AI Agents Cause Massive Surge in Public Service Requests Globally, Research Shows

Public services globally are experiencing unprecedented surges in form submissions, complaints, and applications as artificial intelligence tools make administrative filings easier for citizens. In the United Kingdom, housing ombudsman complaints more than doubled from 2,600 in 2022 to over 7,000 last year following the release of ChatGPT. Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the United States recorded a fivefold increase in complaints over the same period, alongside similar spikes in Brazilian judicial filings and German parliamentary petitions. Researcher Chris Schmitz is documenting the trend under the term "agentic flooding" in a paper to be presented at the AI Ethics and Society conference. The research examined 84 potential cases across 11 jurisdictions, observing that submissions were generally flat prior to 2022 before accelerating rapidly as consumer AI adoption spread. While some automated filings represent adversarial spam, many originate from legitimate applicants using AI agents to complete procedures they might have otherwise abandoned, prompting discussions on how public sector infrastructure must adapt.