AI tools are reshaping public services as applications surge tenfold

Government agencies worldwide are bracing for a flood of applications and complaints as AI tools make it simpler for people to navigate bureaucracy and submit formal requests. New research reveals that several major institutions have seen dramatic spikes in filings since ChatGPT's launch, raising urgent questions about capacity and policy.

The numbers tell a striking story#

A surge in requests has swept across multiple continents. The UK's housing ombudsman received over 7,000 complaints last year—nearly triple the 2,600 filed in 2022. The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau experienced even sharper growth, with a fivefold increase in the same timeframe. Brazil's court system and Germany's parliament both logged similar jumps in petitions filed by citizens.

Charting the "agentic flooding" phenomenon#

Researcher Chris Schmitz has documented this trend across 84 separate cases spanning 11 jurisdictions in a forthcoming paper to be discussed at the AI Ethics and Society conference. His analysis of online public-service platforms—from welfare applications to judicial appeals—found a consistent pattern: flat submission rates before 2022, followed by accelerating volume as AI capabilities expanded. Crucially, the growth shows few signs of slowing, suggesting the trend will likely intensify.

Schmitz attributes the rise to improving AI tools and accessibility. "People are finding out that this is something one can do, and incrementally, it is just getting easier to do it," he explained. Filing a claim that once required painstaking form-filling and careful prompting now takes a simple photo or paste into an AI assistant.

Distinguishing spam from legitimate claims#

Unlike earlier AI-driven floods of low-quality submissions in bug-bounty programs, Schmitz found that most new applications to public services originate from genuine applicants entitled to the benefits they're claiming. The barrier hadn't been eligibility—it was effort. "The vast majority of cases we find are people who are entitled to claim for something, claiming for that thing," Schmitz told TechCrunch.

Researchers call this friction point administrative burden: the sheer work of applying deters otherwise-qualified claimants. AI is erasing that deterrent, unlocking demand that likely always existed beneath the surface.