Houston's 311 is going virtual. Image courtesy of the City of Houston

Houstonians who've been occasionally frustrated by having to call the city's 311 service for the simplest of issues are now in luck. The City of Houston has launched an innovative new virtual 311 platform.

Now, locals can address needs and create individual cases via a newly created, cloud-based "Virtual Agent." This means residents should only need to dial into the 311 call centers for the most complicated cases, which promises to reduce call volumes and wait times.

The new system officially launched on June 26; city technology and data teams have stabilized the process as the city transferred over 10 years of data into the new system, a press release notes.

Why upgrade now? Each year, the 311 Call Center receives roughly 2.2 million contacts and creates approximately 450,000 service requests, the city estimates. The 311 system was crucial during the Tax Day Flood, Hurricane Harvey, and Winter Storm Uri. This system refresh assures a more responsive and minimal wait time during times of crisis, press materials note.

Residents can now create a service request by an app (Apple and Google), web portal via the Virtual Agent, and through call taker in the 311-call center.

Some of the new functionality improvements include:

  • A customer self-service portal with a virtual agent, allowing residents to create service requests on their own
  • The ability to re-classify a case instead of having to close it and create another one
  • Cases being routed to a team, instead of an individual minimizing case inactivity due to staff being out of office
  • Cases created via web portal, app, or call taker all have the same service request numbers and, when not confidential, are searchable on all platforms
  • Prior to service requests being created, there will be a proximity search performed to ensure no duplication of cases created (e.g., pothole cases being flagged as 1000 Main St. and at the corner of Main Street and Texas Street)

"The new, innovative system is a significant accomplishment for the City of Houston," Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a press release.

"Last fiscal year, we prioritized the development of a new 311 system by funding it through the CIP process. In nine short months, HITS and ARA were able to take that investment and develop a 311 system that modernizes 20-year-old technology and creates a platform that equips the City to better handle increased demand."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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3 Houston innovators who made headlines in May 2025

Innovators to Know

Editor's note: Houston innovators are making waves this month with revolutionary VC funding, big steps towards humanoid robotics, and software that is impacting the agriculture sector. Here are three Houston innovators to know right now.

Zach Ellis, founder and partner of South Loop Ventures

Zach Ellis. Photo via LinkedIn

Zach Ellis Jr., founder and general partner of South Loop Ventures, says the firm wants to address the "billion-dollar blind spot" of inequitable distribution of venture capital to underrepresented founders of color. The Houston-based firm recently closed its debut fund for more than $21 million. Learn more.

Ty Audronis, CEO and founder of Tempest Droneworx

Ty Audronis, CEO and founder of Tempest Droneworx

Ty Audronis, center. Photo via LinkedIn.

Ty Audronis and his company, Tempest Droneworx, made a splash at SXSW Interactive 2025, winning the Best Speed Pitch award at the annual festival. The company is known for it flagship product, Harbinger, a software solution that agnostically gathers data at virtually any scale and presents that data in easy-to-understand visualizations using a video game engine. Audronis says his company won based on its merits and the impact it’s making and will make on the world, beginning with agriculture. Learn more.

Nicolaus Radford, CEO of Persona AI

Nicolaus Radford, founder and CEO of Nauticus RoboticsNicolaus Radford. Image via LinkedIn

Houston-based Persona AI and CEO Nicolaus Radford continue to make steps toward deploying a rugged humanoid robot, and with that comes the expansion of its operations at Houston's Ion. Radford and company will establish a state-of-the-art development center in the prominent corner suite on the first floor of the building, with the expansion slated to begin in June. “We chose the Ion because it’s more than just a building — it’s a thriving innovation ecosystem,” Radford says. Learn more.

Houston university to launch artificial intelligence major, one of first in nation

BS in AI

Rice University announced this month that it plans to introduce a Bachelor of Science in AI in the fall 2025 semester.

The new degree program will be part of the university's department of computer science in the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing and is one of only a few like it in the country. It aims to focus on "responsible and interdisciplinary approaches to AI," according to a news release from the university.

“We are in a moment of rapid transformation driven by AI, and Rice is committed to preparing students not just to participate in that future but to shape it responsibly,” Amy Dittmar, the Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in the release. “This new major builds on our strengths in computing and education and is a vital part of our broader vision to lead in ethical AI and deliver real-world solutions across health, sustainability and resilient communities.”

John Greiner, an assistant teaching professor of computer science in Rice's online Master of Computer Science program, will serve as the new program's director. Vicente Ordóñez-Román, an associate professor of computer science, was also instrumental in developing and approving the new major.

Until now, Rice students could study AI through elective courses and an advanced degree. The new bachelor's degree program opens up deeper learning opportunities to undergrads by blending traditional engineering and math requirements with other courses on ethics and philosophy as they relate to AI.

“With the major, we’re really setting out a curriculum that makes sense as a whole,” Greiner said in the release. “We are not simply taking a collection of courses that have been created already and putting a new wrapper around them. We’re actually creating a brand new curriculum. Most of the required courses are brand new courses designed for this major.”

Students in the program will also benefit from resources through Rice’s growing AI ecosystem, like the Ken Kennedy Institute, which focuses on AI solutions and ethical AI. The university also opened its new AI-focused "innovation factory," Rice Nexus, earlier this year.

“We have been building expertise in artificial intelligence,” Ordóñez-Román added in the release. “There are people working here on natural language processing, information retrieval systems for machine learning, more theoretical machine learning, quantum machine learning. We have a lot of expertise in these areas, and I think we’re trying to leverage that strength we’re building.”