Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is straying from her predecessor’s artificial intelligence ambitions and pausing the citywide rollout of Microsoft’s AI Copilot chatbot for city employees.
Former Mayor Bruce Harrell was bullish on AI. Last year, he announced an ambitious new AI plan to implement the technology in a variety of city services and spoke of making Seattle a “national leader in responsible artificial intelligence implementation.”
Part of the plan involved testing Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot with a group of 500 city employees.
The feedback was positive: A survey of 185 users found that Copilot demonstrated “significant business value and strong potential to boost productivity and streamline workflows.” Staff reported saving an average of two and a half hours each week because of the chatbot. The tool was especially useful for drafting and editing documents, summarizing meeting notes and “accelerating research,” the city’s IT department found.
The Harrell administration planned to make Copilot available to staff across the city starting in late February this year.
Instead, Wilson, who took office as mayor in January, is pumping the breaks.
“The Wilson administration took the opportunity to pause Copilot efforts started under the previous administration to ensure the AI direction reflected their priorities in a thoughtful and responsible manner,” said Megan Erb, a spokesperson for the city’s IT department.
The phased approach ensures the city “responsibly tests and adopts artificial intelligence tools, meets all privacy and security requirements, and deploys solutions that provide clear benefits to employees while upholding the City’s Responsible AI commitments,” Erb said.
The group of 500 employees who had been testing Copilot can continue to use it while citywide rollout is paused, Erb said.
Like most local governments, Seattle is a Microsoft 365 client, which means Copilot is included at no additional cost. For security reasons, some local government entities in Washington have recently instructed staff to use only Copilot and avoid other chatbots like ChatGPT.
Seattle employees aren’t authorized to use ChatGPT. But chatlogs obtained through public records requests by KNKX show that some employees have experimented with using it, mainly for tasks like drafting emails, presentations or grant applications. The records were obtained as part of a broader investigation into local city governments' AI usage last year, and predate Wilson’s tenure as mayor.
The Seattle AI plan unveiled by Harrell last summer called for employee training, a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of various AI tools, and a new “AI officer” position to oversee city initiatives. In December, the city hired Lisa Qian, a former senior manager of data science for LinkedIn, to fill the new role.
Seattle adopted a formal AI policy in 2023 — one of the first cities in the country to adopt a formal AI policy. The policy requires attribution if text generated by AI is used substantially in a final product, and prohibits the use of AI for things like hiring decisions and facial recognition. It also calls for a “human-in-the-loop” approach to ensure all AI-generated content is double-checked by a real person.
While the citywide rollout of Copilot is delayed, Seattle is still “conducting educational roadshows for departments, as well working to advance our foundational work in data governance and data readiness,” Erb said.
News of the Copilot pause comes shortly after Rob Lloyd, Seattle’s Harrell-appointed IT director, announced that he was resigning in February.
Seattle has already tested several other AI tools in a variety of departments. The list of pilots includes a partnership with software company CivCheck in an effort to speed permitting times and a partnership with enterprise software provider C3.ai and Microsoft on a project to analyze near-miss car incidents and identify dangerous streets. The city has also tested a public-facing AI chatbot called “SEAMore Voice.”
Other than Copilot, the only AI chatbot to complete Seattle’s required privacy and security review process is the “ESRI Support Chatbot.” According to Erb, it is an internal support chatbot designed to assist troubleshooting a geographic information systems tool used by a limited number of staff in a few departments.
During the last budget process, the Seattle City Council asked the city’s IT department to provide quarterly reports on AI usage. Erb said the IT department is evaluating active pilot programs and will submit its first quarterly report in April.
All stories produced by Murrow Local News fellows can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. Image rights may vary. Contact editor@knkx.org for image use requests.
