Translate
HOME »

About Emma

Emma is the City of Amarillo’s digital assistant, a cutting-edge use of technology designed to help answer your questions and provide information about City of Amarillo’s services.

Learn about Amarillo's Emma

About Our Digital Assistant, Emma

Emma is the City of Amarillo’s digital assistant, helping residents find answers and information about city services anytime.

Human-First Approach: The Amarillo City Council adopted the Digital Dignity and Rights Ordinance, establishing guiding principles for the thoughtful development and use of technology tools and services.

The Information Behind Emma: Emma sources clear, accurate, and well-organized information from the city’s websites.

The city continually works to keep website information accurate, up to date, and easy to understand. The website is Emma’s source of information and also helps residents find reliable city information through search engines and other digital tools.

While Emma is designed to provide answers, responses may occasionally be incomplete or incorrect.

Easy, Conversational Access: Emma makes finding city information easy. Residents can ask questions directly instead of navigating through webpages. They can interact through text or speech in English or Spanish.

Emma maintains the context of the conversation, allowing for a natural flow of follow-up questions.

For example, after asking about jury duty, a resident can simply ask, “Where do I park?” or “How long will it take?” and Emma understands that they are still talking about jury duty.

Continuous Improvement: Emma does not independently learn or change. The city continually explores ways to improve the resident experience and make city information easier to access.

Questions or feedback can be sent to feedback@amarillo.gov or 806-378-3000.

How Emma Works

Emma uses a language model to understand questions and provide natural-language responses. In simple terms, residents ask a question, and Emma uses city-controlled information to provide an answer.

City Information Only: Emma does not search the internet for answers. Responses are based on information provided and controlled by the City of Amarillo.

Text or Speech: Residents can type a question or speak directly to Emma.

English and Spanish: English is the default experience. Residents can select Habla con Emma for a separate Spanish-language experience. The English and Spanish experiences operate independently.

Conversation Context: Emma can follow the topic during a conversation. This allows residents to ask follow-up questions without repeating all of the information from their original question.

Limitations: Emma does not think or understand in the way a person does. Responses are generated from the city information available to Emma and may occasionally be incomplete or incorrect.

No Independent Learning: Emma does not independently learn from individual conversations or change its own information. Improvements are reviewed and managed by the city.

Development Timeline

July 1, 2026 – Emma Version 2.0 Released
Emma 2.0 introduced conversational context, allowing residents to ask follow-up questions without repeating the original topic. The update also included improved image quality, a new Amarillo City Hall background, a cleaner interface, a new Stop Speaking button, and linked email addresses. Mobile improvements included a conversation window and click-to-call phone numbers.

August 12, 2025 – Emma Version 1.5 Released
The City launched Emma 1.5, introducing a more natural conversational style, improved guidance that directs users to the correct City web pages (acting as a digital concierge). This update also laid the groundwork for upcoming features such as conversational memory and context-aware responses.

October 1, 2024 – Public Launch
Emma officially launched to the public after months of development and testing, marking the City of Amarillo’s first major step into using AI to support resident access to information.

Select A Language to Translate This Page

About Translations on Amarillo.gov

The City of Amarillo offers translations of content on Amarillo.gov through the Google Translate web translator (translate.google.com). Because Google Translate is an external service, the City does not control the quality or accuracy of translated content. As a result, some translations may contain inaccuracies, and there may be issues with the appearance of translated pages, including errors in images.

If you encounter incorrect or substandard translations, you can help improve them by contributing better translations using Google Translate:

  1. Hover over any text containing an error, and a pop-up box will appear.
  2. Click “Contribute a better translation.”
  3. Double-click the area of the pop-up that says “Click a word for alternative translations, or double-click to edit directly.”
  4. Make your edits directly in the text box.
  5. Press “Contribute” to submit your suggested changes.

For more information on contributing to Google Translate, visit Google Translate’s help page.

Please note that the City of Amarillo does not control the process by which contributed translations are incorporated into Google Translate.

The City of Amarillo is dedicated to enhancing the accessibility and multilingual content available on our website.

City of Amarillo: Property Taxes Rebated Per Year by Agreement Type 

Overview 

The chart shows the dollar amounts of property taxes rebated per year over the last five fiscal years, broken down by agreement type. There were no Chapter 380 property tax rebates in the first two years listed. The total amount increased slightly each year, with a more significant increase in the most recent year. 

