Context
The Italian labour market is characterised by long-standing structural challenges that make employment transitions increasingly complex. These include a persistent mismatch between available and demanded skills, fragmentation of information on employment, training, and guidance opportunities, and widespread difficulties, especially among young people and those not in education, employment, or training (NEETs), in translating available information into conscious choices and concrete actions. A significant share of citizens, who are more vulnerable or distant from institutional channels, is therefore not effectively reached by traditional services, despite the availability of active labour market instruments and policies.
Within this context, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies developed AppLI as a public digital assistant for employment and training, based on multi-agent generative artificial intelligence. AppLI was conceived as a complementary and reinforcing tool to existing policies, with the aim of reaching citizens facing orientation difficulties and supporting them along the activation pathway, both before and in support of access to public employment services and active labour market measures. The platform is fully operational at national level and is infrastructurally integrated into the Social and Labour Inclusion Information System (Sistema Informativo per l’Inclusione Sociale e Lavorativa – SIISL).
Objectives
AppLI aims to provide concrete support to citizens during moments of professional choice, transition, and uncertainty, offering a continuous, personalised, and easily accessible guidance service.
The assistant supports users in understanding employment and training opportunities, developing relevant skills, and preparing for entry or re-entry into the labour market, thereby reducing information asymmetries that often hinder activation. The project is designed as an enabling layer of active employment policies: AppLI does not replace public employment services, but prepares and strengthens the user’s pathway, facilitating the transition from reflection to action.
The use of generative artificial intelligence is explicitly human-centred and designed to support user’s decision-making, preserving the central role of human expertise in higher value-added activities. In an (already ongoing) evolutionary phase, AppLI is also set to extend its contribution in support of public service operators, improving pathway personalisation and the overall quality of the service.
Finally, AppLI contributes to fostering a guided and conscious use of artificial intelligence among citizens, promoting practical AI literacy through concrete activities related to employment and training.
Implementation
AppLI is the result of a structured research and co-design process involving both citizens and public employment services operators, with the objective of building a response closely aligned with real needs and conditions of public service use.
The implementation of AppLI followed a gradual approach, from initial experimentation to national-scale deployment, supported by continuous monitoring, performance indicators, and iterative improvement based on evidence of use and structured feedback from users and operators. Since its launch in September, accompanied by progressive expansion of the user base, the platform has registered over 35 000 users, demonstrating its capacity to operate in a reliable and scalable manner.
Particular attention was given to operational sustainability and resource efficiency, as well as data governance, privacy protection, and the adoption of ethical design guardrails, in line with the GDPR requirements and the European regulatory framework on artificial intelligence, including the AI Act.
In this perspective, AppLI is positioned not only as a digital service, but also as a controlled public space for responsible experimentation of AI, enabling the government bodies to build evidence, manage risks, and shape the future evolution of employment services in a data-driven way.