Helsinki wants to test new technologies and pave the way by improving the productivity of its own operations. The experiment also aims to develop the general competence and understanding regarding AI among the city's employees as well as support the use of AI.
The Copilot trial runs from January to October and involves a total of 1,000 employees across the city organisation. The participants of the experiment consist of teams whose work involves considerable use of M365 tools such as Teams or Word. Teams that process personal data or are in direct contact with city residents have been excluded from the experiment because the use of the new technology involves legal and data protection issues that are yet to be resolved. Artificial intelligence will also not be used in recruitment.
— Our goal is to learn what benefits Copilot can provide to make knowledge work more efficient and what work tasks the tool is best suited to. Our Copilot experiment makes us pioneers in Finland, as we will be among the first to test the tool, says Tomas Lehtinen, Head of Data at the City of Helsinki.
The City of Helsinki adheres to the ethical principles it has determined for the use of data and artificial intelligence. There are eight ethical principles. These are human-centredness, transparency, explainability, fairness and non-discrimination, accountability and trust, privacy, safety, and human oversight over AI operations.