Copilot for Flanders — Digitaal Vlaanderen's Civil-Service AI Pilot Scales Into a 10,000-Licence Government Rollout

In May 2024, Digitaal Vlaanderen (the Flemish Government's digital agency) launched a 12-week pilot of Microsoft 365 Copilot, the generative-AI assistant embedded in Word, Outlook and Teams, across nearly 20 entities of the Flemish public administration with more than 300 participating civil servants, run together with Microsoft, KPMG and Cegeka.

Test whether generative AI could speed up everyday administrative work such as drafting emails, summarising documents and preparing meeting notes.

User satisfaction was tracked over the 12-week pilot and reported to the Flemish Parliament (Question No. 62). The pilot's findings fed into a Council of Ministers-approved framework agreement with Microsoft Ireland (23 May 2025) covering up to 10,000 Copilot licences for Flemish civil servants and interested local governments.

64% of participants wanted to keep using Copilot after 12 weeks, up 20 percentage points from the first four weeks, and 57% would recommend it to a colleague. In a follow-up survey, 41% of respondents reported being more productive and 58% found tasks easier or more creative, with the clearest gains in email triage, document summarising and meeting-transcript follow-up - concentrated among administrative and support staff rather than complex analytical work. By a second parliamentary answer (Question No. 577, June 2025), every Flemish policy domain had enrolled, with 5,207 licences already active and 80% of licence-holders having completed mandatory basic training.

A full adoption evaluation is scheduled after the programme's first and second years.