Values 

Numerical values presented on the image: 

 

Fiscal Year 2020/2021 

Fiscal Year 2021/2022 

Fiscal Year 2022/2023 

Fiscal Year 2023/2024 

Fiscal Year 2024/2025 

Chapter 311 

$533,080 

$547,426 

$574,947 

$591,249 

$821,350 

Chapter 380 

$0 

$0 

$37,387 

$39,172 

$61,013 

Presentation 

The bar chart shows the amount of property taxes rebated in the past five fiscal years, broken down by agreement type. The horizontal axis shows each of the past five fiscal years and the vertical axis shows the dollar amount rebated. For each fiscal year there is vertical column, comprised of two stacked columns, each of which representing the different agreement types. 

City of Amarillo: Number of Tax Abatements Granted Per Year 

Overview 

The chart shows the number of businesses that received a tax abatement from the City of Amarillo in the past five fiscal years. The 2020/21 and 2021/22 fiscal years each had four active abatements, 2022/23 had five, and 2023/24 and 2024/25 each had seven. 

Values 

Numerical values presented on the image: 

 

Fiscal Year 2020/2021 

Fiscal Year 2021/2022 

Fiscal Year 2022/2023 

Fiscal Year 2023/2024 

Fiscal Year 2024/2025 

Active Abatements Per Year 

4 

4 

5 

7 

7 

Presentation 

The bar chart shows the number of businesses that received a tax abatement from the City of Amarillo in the past five fiscal years. The horizontal axis shows each of the past five fiscal years and the vertical axis shows the number of active abatements each year. Each year has one column, with the height indicating number of active abatements in that year.

Amount of Taxes Abated Per Year 

Overview 

The chart shows the dollar amounts abated over the past five fiscal years from Chapter 312 tax abatement agreements. Each fiscal year shows a larger dollar amount abated, with minor growth over the first three years, a higher increase in the fourth year, and minor growth again in the fifth year. 

Values 

Numerical values presented on the image: 

 

Fiscal Year 2020/2021 

Fiscal Year 2021/2022 

Fiscal Year 2022/2023 

Fiscal Year 2023/2024 

Fiscal Year 2024/2025 

Taxes Abated by City of Amarillo 

$510,061 

$623,017 

$679,849 

$965,261 

$1,143,899 

Total Abated by All Entities Including City of Amarillo 

$1,569,512 

$1,926,332 

$2,103,099 

$2,884,936 

$2,959,496 

Presentation 

The bar chart represents the amount of taxes abated over the past five fiscal years. The horizontal axis shows each of the past five fiscal years and the vertical axis shows the dollar amount abated. The bar representing taxes abated by the City of Amarillo is sightly offset to the side of the bar representing the amount abated by all participating tax entities for each fiscal year. This shows that the amount abated by the City of Amarillo is a part of the total amount abated by all entities.

City of Amarillo: Taxes Rebated Per Year by Type 

Overview 

This chart shows the dollar amounts rebated by the City of Amarillo from economic development incentive agreements over the past five fiscal years. Each year is broken down by rebate type, including property tax rebates, hotel occupancy tax rebates, and sales tax rebates. Each fiscal year shows a slight increase in total dollars rebated, with a more drastic increase in the most recent fiscal year. 

Values 

Numerical values presented on the image: 

 

Fiscal Year 2020/2021 

Fiscal Year 2021/2022 

Fiscal Year 2022/2023 

Fiscal Year 2023/2024 

Fiscal Year 2024/2025 

Property Tax Rebates 

$533,080 

$547,426 

$612,334 

$630,421 

$882,363 

Hotel Occupancy Tax Rebates 

$686,747 

$753,112 

$794,828 

$871,423 

$808,348 

Sales Tax Rebates 

$0 

$21,046 

$55,528 

$45,881 

$368,716 

 

Presentation 

The bar chart represents the amount rebated by the City of Amarillo for each type of tax rebate over the past five fiscal years. The horizontal axis shows each of the past five fiscal years and the vertical axis shows the dollar amount rebated. The different rebate types are stacked vertically in each fiscal year, with the height representing the total dollar amount rebated.