Meet residents where they already are — in their messages app — with the same intelligent assistant that powers your website.

TL;DR

• Civic SMS brings Civic AI Navigator to text messaging, using the same knowledge base, voice, and escalation rules as your web chatbot.
• It's TCPA- and CTIA-aligned by design, with configurable opt-in, confirm, help, and stop messages.
• It works on any text-capable phone, in any of the languages Civic AI Navigator supports — no app, no login, no smartphone required.

The website isn't where most residents live

Government agencies invest enormous effort in their websites. But the uncomfortable truth is this: a large share of your residents will never visit it. They don't bookmark city hall. They don't know which department owns which form. When they need to know whether trash gets picked up on a holiday, where to pay a permit fee, or what time the landfill closes, they don't open a browser.

They pick up the phone they're already holding. And increasingly, that phone isn't used for calling. It's used for texting.

Text messaging remains the most universally used and most frequently checked communication channel in the United States. It works on any phone, on any network, with no app, no download, and no learning curve. For agencies whose mandate is to serve every resident — not just the digitally fluent ones — meeting people where they are is not a marketing line. It's the job.

That's why we built Civic SMS.

What is Civic SMS?

Civic SMS is a feature of Civic AI Navigator that lets residents interact with your agency's AI assistant by text message. The same content that powers your website chatbot — your published policies, schedules, ordinances, forms, FAQs, and announcements — is reachable from any text-capable phone.

A resident texts a question. Civic SMS answers, drawing only on your official, agency-approved content. The conversation can continue. The AI can ask clarifying questions, return links, escalate to a human, or close the loop on a routine request — without ever requiring the resident to find your website.

Most importantly: it's the same agent. The same content, the same configurable voice, the same escalation rules, the same analytics dashboard. You configure once. You serve every channel.

Why SMS belongs in your civic engagement strategy

There are three reasons SMS is uniquely suited to local government:

1. Reach. Texting works on every phone — smartphone, flip phone, basic phone — across every US carrier. There is no demographic SMS excludes: older residents, lower-income households, residents without home internet, and residents whose first language isn't English all use text regularly.

2. Immediacy. Texts are read within minutes of receipt. For time-sensitive civic information — closures, emergencies, polling locations, severe-weather updates — that response time matters.

3. Equity. Reliance on websites and apps consistently favors digitally engaged residents. SMS lowers the barrier for everyone else. For agencies pursuing genuine digital inclusion goals, adding SMS is one of the highest-leverage moves available.

Built for compliance from day one

Sending text messages on behalf of a government agency carries legal and reputational weight. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) governs how organizations may text US consumers, and the CTIA publishes detailed standards for opt-in, help, and opt-out handling. Carriers enforce those standards aggressively — a non-compliant SMS program will be shut down quickly.

Civic SMS bakes those requirements directly into the configuration surface. Your admins configure four core messages when standing up the channel:

• Opt-In Message — the first text a resident receives when they engage the service, explaining what they're signing up for, message frequency, and applicable rates.
• Opt-In Confirm Message — the confirmation a resident receives once they agree to participate.
• Help Message — the response sent when a resident texts HELP, as required by carrier rules.
• Stop Message — the response sent when a resident texts STOP. Once received, no further messages are sent.

These are not afterthoughts. They are first-class settings, surfaced in your admin interface, with clear documentation. Compliance is not optional, and your platform shouldn't treat it as such.

Multilingual, accessible, and accountable

Civic AI Navigator translates across roughly 80 languages on the web. Civic SMS inherits that capability. A resident who texts in Spanish receives a response in Spanish. A resident who texts in Vietnamese, Tagalog, or Haitian Creole receives a response in their language. For agencies serving multilingual communities, this is the difference between a service that works for everyone and a service that quietly excludes the people who most need it.

Accessibility matters too. Screen readers handle text messages natively. Residents who struggle with web navigation often handle texting comfortably. Older residents who don't use mobile apps still text. Civic SMS extends the reach of your existing AI investment to populations that web chat alone cannot serve.

