Public services worldwide are experiencing unprecedented surges in applications and complaints as citizens use cheap AI tools to draft filings. A study by Chris Schmitz, Lewis Hammond, and Alan Chan documents 84 cases of this 'agentic flooding' across 11 jurisdictions, including a fivefold complaint increase at the US CFPB. While some agencies are introducing friction like fees or IP blocks to curb the influx, researchers warn this harms vulnerable applicants and urge governments to instead redesign intake systems for the AI era.
Public service application surges
- ▪Complaints to the United Kingdom's housing ombudsman more than doubled from 2,600 in 2022 to just over 7,000 in 2025 following the release of ChatGPT.
- ▪The United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau experienced a fivefold increase in complaints from 2022 to 2025.
- ▪Petitions submitted to the Brazilian judiciary and the German parliament experienced surges in volume following the 2022 release of ChatGPT.
Agentic flooding research findings
- ▪The research paper by Chris Schmitz, Lewis Hammond, and Alan Chan will be presented at the AAAI Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society scheduled for October 12-14, 2026.
- ▪A research paper by Chris Schmitz, Lewis Hammond, and Alan Chan documented 84 cases of potential agentic flooding across 11 jurisdictions.
- ▪In 58 of the 84 analyzed cases of agentic flooding, a government official explicitly identified artificial intelligence as the cause of the surge.
- ▪A single filing deposited with a German social court ran past 4,000 pages, illustrating qualitative flooding where individual documents grow extremely long.
- ▪The sharpest near-term risk of agentic flooding is in services that pay off when a claim succeeds and where complex paperwork has historically suppressed demand.
- ▪Of the 84 documented cases of agentic flooding, 50 showed quantitative flooding, 76 showed qualitative flooding, and 42 showed both.
Administrative burden reduction
- ▪Artificial intelligence tools lower the administrative burden of applying for public services, which previously caused eligible applicants to abandon complex paperwork.
- ▪Researcher Chris Schmitz stated that the vast majority of new applications to public services are coming from real people with legitimate claims.
Government response strategies
- ▪Australia has mooted bringing back fees for Freedom of Information requests as a friction mechanism to manage submission volumes.
- ▪In 14 of the 84 analyzed cases, government agencies implemented friction such as reinstating fees or blocking IP ranges to counter agentic flooding.
- ▪Implementing friction mechanisms like fees or IP blocks disproportionately impacts poorer and less digitally literate applicants, closing access doors opened by artificial intelligence.
Service redesign opportunities
- ▪Governments can adapt to agentic flooding by adding capacity through hiring more staff, deploying their own AI tools, or redesigning intake processes.
- ▪Researcher Chris Schmitz suggests that the surge in AI-assisted filings presents an opportunity to redesign and remake social services for the AI era.
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