Centennial outlines Microsoft Copilot rollout, emphasizes data security and human review

The City of Centennial presented a plan to roll out Microsoft Copilot, a generative AI assistant, across city staff and council after a study-session presentation and question-and-answer period on the technology.

City staff said the rollout will prioritize data security, training and governance rather than seeking immediate policy approval from council. "Generative AI was used to draft an outline of this presentation," Melanie Ward, the city's manager of development, foresight and infrastructure readiness, told council. She said Copilot will be hosted in a government community cloud and that "the information will stay inside our tenant perimeter, giving us additional safety."

Ward said the city expects Copilot to integrate with existing Microsoft 365 apps used by staff, and that existing access controls will remain in place so an individual's Copilot only sees files that person can access. She also outlined the city's security posture: defense-in-depth protections such as firewalls, multi-factor authentication, least-privilege access, ongoing monitoring, audits, penetration testing and tabletop exercises.

Ward described operational controls: the city has drafted an administrative directive that defines acceptable and unacceptable GenAI uses, assigns roles and responsibilities for working with AI, and "requires a human in the loop," meaning AI will assist but not make decisions without human review. She said advanced AI projects must be evaluated by the city's IT steering committee and that any new technology will undergo IT review for architectural fit, accessibility and cybersecurity.

Chuck Powers, the city's information technology director and CIO, said the city will offer two-hour training sessions developed with Microsoft, delivered remotely, that focus on real use cases. "We're gonna go ahead and buy a subscription to Copilot," he said, and later gave a cost estimate: "It's $30 a seat per month." Ward and Powers said licenses are being assigned to staff as they complete training; they estimated roughly nine seats for council and about 90 for staff, adding that license distribution will be role-based.

Council members asked about practical uses and measurement. Ward said staff will track adoption metrics such as percentage of employees using Copilot in Word, and hold departmental roundtables to share effective prompts and practices. "That might highlight for us, we have kind of 30% of people maybe feel a little bit more comfortable with it," she said as an example of the sort of statistic the city could monitor.

During questions about state law and oversight, a city staff member summarized recent state-level activity: a law passed by the General Assembly created regulations for high-risk uses of generative AI (for example where AI is a substantial factor in decisions about housing or employment), required best practices for those tools, and established a complaint process through the state Attorney General's office. Ward clarified the city is not using AI for high-risk decision making at this time.

Ward and Powers described other safeguards: Copilot will run in FedRAMP-authorized government data centers, they said, and the city will maintain its existing spam, antivirus and phishing protections. Ward also said council will receive Copilot access and planned AI training during the 2026 onboarding cycle to help members prepare for meetings and digest materials.

City staff emphasized a staged rollout: pilot projects, measurement and gradual expansion governed by the IT steering committee. "Innovation happens responsibly, with oversight and accountability," Ward said. She invited council and staff to submit use cases to be incorporated into training.

The study-session presentation did not request a council vote; staff said next steps include continuing training, monitoring usage, refining the administrative directive and further IT evaluations.