Every conversation is logged into the same analytics surface as your web chat. You get one consolidated view: what residents are asking, in what language, at what time of day, on which channel. The data flows into the same qualitative and quantitative reports that govern the rest of your Civic AI Navigator deployment.

What would your agency actually do with this?

A few patterns we expect to see immediately:

• Service hours and closures. "Is the landfill open Saturday?" "Are the courts open on Veterans Day?" These are the highest-volume questions to most city halls — and they rarely require a human.
• Trash, recycling, and yard waste schedules. Holiday-week schedule shifts produce predictable phone-call spikes. SMS deflects them.
• Permits, licensing, and renewals. "What do I need to renew my dog license?" The assistant walks through requirements and links to the form.
• Emergency information. During a storm, residents need fast confirmation of closures, shelter locations, and road conditions. Texting is faster than searching a website.
• Elections and voting. Polling locations, registration deadlines, sample ballot links — reaching the residents least likely to navigate to your elections page.
• Non-English speakers. A simple text to the agency's number, in the resident's language, returning useful information without a phone tree or a translation form.

These are not hypothetical. They are the questions your phone lines already field every day.

How Civic SMS fits with the rest of Civic AI Navigator

Civic AI Navigator is designed as a single agent with multiple front doors. The web chatbot, Civic Voice (phone), and Civic SMS share a knowledge base, escalation logic, and analytics. You don't run three chatbots. You run one assistant that meets residents on the channel they prefer.

That means the content updates you make once — a new ordinance, a closed road, a revised schedule, a new hurricane preparation page — propagate everywhere immediately. It means a resident might begin a question on your website, follow up by text later in the day, and never need to repeat themselves.

One source of truth. Three resident-facing front doors.

Getting started

If you're already a Civic AI Navigator customer, enabling SMS is a configuration step. Your team works with us to:

• Provision the SMS number for your agency
• Configure your opt-in, confirm, help, and stop messages
• Define any SMS-specific escalation rules
• Confirm content scope and analytics setup

If you're evaluating Civic AI Navigator for the first time, SMS can be included from day one — or added later as you expand from web to a multichannel resident-engagement program.

We're happy to walk through what this looks like for your jurisdiction.

Request a demo  ·  Read about Civic Voice  ·  See all features

Frequently asked questions

Is Civic SMS compliant with TCPA?

Yes. The feature is designed around TCPA requirements and CTIA messaging best practices, including configurable opt-in, opt-out, and help responses. Your admin configures the exact messages residents will see.

Does a resident need a smartphone to use Civic SMS?

No. Civic SMS works on any text-capable phone — smartphone, flip phone, basic phone — on any US carrier. No app or download is required.

What languages does Civic SMS support?

Civic SMS supports the same languages as Civic AI Navigator — roughly 80 — and responds in the language the resident texts in.

What happens if the AI doesn't know the answer?

Civic SMS follows the same escalation rules as the web and voice channels. Your team configures the handoff behavior: link to a page, route to a human, or queue the question for staff follow-up.

Is there a separate fee for the SMS channel?

Pricing depends on expected message volume and configuration. Contact us for a quote scoped to your jurisdiction's anticipated usage.

Can residents text in from any state?

Yes. The service runs on US 10DLC and short-code messaging infrastructure, depending on your deployment.

Does Civic SMS keep conversation history?

Yes. Conversations are logged into your agency's analytics surface. Retention follows your jurisdiction's records-retention policy and applicable public-records laws.

How long does it take to launch Civic SMS?

For existing Civic AI Navigator customers, most agencies can launch an SMS channel within a few weeks, depending on number provisioning timelines with carriers.

Is Civic SMS secure?

Yes. Civic SMS inherits the security posture of Civic AI Navigator, including StateRamp-aligned controls, input sanitization, and configurable access restrictions.

Civic AI Navigator is built by Promet Source — a Drupal-focused digital agency serving US state, local, and education government for 20+ years. Civic AI Navigator is StateRamp-aligned and available through Texas DIR contract DIR-CPO-5307 and GSA MAS Schedule.