Getting Started
Contents
About
At LocAI, we’ve developed a revolutionary tool designed to quickly decipher the intricacies of local legislation in today’s digital landscape. As you get started, this guide will provide an overview on how to use this powerful tool to optimize your work.
Understanding the Platform
Location and Ordinance Selection
Easily tailor your experience by clicking on the dropdown menu and choosing your desired city. This loads the relevant ordinances into our PDF viewer.
Chat History
Chat History stores all of your previous conversations, allowing you to look back at your previous research and pick up where you left off.
Ordinance Viewer
View the most up to date ordinances, pulled directly from the municipality.
Conversation Window
When a new conversation is started, you will see four sample questions relevant to the selected ordinance. Just click on a question to get the conversation started. If you already have a question in mind, start chatting!
Chat Responses
Once you start the conversation, you will get a chat response. Here are a couple things to note:
- In line citations - Responses may occasionally include in line citations, denoted as [page number]. Clicking on this citation will navigate your PDF viewer to the relevant ordinance section for your convenience.
- Thumbs up/thumbs down - This is a simple feedback system that lets us know how our tool is performing. Providing feedback helps improve our tool for future use!
- Regenerate - This action regenerates a new response based off of the last user chat. Note that rephrasing your question may be more effective than using this feature.
- Citations - All relevant pieces of the ordinance that influenced the response are linked here. Clicking the links will navigate you to the respective ordinance section in our PDF Viewer.
Chat Examples
Review Procedures
Effortlessly sift through lengthy UDO articles, turning long-winded administrative text into actionable insights in the blink of an eye.
Quickly search tables
Our tool is not just limited to translating text. Swiftly locate and extract vital information from the tables in the documents.
Finding citations
It is crucial to verify responses using the “In line citations” feature. Above, minimum setbacks were requested for the Business Activity Center District. The response noted the overall minimums for all land uses. After carefully observing the referenced table, more context was provided as to specific setbacks for various uses.
Phrasing chat messages
The impact of precise wording on responses is evident in the above example. A request for permitted zoning districts for a church led to an inaccurate response since the UDO refers to only a “place of worship.” This underscores the importance of wording and the need for thorough verification of responses.