Mountain View pilots AI translation services at public meetings

Access to Mountain View City Council meetings is expanding, with the city launching a pilot program that allows residents to follow along in more than 60 languages.

Mountain View is testing out Wordly, an artificial intelligence-powered service that provides real-time audio and text translation on personal devices. It debuted at an Environmental Planning Commission meeting last month before being used for the first time at a city council meeting on Tuesday.

Going forward, the free tool will be available at city council, environmental planning commission and rental housing committee meetings. All three bodies convene in the council chambers, which has the necessary audio system to run Wordly, city spokesperson Brian Babcock said.

“The pilot program was launched to test the benefits of AI translation to bridge language gaps and enable more seamless, two-way communication between the city and our diverse community,” Babcock said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, a few residents tapped into the AI service for the first time, learning about it from city staff who directed them to a QR code posted near the dais.

Mountain View resident Tootoo Thomson said accessing the translation service was easy. After scanning the QR code, Thomson selected Chinese from a menu of options and then followed the council discussion by reading captions displayed on her phone as people were talking.

“It was 98% good,” Thomson told the Mountain View Voice, adding she would have given Wordly a 100% rating but some phrases translated awkwardly from English to Chinese. She was also appreciative that the program could translate public comments spoken in different languages in real time.

Early in the meeting, Mayor Emily Ann Ramos presented a proclamation recognizing National Hispanic Heritage Month. One of the recipients thanked the city council in Spanish. Her speech was translated into English and displayed in captions on the large screen in the council chambers.

The live translation service can also be accessed remotely. Direct links to the QR code are provided in city agendas and on screens while meetings are in progress. Even after a meeting concludes, the public can access full transcripts and summaries in each of the languages Wordly offers, Babcock said.

The Wordly service vastly expands the city’s language offerings, which was previously limited to in-person interpretation services in Spanish and Chinese. Those services are still available for community members upon request, Babcock said.

The total cost for the pilot program is $58,367, according to Babcock. That includes a $43,750 contract with Wordly that covers 300 hours of live software translation access. The rest went toward ensuring the council chambers were technologically equipped to offer the service.

During the pilot phase, the city plans to gather and evaluate feedback from residents who use the AI service while also measuring its accuracy with translations, Babcock said.

“This collaborative review will help us measure the program’s real-world impact on language access and determine how to effectively expand or adapt the technology in the future,” he said.

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.