Meet Your Newest Team Member: An AI Assistant for Economic Developers
September 22, 2026
For years, site selectors have turned to the internet to answer their questions, for example:
- “What industrial sites are available within 30 minutes of the airport?”
- “What does the workforce look like for advanced manufacturing in this region?”
- “What incentives could be available for a company creating 100 jobs?”
These aren’t questions that map neatly to a single page on an economic development website. Site selectors have to navigate multiple websites, digital reports and property databases, interpret the information and manually combine it into one, cohesive response. Work that can take hours – or days.
What if your EDO website could do the same work in minutes?
Introducing PlaceSuite™ AI: the first purpose-built AI assistant designed for economic development. Developed by DCI, it is built to understand the language of site selection and interpret an organization’s data through the lens of a business decision-maker. It can be tailored around an EDO’s property database, workforce data, infrastructure, incentives and location information.
In other words, your website visitors no longer have to go to your menu, choose a section and navigate multiple pages to find the information they need. They can simply ask PlaceSuite™ AI, and the AI assistant will scour your designated sources for all the relevant information, interpret the data through a site selector’s discerning lens and provide a cohesive response. In minutes.
Why a Generic Chatbot Isn’t Enough
Many organizations already use generic chatbots to answer basic customer-service questions, direct visitors to the right page or provide contact information. But economic development has a different set of requirements.
A site selector isn’t necessarily looking for an answer like, “Here is our incentives page.” They are trying to understand several pieces of information at once as they evaluate a potential location.
The technology needs to understand the context behind the question and have access to the right information. For an economic development organization, that could include:
- Available sites and buildings
- Infrastructure and utility information
- Workforce and labor-market data
- Industry information
- Incentives and business costs
- Transportation and logistics
- Community and quality-of-life data
- Reports, studies and other organizational resources
An AI assistant designed specifically for economic development can bring these different types of information together in a conversational experience.
AI Can Complement—not Replace—the Economic Developer
Economic development is fundamentally a relationship-driven business. An AI assistant can’t replace the conversations that happen between an economic development professional and a site selector evaluating a location or a company considering an investment.
What it can do is help with some of the repetitive information gathering that happens before those conversations.
A prospect wants workforce data. Another wants to know whether a site has natural gas. Someone else is looking for available industrial buildings.
Those questions may take only a few minutes individually, but they add up—particularly for small economic development teams.
AI can provide another way to handle routine questions while allowing staff to spend more time on the conversations that require human expertise, judgment and relationship-building.
Your Website Can Become a Source of Insight
There’s another potential benefit that is easy to overlook.
The questions visitors ask an AI assistant can reveal what they actually want to know.
What properties are getting the most attention? Which industries are generating questions? Are prospects asking about utilities more often than expected? Are there questions that repeatedly require staff intervention?
That information can help EDOs identify gaps in their digital content and better understand the needs of their audiences.
In that sense, AI can become more than another way to deliver information. It can become another way to listen.
PlaceSuite AI™ in Action
The first live PlaceSuite™ AI deployment launched with Cleco Economic Development in April 2026. The AI assistant was customized around Cleco’s data, available sites and priorities, giving prospects 24/7 access to information relevant to their location decisions.
Want to see what an AI-powered economic development experience looks like? Visit dciplacesuite.com for more information, and Contact Stevie Chavez at Stevie.Chavez@aboutdci.com for a demo.
