesn't just see AI as a tool for efficiency. He sees it as a fundamental shift in how cities serve their communities.
When Corona's staff were losing valuable hours navigating decades of scattered records and complex procurement standards, McMasters and his team didn't settle for an incremental fix. They embraced Madison AI and pushed the Madison AI team to build something new: a citywide assistant and a procurement assistant purpose-built for municipal workflows. That collaboration helped shape products that are now helping cities work smarter across California.
McMasters and his team are helping create the future of AI for local government. Not by waiting for it, but by building it alongside the people making the technology.
“We have every previous decision and action at our fingertips.
It’s so powerful, and it’s been so helpful.”
Assistant City Manager, City of Corona
Results
$11,000
In staff time savings per month (in the first 6 months)
72
Staff members using Madison AI assistants
104
Staff hours saved per month
649
Unique topics asked and answered
The challenge
Tackling Administrative Complexity
Like many municipalities, the City of Corona faced growing service demands alongside increasing logistical hurdles. With 860 employees serving a population of nearly 157,000, managing the sheer volume of citywide data had become a daily operational bottleneck.
Elongated Research Times: City staff were spending significant time manually researching complex procurement standards and reviewing contracts.
Scattered Historical Data: Decades of municipal records were spread across multiple departments, making it tedious to track down past decisions.
Manual Document Retrieval: Staff were forced to dig through files to draft reports and prepare for council meetings, draining valuable hours.
The solution
Corona’s Data, Revolutionized by AI
Pinpointing Operational Friction - Day 1: City leadership focused on understanding the specific friction points around citywide governance and procurement to ensure the AI would solve their most pressing needs.
Deployment & Data Integration - Day 60: Madison AI deployed custom AI models tailored to the City, rolling out over 30 pre-built agents. To keep information current without manual updates, they implemented weekly auto-indexed data lakes.
Empowering Staff - Day 90: Staff began leveraging the new tools to bypass manual research, securing instant answers on contracts, budgets, council decisions, and planning records.
Full Adoption - Day 120: The system saw rapid and widespread uptake across departments, reaching 72 active users who engaged the AI systems across 649 unique topics and conversations.
Expanding Capabilities - Month 6: Based on the early success of the initial deployment between September 2025 and February 2026, the City is already planning an additional community development assistant.
The impact
Reclaiming 104 Staff Hours Every Month
In just the first six months of deployment, Madison AI completely transformed how the City of Corona manages its data and institutional knowledge. Staff now get instant answers on contracts, budgets, council decisions, and planning records, successfully eliminating tedious manual research and saving staff hours every single month.
This immediate access to critical data freed Corona's staff to focus on what matters most: delivering reliable, high-quality services to their residents.
