Mayor Lurie Brings AI Technology to San Francisco Government, Cementing City as Global AI Leader

SAN FRANCISCO – Mayor Daniel Lurie today took a major step to strengthen city services for San Franciscans and cement the city’s status as the global leader in artificial intelligence, making Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat available to nearly 30,000 City employees. Powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o, the secure, enterprise-grade artificial intelligence (AI) assistant tool will be a valuable new resource for nurses, social workers, and other city workers, allowing them to spend more time delivering services to San Franciscans.

Under Mayor Lurie’s leadership, San Francisco is leveraging the city’s world-leading innovation ecosystem to expand the city's ability to deliver faster, and more responsive services. The citywide rollout of Copilot Chat makes San Francisco one of the largest local governments in the world to actively leverage generative AI to improve service delivery. The Lurie administration is also partnering with the city’s leading companies on data and technology solutions to support the PermitSF initiative streamlining the city’s permitting process and the neighborhood-based street outreach teams tackling the homelessness and behavioral health crisis.

“San Francisco is the global home of AI, and now, we’re putting that innovation to work with Microsoft Copilot Chat—allowing City Hall to better deliver for our residents,” said Mayor Lurie. “As our city and the world embrace AI technology, San Francisco is setting the standard for how local government can responsibly do the same. I’m thrilled to partner with Microsoft to build a government that reflects the innovative spirit of our city to do what San Franciscans elected me to do: deliver results.”

Starting today, Copilot Chat will be available across city departments, helping staff accelerate more administrative work such as drafting reports, analyzing data, and summarizing documents—allowing them to spend more time delivering services directly to San Franciscans. Today’s launch is the first phase of the citywide rollout, with plans for the city to continue to evolve the use of generative AI tools based on employee experience and feedback.

“City workers are the heart of public service, and they deserve tools that help them focus on what matters most: serving their communities,” said Chris Barry, Corporate Vice President, US Public Sector Industries, Microsoft. “With Copilot Chat, we’re giving San Francisco’s public servants a powerful AI partner that lightens administrative burdens and unlocks time for deeper, more meaningful work. Copilot Chat is designed to meet the highest standards for privacy, compliance, and data protection—so city employees can innovate with confidence and deliver services more efficiently than ever.”

The San Francisco Department of Technology will work with Microsoft to launch a five-week Copilot Chat-specific training campaign with live workshops and office hours to help prepare city workers to maximize the benefits of Copilot Chat. The city will also collaborate with the nonprofit InnovateUS to deliver government-focused courses on the responsible use of AI in the public sector. Copilot Chat will be available under the city's existing license with Microsoft, and the addition comes at no additional cost to the city.

“Tackling today's most challenging public problems requires building a more responsive, efficient, and transparent government through upskilling,” said Beth Simone Noveck, Founder of InnovateUS and Director of the Burnes Center for Social Change and the Governance Lab. “At InnovateUS, we are empowering public service professionals with the AI skills and tools to improve people's lives, and we applaud San Francisco for their continued leadership in this space and are grateful for their partnership.”

San Francisco’s new Generative AI Guidelines, updated on July 8, 2025, help ensure responsibility and accountability while providing greater flexibility in city workers’ use of generative AI as the technology becomes more ubiquitous. Under the guidelines, city staff are accountable for any material they use or share, regardless of how it was created. The new guidelines also integrate the requirements of the city’s AI Transparency Ordinance, ensuring policymakers and the public have full visibility into the city's use of AI tools, risks, and safeguards.

The launch of Copilot Chat also reflects lessons learned during a successful six-month AI pilot, through which more than 2,000 city employees tested generative AI tools and reported productivity gains of up to five hours per week. Between September 2024 and February 2025, more than 3,000 employees participated in training with pilot participants reporting email assistance, project planning, and research and summarization as top uses for the technology.

