About Aide
Better prepared. Still accountable.
Every councillor deserves to walk into the chamber fully prepared. Every community deserves a representative who is.
Why we built Aide
Local councils are under immense scrutiny. Rates are up. Costs are up. Ratepayers are looking for results. Local councillors are getting a lot of flak.
In mid-2026, we met a first-term local councillor and realised just what the job entails. Sunday nights at the kitchen table, working through agendas of up to 700 pages. They have a full-time job, a family, constituents calling, texting, and emailing — and they have to understand the issues, have a firm grip on the details, know what to ask, and be ready to vote on Tuesday.
We realised the same scene was playing out all around the country. The sheer volume of information in a single agenda is overwhelming. Lining it up with decisions from three meetings ago and commitments in the annual and long-term plans seems humanly impossible.
Add time pressure, distraction, and other commitments and you have all the ingredients for sub-optimal decision-making. That’s not criticism — it’s reality.
So, we decided to do something about it.
In consultation with that first-term councillor and with local councillors around the country as beta testers, we set out to create a tool that could chomp through hundreds of densely packed pages and not just summarise or explain, but analyse. To call out material facts, understand their context, identify what’s in good shape and what really isn’t, what’s missing, and what a councillor is really being asked to vote on.
How Aide thinks
Aide thinks like a forensic analyst. It’s powered by AI with deep reasoning ability, so it can consume vast volumes of information, spot patterns, understand connections, and report back on them.
It follows the consequences
Most decisions are not one-and-done. Aide traces second- and third-order impacts: what this commits council to now and in the future, what it prevents or enables down the track, who carries the risk if the assumptions are wrong.
It separates activity from outcome
Aide probes whether activity and spending achieved what they were meant to, and points out when measures of success, baselines to compare against, or results are not supplied.
It calls out contradictions
When figures don’t reconcile, one section contradicts another, or a decision is at odds with what council previously agreed without explanation, Aide makes the conflict explicit rather than smoothing it over.
It has context
Aide cross-checks earlier briefs for the same council and committee as well as adopted long-term and annual plans*. That means briefs understand how a report or agenda sits against what was promised, approved, or budgeted.
It shows its working
Aide doesn’t ask you to take its word for it. Its reasoning process includes citing page and item numbers for every finding, so you can check the source yourself. If a point can’t be cited, it doesn’t go in the brief.
It asks questions that inform, not inflame
Aide’s suggested questions are crafted to elicit thoughtful and factual responses, not to provoke outrage. They’re precise, detailed, and governance-focused.
* Once loaded.
Where Aide stops
Aide tells you
- What’s on track
- What’s at risk
- What’s missing or unmeasured
- What you’re really being asked to vote on
Aide never
- Tells you what or how to think
- Recommends a vote
- Gives legal advice
- Applies a political bias
Your community knowledge, your judgement and your vote stay yours. Read Aide’s standpoint →
It analyses the public documents you give it. It doesn’t analyse confidential or public-excluded papers, and it isn’t a complete archive of council records or a monitoring service. When a source isn’t available, or a match to an earlier decision is uncertain, Aide treats that as a gap to flag, not as proof.
Raw source documents are deleted once your brief is created. Your briefs stay in your account.
Who’s behind Aide
Aide is built by PARALLAX, a New Zealand-based AI advisory and delivery firm founded by Petra Davidson.
Petra has spent more than 20 years growing and turning around technology businesses. PARALLAX helps firms put AI to work, and it runs on a few convictions that directly shaped Aide:
Diagnosis before prescription.
A great answer to the wrong question is worthless.
Good decisions require clarity.
Pressure, distraction, and incomplete information are a recipe for disaster.
Every decision has a cost.
Miss the trade-offs and the consequences come as a surprise.
People stay in charge.
AI should extend human judgement and knowledge, not replace it.