A portion of the cost of administrative procedures can shift from the user to the administration. With generative AI, drafting a request for document disclosure, a complaint, an informal appeal or a petition to the administrative court costs the user less. In the United Kingdom, the service ObjectNow claims to produce a detailed objection to a planning project in three minutes, according to The Ferret. Processing, however, still relies on staff. Deadlines apply to all users, including businesses: in 2025, the average expected time to judgment in administrative courts exceeded one year.
84 cases identified, mostly AI texts submitted by individuals
The study "Characterizing Agentic Flooding of Government Services" was posted on arXiv on 17 August 2026 by Chris Schmitz (Hertie School), Lewis Hammond (Cooperative AI Foundation) and Alan Chan (GovAI). Its authors examined 2,288 candidate public services in twelve countries, including France. They include a case when three conditions are met: a plausible mechanism of cost reduction through AI, a consistent change in demand, and attribution to AI by a government source or a reputable secondary source. They caution that their method does not allow any causal, quantitative or statistical conclusion. Only 25 cases have numerical series.
In 87% of the 84 cases included, identified in eleven jurisdictions, individuals submit a text produced by a language model themselves. Autonomous agents are "not yet visible" (translated from English, as are the following quotes). Increased complexity of requests appears in 90% of cases, their number in 60%, both at once in 50%. In German social courts, "some letters exceeded 4,000 pages", according to the study. Public officials themselves attribute the increase to AI in 69% of cases. None of the ten cases detailed by the study is French.
In France, increases without measuring the share of AI
In the documents consulted by ActuIA on their 2025 activity, neither the Council of State, nor the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA), nor the CNIL (France's data protection authority) quantifies the share of requests written with AI. Volumes are rising. Administrative courts recorded 334,706 cases in 2025, 20% more than in 2024, and their backlog grew by 21.7%, according to the 2025 public report of the Council of State. In its editorial, Didier-Roland Tabuteau, then vice-president of the Council of State, wrote that AI "risks further increasing its workload by facilitating the multiplication of requests". ActuIA has detailed these signals, including two orders from the Grenoble administrative court targeting requests written by AI.
Outside the courts, CADA received 14,721 referrals in 2025, according to Acteurs publics, which consulted its activity report. That is 45% more than the average of the previous four years and more than double 2020. Its president, Bruno Lasserre, calls, according to the same media, to "explore all possible ways to meet this challenge of numbers". According to Acteurs publics, the report does not attribute this increase to AI. The CNIL received 20,150 complaints in 2025, compared with 17,772 in 2024. In its annual report, it attributes this increase in particular to large-scale data breaches.
In Scotland, an end to email objections and a cap on appeals
The Energy Consents Unit, which processes wind farm and high-voltage line projects for the Scottish government, has not accepted objections by email since January 2026. The online portal and post remain. In internal correspondence obtained by The Ferret, the administration cites a "significant increase in the use of AI in comments sent by email". Each email was processed manually, without verifying the sender's identity. The government spokesperson speaks of volume and "protection against false statements". ObjectNow sees it as a way to stifle "the true scale of public opposition".
The Scottish Information Commissioner recorded 1,084 appeals in 2025-2026, compared with 593 the previous year. According to him, two applicants filed 120 in two months, entirely generated by AI. With a measure announced on 8 June 2026, he can limit, on a case-by-case basis, an applicant to five appeals under consideration. The measure had not yet been used at that date.
United Kingdom, Australia: rules on AI use and proposed fees
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which regulates access to information, frames AI-written requests with a guide announced on 6 May 2026. It recalls that such a request remains valid. It allows refusal for vexatious requests in case of volume, repetition or a campaign by a group.
The Planning Inspectorate, which processes planning appeals in England, requires disclosure of AI use. An update on 23 September 2026 clarified how to do so. Misuse can lead to an award of costs.
In Australia, the government proposed in September 2025 to reinstate fees for requests for access to federal documents. The study includes this case among its examples. The Attorney-General's press release speaks of "automated" and anonymous requests, without citing AI. The link to AI comes from the Health Minister, Mark Butler, according to the Parliamentary Library note. The Australian Department of Home Affairs told a Senate committee that it had no evidence of receiving requests generated by AI bots.