In June 2025, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury urged city leaders to embrace AI innovation and give public employees the tools and training needed to succeed in the modern era, specifically criticizing City Hall for an overemphasis on guardrails rather than encouraging thoughtful use of AI tools. The introduction of Copilot Chat builds on the jury’s recommendations, including mayoral emphasis on a culture that supports AI and using technology to improve city service delivery and greater partnership with the AI ecosystem already located in the city.

“Everyday technology is evolving. In our private lives and in workspaces, technology is rapidly integrated into how we find information and even how we might think about doing our daily tasks. In San Francisco, we’re testing that technology to learn how AI might be best applied,” said City Administrator Carmen Chu. “Rolling out AI tools under our enterprise platform provides the city with security we expect from our system tools while giving workers a space to experiment and learn. It’s important that our workers are well-prepared to use new tools responsibly so that we are positioned to see benefits from emerging technologies well into the future.”

“AI is here, and San Francisco is meeting the moment,” said Michael Makstman, City Chief Information Officer and Department of Technology Director. “We’re not just talking about innovation—we’re implementing it, responsibly and at scale, with enterprise-grade security, to better serve our residents.”

“AI has truly transformed how I work as a clinical pharmacist. It helps me draft documents more efficiently and create patient education materials that are easier for everyone to understand,” said Tamara Lenhoff, PharmD, Inpatient Family Medicine Clinical Pharmacist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “By taking some of the weight off my administrative workload, it’s given me back time to focus on what I love most: caring for patients.”

The city’s use of Copilot Chat will adhere to the following key principles:

• Improve Services for the People of San Francisco: Integrating Copilot Chat into day-to-day workflows will free up time for staff to focus on the work that matters most: delivering services. AI is being tested to quicken 311 response times, improve traffic safety through predictive analytics, and connect people experiencing homelessness with critical care and housing services. Copilot Chat will build on that momentum—making government more responsive, effective, and human-centered in delivering services like permitting or processing paperwork for benefits.
• Empower a Tech-Savvy Workforce: To ensure staff are equipped to use the technology responsibly and effectively, the city is launching a five-week training campaign with live workshops, office hours, and public-sector-specific learning tracks. This work is part of a broader commitment to improve the skills of all 30,000 city workers on emerging technologies, making San Francisco’s public workforce one of the most AI-ready in the nation.
• Set the Standard for Safe and Ethical AI Use: The use of Copilot Chat is grounded in San Francisco’s strong commitment to safe and ethical AI adoption. The city is committed to responsible AI use, with robust privacy and bias safeguards, and clear guidelines to ensure technology enhances—not replaces—human judgment. Beginning July 18, the San Francisco CIO will start publishing department-submitted AI Inventory responses on the DataSF platform. Copilot Chat runs on a secure Microsoft Government Community Cloud platform with enterprise-grade data protections. The tool is governed by strict privacy, security, and legal controls—including a business associate agreement, safeguarding protected health information and personally identifiable information—and has passed the city’s cybersecurity assessments.
• National Leadership in Public Sector AI: San Francisco today joins a short list of governments that are using Copilot Chat across public agencies and will be the largest city in the US to offer Copilot Chat to the public sector workforce. The city is also an active member of the national GovAI coalition, sharing best practices and helping shape the future of AI in public service across the country.

“San Francisco is the tech capital of the world, and it's time for our city to support our workers in leveraging that technology as well,” said District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. “The adoption of Copilot is an important next step to complement our amazing city workforce and give them the tools they deserve in a modern economy.”

“City employees work incredibly hard, and they deserve the best tools to deliver the best services to San Franciscans,” said District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill. “Whether it’s preparing presentations for public meetings or summarizing complex reports, everyone wants to spend more time communicating clearly and less time moving pixels. Copilot will help with that and more. The days of coming in on Sundays to do TPS reports are over.”

“It is good to see San Francisco expanding access to emerging technologies to all city employees in a thoughtful way," said SPUR's Governance and Economy Policy Director Nicole Neditch. "It represents an important step towards modernizing government operations and improving how services are delivered to residents.”