According to the US tech giant, staff have collectively saved 25,200 working hours since migrating to the Copilot platform.
Every member of Oxfordshire County Council’s workforce – made up of more than 5,000 employees – now has access to Microsoft Copilot. The decision followed a 2024 trial in which 500 users were asked to test out the AI assistant
‘This is organisational change through a piece of technology—cultural, transformative, with new ways of working,’ said Caroline French, Head of Transformation and Digital at Oxfordshire County Council. ‘And we want everyone to have a role to play in how this transforms us and how we’ll continue to transform.’
In addition to cutting more than 25,000 managerial and practitioner hours by automating the production of supervision notes, Copilot has been responsible for saving 30,000 hours that would have been used up on meeting notes and follow ups, and 8,000 hours have been clawed back from the hiring process – predominantly in areas like job description creation, developing interview structures, and composing offer letters. Communication with the public has also been made more accessible. Microsoft’s case study on the Copilot introduction claims results from Oxfordshire County Council’s pilot alone can be valued at £3.3million.
While the technology itself is heralded as effective in delivering savings, the authority has been quick to emphasis the importance of making sure its people were on side. This relied maintaining a level of excitement around Copilot, including creating The Hangar – a Teams channel for sharing relevant resources and advice – and The Flight School, where training opportunities are posted and discovered.
A series of ‘AIscape rooms’ have also been opened, which upskill staff using the Microsoft system. Modelled on escape rooms, the idea is to introduce ‘gamification’ concepts while de-mystifying artificial intelligence workplace applications and processes. A single-day ‘hackathon’ was also held, in which staff were asked to develop solutions to real world challenges by designing and prototyping AI agents with Copilot, ending with a Dragon’s Den-style pitch presentation. 80 people participated, forming 11 interdisciplinary teams.
‘At the end of the day, I could see so many Copilot agents that we could borrow or adapt for our service,’ said Maggie Wang, one of Oxfordshire County Council’s Copilot Ambassadors an Information Systems Specialist within the authority’s HR department. ‘I think it’s most powerful when you can see your peers use Copilot to tackle a real problem which you can relate to and apply in your own daily work.’
Image: Triyansh Gill / Unsplash
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