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Montgomery County advances AI pilot; council puts Copilot expansion on reconciliation
Summary
TEBS presented Monty 2.0 and an expanded Copilot pilot to the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee. Monty has handled 20,000+ conversations in 2025; TEBS sought additional Copilot licenses but the committee asked for deployment details and placed $126,000 on reconciliation for later council review.
TEBS Director Gail Roper told the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee that Montgomery County is centering its artificial-intelligence work on accountability and service delivery, and that the county has created an AI Center of Excellence to work with department heads on practical AI projects.
"We are doing AI in a way that gives us a level of responsibility that is very important," Roper said, describing training, benchmarks with other jurisdictions and efforts to keep resident data secure.
Shaina Taki, TEBS change-management lead, updated the committee on Monty, the county's 3-1-1 chatbot. The department said Monty 2.0 now leverages generative AI, supports more than 100 languages and that the county logged more than 20,000 conversations with the bot in 2025. Taki added that TEBS is collecting resident feedback and running AI literacy training for staff; the packet reports 811 staff attendees to date.
Committee members pressed TEBS for evidence that AI deployment will produce budgetary savings as well as service improvements. Councilmember Friedson said improvements to service are clear but asked for more rigorous analysis to demonstrate any cost savings to taxpayers, noting that deploying AI while the county's workforce and budgets continue to grow can undercut claims of savings.
The most immediate budget decision involved Microsoft Copilot licensing. TEBS described a Copilot rollout in two phases: Phase 1 (about $308,000) and Phase 2 (about $126,000), for a total of roughly $434,000. The county currently holds 300 pilot licenses, about 60 of which are committed to individuals; TEBS said it will not deploy licenses until users complete training and certification. The committee placed the $126,000 phase-2 request on the reconciliation list and asked TEBS to provide a schedule showing who will receive licenses, when training occurred or will occur, and how pilot participants were selected.
TEBS said targeted Copilot training will be available to pilot users and a lighter, organization-wide module will follow; training for pilot users is expected by the end of the month. The committee also recommended a smaller Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) review to analyze Monty's operational impacts and whether the chatbot yields measurable savings or primarily improves access and response times.
Next steps: TEBS will return with deployment details and training schedules, and the full council will consider the reconciled Copilot request and any additional licensing once it has the requested analysis and OLO input.
