Thousands of public servants at dozens of federal departments and agencies will become the first to gain access to Microsoft Copilot as part of a six-month trial of the generative AI assistant.
As many as 51 entities have already signed up to the trial, which will run for the next six months across the Australian Public Service at a cost of $1.2 million, with more agencies expected to join in the coming weeks.
Copilot is an AI-powered assistant built by Microsoft that is capable of automating tasks and creating content within its suite of productivity applications, such as Word, Excel, SharePoint, Outlook and Teams.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the trial in November to help public servants test “new ways to innovate and enhance productivity”, making the government one of the first in the world to deploy the tool.
The six-month trial officially began earlier this month, with licences to deploy Copilot provided to participating agencies by the Digital Transformation Agency, which is coordinating the trial, on January 1.
But it remains unclear if any of the agencies have undergone onboarding and training with Microsoft, a component of the $1.2 million deal, or whether public servants at those agencies have begun using Copilot.
Lisa Jansen, the DTA’s acting general manager of strategy, planning, and performance, told InnovationAus.com that while the agency had provided advice to inform a staged rollout of Copilot, the exact timing was up to each individual participating agency.
“All licences have been provided to agencies participating in the trial, with advice to consider a staged rollout of Copilot for Microsoft 365 internally based on their own security and technical readiness requirements,” she said.
Additional federal government agencies will be able to join the pilot until February 1, Ms Jansen said, and there is “no cap on the number of participants for the trial” beyond the $1.2 million cost of the trial.
For the trial, the DTA negotiated discounts through the whole-of-government Microsoft arrangement, reducing the cost of Copilot. The assistant would ordinarily cost enterprises US$30 per user per month.
“The trial will serve as a proof of concept, providing the opportunity to learn and further develop policies that enable the safe, ethical, and responsible use of various generative AI technologies across the APS,” Ms Jansen added.
The DTA, one of the agencies to sign up to the pilot, has also developed guardrails for the trial based on interim guidance on generative AI released last year, in conjunction with the AI in Government Taskforce.
It comes just weeks after an audit found more than half of federal government agencies that adopted AI tools before July had done so without creating policies to govern its use of the technology.
Answers to question on notice from recent Budget Estimates hearings also reveal that agencies, including the Department of Home Affairs, Attorney-General’s Department and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water have embraced OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool.
An update of the interim guidance on generative AI was also published in November to take into account the increasing integration of generative AI into productivity tools, though the revision was not specific to the Copilot trial, according to Ms Jansen.
Changes include closer alignment with the eight AI Ethics Principles developed by the data arm of national science agency CSIRO in 2019, and the removal of a principle asking agencies to conduct an initial high-risk assessment.
Industry and Science minister Ed Husic will on Wednesday release a long-awaited interim report on AI regulation that proposes legislation to govern but not ban the use of AI in high-risk settings, such as autonomous vehicles and healthcare.
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