MMR provides over three million CZK to support artificial intelligence in building offices

Prague - The Ministry for Regional Development (MMR) will allocate over three million crowns to support artificial intelligence at building authorities. It will support a total of seven projects that applied within the call from the National Recovery Plan (NPO). MMR announced this today in a press release published on its website. Artificial intelligence is expected to automate and expedite the work of building authorities.

At the end of last October, MMR announced a call in which the office allocated 24.5 million crowns from the NPO and the state budget to support the use of artificial intelligence tools at building authorities.

According to the press release, the support for building authorities will focus on implementing modern artificial intelligence tools that can, for example, automatically analyze documents and detect incomplete or incorrectly filled documents. At the same time, it should also allow predicting the complexity of individual cases and systematizing the documents of building authorities during their ongoing digitization.

MMR spoke last year about plans to introduce elements of artificial intelligence at building authorities. The elements of automation were supposed to help officials with processing tasks following the unsuccessful digitization of the building permitting process. This was introduced in mid-2024, and the new systems caused problems for officials and builders from the outset. Subsequently, authorities were allowed to use both new and original systems simultaneously for processing applications. This so-called bypass was meant to function during a transitional period until new systems for digitizing the building process were developed and tested.

According to the previous government, the transitional period was to last until the beginning of 2028. However, the current government of ANO, SPD, and Motorists plans to complete the digitization of the building process only after the approval of the amendment to the building law and the establishment of a central building administration. According to current expectations, the digitization of the building process should be completed around 2030.

According to the Minister for Regional Development Zuzana Mrázová (ANO), MMR's goal was to make the most efficient use of NPO resources and support pilot projects for implementing artificial intelligence at building authorities. The NPO also financially supports the introduction of digitization of the building process, among other things. An audit conducted last year indicated that unmet milestones from the NPO could lead to penalties for the Czech Republic from the EU. However, MMR later stated that this would not happen.

"In the evaluation of each project, the assessment of metrics such as the acceleration of the building process or higher quality preparation of the proceedings was crucial for us,” said the director of the IT, analysis, and public investment section, Eva Pavlíková. One of the milestones that must be met for full use of support from the NPO is also the reduction of the building approval process by at least two years.

Given that building authorities are currently working with different systems, such as Vita, Vera, or the Building Process Information System, MMR, according to Pavlíková, wanted to give building authorities freedom in choosing the technologies and procedures for implementing elements of artificial intelligence.