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CIVI: A Framework for Diagnosing Search Agent Failures in Civic Information

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 8, 2026 · UTC

Large Language Models are increasingly deployed in public-sector settings, where incorrect guidance can cause irreversible harm. We introduce CIVI, the first framework for diagnosing search agent failures in civic information. Its benchmark instantiation jointly spans cross-national, interjurisdictional government contexts (federal, state, and local) and functional categories from an internationally adopted United Nations standard. We evaluate ten frontier search agents and find that none matches an attentive human baseline. Alongside accuracy, CIVI measures search invocation rate, selective n

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