San Francisco rolls out Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to 30,000 city workers
San Francisco just launched Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o, for 30,000 city employees. The rollout targets nurses, social workers, and other government staff to speed up city services.
Mayor Daniel Lurie announced the move Monday, calling it a major step for the city’s use of AI. 
San Francisco is using Copilot across departments to handle tasks like data analysis and report drafting. The goal: free up worker time for faster resident responses.
The launch follows a six-month trial with 2,000 city workers that delivered productivity boosts of up to five hours a week.
They tested Copilot on the 311 service line, improving response times for trash pickup, homeless encampments, and language translation.
Lurie highlighted the city’s linguistic diversity:
"We have over 42 languages spoken here in San Francisco," he said.
"We don’t always have enough translators to do all that. The AI tool is going to help us do that in seconds."
The city uses Copilot under its existing Microsoft license, so no extra cost is involved.
Lurie said San Francisco wants to set an example:
"We have over 42 languages spoken here in San Francisco," he said. "We don’t always have enough translators to do all that. The AI tool is going to help us do that in seconds."
Lurie said he wants San Francisco to be "a beacon for cities around the globe on how they use this technology, and we’re going to show the way."
This move makes San Francisco one of the largest local governments to roll out generative AI at scale.
