Fulton County Schools CIO outlines AI, security and a major device refresh in IT work-session update
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Summary
CIO Joe Phillips told the board the IT division launched governance committees, an AI task force and security upgrades while refreshing thousands of devices and piloting new tools (Copilot chat, a chatbot and a Microsoft Fabric data lake) to speed reporting and protect student data.
Joe Phillips, Fulton County Schools’ chief information officer, told the board at the district’s May work session that his first-year priorities have centered on leadership, security and data consolidation as the district prepares new AI tools and a large device refresh.
"Our new mission is to empower Fulton County Schools through the innovative use of information and technology," Phillips said, introducing a list of staff and initiatives the IT division has stood up since his arrival. He credited retreats, skip-level meetings and an anonymous "Betterment" inbox with improving communication and morale among IT staff.
Phillips outlined technical accomplishments that include new governance groups to vet software and data practices, an AI task force to evaluate classroom and administrative uses of AI, and a soft launch of a chatbot called "Let’s Connect." He also described partnerships with Georgia Tech capstone students and said the district has implemented a NIST-aligned security framework and expanded Microsoft detection tools to protect endpoints.
On devices, Phillips said the district has completed a large refresh: "we've refreshed over 5,000 laptops for teachers, 400 laptops for school staff members, 200 for administrative staff members, 10,000 new laptops have been added to our 1 to 1 fleet," and additional units for paraprofessionals, transportation staff and school resource officers. He said 110 kiosks have been deployed to help students check in devices for repair.
Board members asked how the district will balance access to generative AI with safeguards. Phillips said district networks block public AI sites — "they can't just download ChatGPT, or get to the website. So, we currently have that blocked with about 40,000 other AI platforms and websites"—and described a planned rollout of Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat in the fall. "All of the data that's used inside of Copilot stays inside of our Fulton County Schools environment. It's not used to train the model," he said, adding that the district will apply role-based access controls so users see only the data they are permitted to access.
Phillips described work to consolidate fragmented systems into a data lake (Microsoft Fabric) so principals, teachers and board members can query results quickly through AI tools and dashboards. He offered RAG-model (retrieval-augmented generation) uses to speed facility-condition assessments and job-description alignment.
The district staff emphasized next steps that include continued cybersecurity improvements, finishing an IT security audit, wider rollout of Incident IQ for asset tracking and end-of-year device collection, and expanded training for Microsoft Copilot and other productivity tools.
The board thanked staff for the updates and asked that communications about new policies and tools be distributed widely to families and schools before next school year.
The presentation text and numbers were drawn from the CIO briefing presented during the May 2025 work session; the board did not take an immediate vote on the initiatives during the work session.