The study finds an explicit response from the administration in 56% of its 84 cases, most often "narrowly targeted or non-binding". Friction measures, which slow down filing, appear in 14 cases. Internal AI tools, in 21. Friction is also observed outside administrations: curl, Google and arXiv have closed or rationed their intake channels in the face of AI-generated submissions.
What French law allows to counter the influx
The Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration (CRPA) provides a first defence. An acknowledgement of receipt is not required for "abusive requests, in particular by their number or repetitive or systematic nature" (Article L. 112-3). The article only exempts from the acknowledgement of receipt. Article L. 311-2 exempts the administration from responding to abusive requests for document disclosure. CADA considers a request abusive if it "clearly aims to disrupt the functioning of the public service", according to a summary by Banque des Territoires.
The Council of State also allows refusal of a request that would impose a disproportionate burden on the administration in view of its resources (CE, 14 November 2018, No. 420055), according to the blog of the Landot law firm. These criteria target a request or an applicant. ActuIA found no French text or opinion dealing with separate requests from different users. The ICO guide, for its part, targets campaigns by a group.
The Scottish choice is already open under French law. An administration that has set up a dedicated online service for a procedure "is regularly seized electronically only through the use of that online service" (Article L. 112-9). Its terms "are binding on the public". Electronic filing also requires that the user has "identified themselves beforehand" (Article L. 112-8). The study, for its part, recommends integrating a digital identity into the most exposed services.
Before the administrative judge, no legal aid contribution since 2014
The applicant no longer pays a legal aid contribution since 1 January 2014, the date of its abolition by the decree of 29 December 2013. The 2026 Finance Act reinstated one of 50 euros on 1 March 2026. According to the National Bar Council, it targets civil and employment tribunal matters. In 2025, 57,595 appeals were filed through Télérecours citoyens, the service open to litigants without a lawyer, according to the key figures of the administrative jurisdiction. The judge can impose a fine for abusive appeal, capped at 10,000 euros according to a ministerial response published in the Journal officiel of 18 January 2022. On 3 December 2025, an order of the Grenoble administrative court rejected a request written by AI without imposing a fine.
Internal AI is used for triage, decisions remain with staff
Internal AI tools, the other response identified by the study, face a legal limit. The Constitutional Council ruled on 12 June 2018 that an administration seized of an administrative appeal against an individual decision taken by algorithm must rule "without being able to rely exclusively on the algorithm" (Decision No. 2018-765 DC). The Interior Ministry indicated on 20 October 2026, in response to written question No. 15973, that the AI tool being tested for processing residence permits makes no decision. Decisions remain with prefecture staff. The study makes the same observation in the countries it examines: laws "often prevent" automated administrative decisions.
The administrative jurisdiction adopted an AI charter on 17 December 2025. The State entrusted Mistral AI with a project on "mass litigation". The National Solidarity Fund for Autonomy (CNSA) has tested a triage tool for files of departmental houses for disabled people (MDPH). The tools described are used for triage and preparation. The decision remains with the staff member.
The government estimates the burden of standards and procedures at at least 3% of GDP
Until now, the cost gap played in the other direction. According to the impact study of the simplification bill, "the burden of standards, procedures and everyday complexities weighs at least 3% of GDP on our economy". The impact study does not publish a methodology. The Senate delegation to businesses judged this cost uncertain in 2023, by a factor of two. The General Secretariat of the Government counts an average of 8,200 orders and 632 implementing decrees per year over twenty years. The law simplifying economic life was promulgated on 26 May 2026, two years after the bill was tabled.
With generative AI, responding in writing to this complexity costs the user less. The study posted on arXiv recalls that a user files a request "when the benefit they expect exceeds the cost of filing", and that lowering this cost "can alone release latent demand". Increased demand is "not harmful in itself, but administrations often cannot respond to it", the authors write.
Non-take-up of the RSA in France offers at least one public measure of this latent demand. According to DREES, the statistical service of the social ministries, 33% to 37% of eligible households did not receive it at the end of 2021 in metropolitan France. Nothing establishes at this stage that generative AI is changing this rate.
The authors of the study advise governments to "systematically audit" the exposure of their services. They then recommend clarifying, for each type of response, what the law allows. In France, ActuIA has identified neither such a public audit, nor any text or official position devoted to AI-written requests.
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