FILE – Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson speaks at a protest and rally against immigration enforcement in Seattle, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026.
Lindsay Wasson/AP
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is pausing the citywide rollout of Microsoft’s AI Copilot chatbot for city workers, veering away from her predecessor’s artificial intelligence ambitions.
Former Mayor Bruce Harrell was bullish on AI. Last year, he released an ambitious new work. AI plan He talked about making Seattle a “national leader in the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence,” with the aim of introducing the technology into a variety of city services.
Part of the plan included testing Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot with a group of 500 city employees.
Feedback was positive: A investigation Of the 185 users, Copilot said it demonstrated “significant business value and strong potential to improve productivity and streamline workflows.” Staff reported saving an average of 2.5 hours each week thanks to the chatbot. According to the city’s IT department, the tool was especially useful for drafting and editing documents, summarizing meeting notes, and “accelerating research.”
Related: City of Washington employees use ChatGPT for government work
The Harrell administration had planned to make Copilot available to employees across the city starting in late February of this year.
Instead, Wilson, who took office as mayor in January, is putting the brakes on.
“The Wilson administration took the opportunity to pause the CoPilot effort, which was launched under the previous administration, to ensure the direction of AI reflects our priorities in a thoughtful and responsible manner,” said Megan Erb, a spokeswoman for the city’s IT department.
The phased approach will ensure the city “tests and deploys artificial intelligence tools responsibly and deploys solutions that meet all privacy and security requirements and provide clear benefits to employees while adhering to the city’s responsible AI efforts,” Erb said.
Erb said the group of 500 employees who were testing Copilot will continue to be able to use it during the citywide rollout pause.
Related: As Washington state officials embrace AI, policy still hasn’t caught up.
Like most local governments, Seattle is a Microsoft 365 client. This means Copilot is included at no additional cost. For security reasons, some local governments in Washington state recently instructed their staff to only use Copilot and avoid other chatbots such as ChatGPT.
Employees in Seattle are not authorized to use ChatGPT. But chat logs obtained through a public records request by KNKX show that some employees experimented with it, primarily for tasks such as drafting emails, presentations, and applying for grants. The record is broader investigation locally Utilizing AI in city government This was before Mr. Wilson became mayor.
The Seattle AI plan announced by Harrell last summer called for employee training, a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of various AI tools, and a new “AI officer” position to oversee the city’s efforts. In December, city recruitment The new role will be filled by Lisa Qian, former senior manager of data science at LinkedIn.
Seattle introduced a formal AI policy in 2023, making it one of the first cities in the country to do so. The policy requires attribution if text generated by AI is used substantively in the final product, and prohibits the use of AI for things like hiring decisions and facial recognition. We also need a “human-involved” approach to ensure that all AI-generated content is double-checked by real humans.
Although Copilot’s citywide rollout has been slow, Seattle is still “conducting educational roadshows for departments and working to advance basic data governance and data readiness efforts,” Erb said.
Related: Seattle hires first-ever artificial intelligence employee
News of the co-pilot’s suspension came shortly after Rob Lloyd, the Seattle IT director appointed by Harrell, said: he announced that he would resign In February.
Seattle is already testing several other AI tools in various departments. The list of pilots includes a partnership with software company CivCheck in an effort to reduce permit times, and a partnership with enterprise software provider C3.ai and Microsoft to analyze near misses in car crashes and identify dangerous roads. The city also tested a public-facing AI chatbot called .SE more voices”
The only other AI chatbot other than Copilot that has completed the privacy and security review process required by the City of Seattle is the ESRI Support Chatbot. Erb said it’s an internal support chatbot designed to help troubleshoot geographic information system tools used by a limited number of staff in several departments.
During the last budget process, the Seattle City Council required the city’s IT department to submit quarterly reports on its use of AI. Erb said the IT department is evaluating active pilot programs and plans to submit its first quarterly report in April.
Nate Sanford is a reporter KNKX. This article was brought to you by the Northwest News Network, a joint operation of public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
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