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ISA outlines AI roadmap, pilot of Microsoft Copilot and training for city-county staff
Summary
ISA presented a three-path plan to advance artificial intelligence across Indianapolis city–county government, including a Copilot pilot, an education program, new staffing and policy updates aligned with NIST guidance.
The Information Services Agency on Jan. 28 described a phased plan to advance artificial intelligence across the Indianapolis city–county enterprise, centering initial work on an internal Microsoft Copilot pilot, staff training and updated governance and data controls.
Kate Coaten, chief digital officer for ISA, said the agency will use the city’s Microsoft environment to pilot Copilot as an internal workplace-efficiency tool and to build security and data controls around that use. “Copilot is only an internal workplace efficiency tool,” Coaten said, adding the pilot will be limited to staff accounts and to the data sources users already have access to in Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Outlook.
Coaten said the city’s enterprise Microsoft renewal, due in April, will provide roughly 200 Copilot licenses for the pilot. Participation in the pilot will require completion of two training modules: a dedicated AI training the city has contracted through a public-sector training partner (Innovate/US) and an ISA data-classification training. Coaten said ISA hopes to begin training in February and to update AI policy and procurement guidelines in the coming quarter.
ISA’s approach groups activity into three paths: establish (staffing, security tooling and policy), educate (training and certification) and engage (functional-group coordination, pilot projects and public transparency). Coaten said the agency intends to hire a chief data and privacy officer to work with ISA leadership on data and privacy controls, and to continue collaborative work with the city’s chief security and operations staff.
ISA also plans two “AI open house” days to let staff experiment with multiple models and tools and to solicit use-case ideas. Coaten said ISA will develop an internal AI hub on the ISA intranet and a public-facing indi.gov page describing city-county AI activities and safeguards.
Board members asked about likely use cases and risk. Several speakers suggested analytic applications — for example, parcel assessment workflows where AI can process large samples faster than manual review — but speakers emphasized the need for human review and robust data classification before automated tools make decisions that affect residents.
The board did not adopt further formal action; staff said next steps will include training rollout, policy updates and pilot selection.
