On November 2, Putuo District in Shanghai became the first in the city to launch a "Smart Window Assistant" for government services, embedding AI verification into counter intake: scanned application documents are checked within one minute, with missing or erroneous items flagged for on-the-spot correction, Shanghai Guancha reported.
The scenario is high-frequency work-injury filings. With the Double Eleven shopping peak approaching, courier and logistics firms face a seasonal rise in workplace accidents, and injury filings with them. Li Shijun, an HR specialist at Shanghai Shangjia Logistics, used to make several trips a month to the Putuo service center to file claims in batches — manually checking a stack of documents at the counter took at least an hour.
The change happens at intake. After documents pass the scanner, the assistant compares required items automatically and produces a list of gaps and errors within a minute, letting firms fix them on the spot. "It's much faster now. What's saved is not only trips, but the time before injured employees enter the recognition process," Li said.
The value is not "launching an AI" but moving verification upstream: errors that used to surface after a counter clerk's manual review — and cost firms another trip — are now caught at first submission, compressing a correction loop into a single visit.
It also shifts how digital government is measured, from "services available online" to hard metrics such as first-pass document acceptance rates and average intake time. Two things to watch in the Putuo case: whether the assistant extends to more high-frequency services, and how its accuracy holds up under real business volume.