ChinaPublic sector2025 – ongoingFutian District Government (Shenzhen)
DeepSeek-based "AI employees" for government services
Shenzhen district put 70 DeepSeek-based assistants into government work and reported document review time down 90%
Problem
Futian District in Shenzhen handles a large volume of routine administrative work: drafting and checking official documents, sorting citizens' service requests, preparing enforcement and arbitration paperwork and screening companies for investment promotion.
Approach
In February 2025, soon after Shenzhen made the DeepSeek-R1 model available to all city agencies, Futian launched a first batch of 70 "AI employees" built on it, covering 11 task categories and 240 service scenarios. Each system has a named human supervisor, called a guardian, who is accountable for its output. The district also issued rules on the ethics, scope and safety of such systems and stressed that they assist staff and cannot decide on their own.
Results
Takeaway
The rollout paired each AI system with an accountable official from the start, which let the district deploy many narrow assistants quickly. All reported gains come from the district at launch; no independent measurement had been published.
Categories
- Industry
- Public sector
- Business function
- Internal work and knowledge managementCustomer service
- Innovation type
- Process innovationOrganization and ways of working
- AI technology
- Generative AIAI agents
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
Sixth Tone reports that Futian deployed 70 DeepSeek-based assistants across 240 administrative processes after Shenzhen opened the model to all departments. It lists district figures such as review time down 90%, request routing accuracy up from 70% to 95% and customized document preparation cut from five days to minutes. A district official explains that a human guardian is held accountable for each system.
China Daily describes Futian's 70 DeepSeek-powered digital employees covering 11 task types and 240 scenarios. Citing the local government, it reports document format correction accuracy above 95% and review time down 90%. The deputy head of the district's data bureau says the AI cannot make independent decisions and may produce biased results.
Human Resources Online reports that Futian introduced 70 assistants built on DeepSeek R1. It gives the district's results for document correction and request routing, and a reported 30% efficiency gain for an investment screening assistant. Futian also issued what it calls China's first regulatory framework for government-assisted intelligent robots.
Full details are in the original sources.
