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Indianapolis partners with InnovateUS for free AI training, prepares citywide Copilot rollout
Summary
The City-County’s CIO announced a free, multi-level AI training program for roughly 8,500 employees through a partnership with InnovateUS and described steps to prepare for Microsoft Copilot chat access across the enterprise while limiting risks through data classification and staged pilots.
Colin Hill, chief information officer for Indianapolis and Marion County, told the Artificial Intelligence Commission that the city has contracted with InnovateUS to provide free AI and digital-skill training to enterprise employees and is preparing phased Microsoft Copilot deployments.
"The free training that they're going to offer is, very deep, and has multiple levels to it from, responsibilities of AI use and and how to interact with GenAI to, helping people write prompts," Hill said. He said InnovateUS will offer Google certificates and other modules at no cost to city‑county staff and that the program is intended for the enterprise’s roughly 8,500 employees.
Hill and other officials described a staged approach to Copilot: the city will require specific training for an initial pilot of about 200 Copilot M365 users; it is currently blocking Copilot on Windows 11 but noted that Copilot chat will be available through M365 web access and, per a recent Microsoft announcement, will be enabled for Government Community Cloud (GCC) tenants. Hill said the city expects centralized licensing and additional data‑preparation work to conclude after April 1.
Officials emphasized data classification, permissions and change management. Hill warned that if a user has access to a shared document, a Copilot instance could draw on that content. “If Leonette shares a document with me... my Copilot will see that document, and will be able to pull that into any anything that I'm looking at,” Hill said, arguing that departments must review permissions and clean data before broader rollout.
Hill said the city has created an internal SharePoint site for the AI initiative, is coordinating with departments on permissions and data hygiene, and will hold AI innovation workshop days in April where 120 city‑county participants will work with partners such as IDC on use cases.
On procurement and vendor relations, Hill and other commissioners discussed the difficulty governments face when vendors release new features directly to customers. The city has used enterprise change‑management processes to reduce disruption from such vendor changes, but Hill said recent vendor pushes—Microsoft’s Copilot chat among them—still require close oversight.
Hill said InnovateUS’s training partner team worked remotely (contacts were in Atlanta) and that the city is the first U.S. municipality to partner with InnovateUS for this offering. He encouraged departments to have staff take training immediately and to submit completion records for Copilot pilot prioritization.
Next steps include finalizing licensing after April 1, completing enterprise data‑classification and permissions reviews, requiring training for initial Copilot license recipients, and running April innovation workshops to generate pilot use cases.
