City of Tampere

Quick facts

• The city of Tampere and its surrounding municipalities employ approximately 18,000 people, of which over 800 currently use the M365 Copilot AI tool.
• The city of Tampere is a bold pioneer and trying new things is in its DNA. Artificial intelligence has been utilized for years, for example in economic forecasting.
• The aim of implementing the Microsoft 365 Copilot tool was to increase efficiency and improve the overall quality of work.
• One of the factors behind the success of the implementation project was the utilization of learning circles and the management’s strong commitment to change.

Picture: Marko Kallio / Skyfox

The Tampere region, i.e. the City of Tampere and its surrounding municipalities, has approximately 400,000 inhabitants, who are served by regional personnel and municipal companies in various needs. The introduction of the Microsoft 365 Copilot tool was aimed at increasing efficiency and improving the overall quality of work.

They jumped on the AI train quickly, as trying new things is characteristic of the City of Tampere.

“A lot of bold decisions are being made in Tampere. If you think about trams and tunnel projects, and now artificial intelligence, you could say that trying new things is in our DNA,”

Kimmo Kouhi, IT Manager at the City of Tampere, describes.

“In fact, we have been using artificial intelligence for years, for example, in financial forecasting, security purposes and in the Tampere pulse -application. As soon as Microsoft 365 Copilot got Finnish language support, we started piloting it with great enthusiasm.”

As a tool, Copilot was a clear choice, as the Tampere region has been an M365 user for a long time and therefore its implementation was effortless.

“It was very easy to get involved in this. This is more about changing working methods than technical things, and learning new things is always interesting,” says M365 Coordinator Sanna-Kaisa Salonniemi. “One of the starting points for the use of artificial intelligence is that the data must be in order. Cleaning up files and file shares that have become unnecessary is a continuous job.”

Getting to know Copilot brings out the benefits

Artificial intelligence can be used in knowledge work in many ways. In the Tampere region, M365 Copilot has been used, among other things, for producing and condensing texts, compiling meeting memos, writing emails, translations, preparing presentations and generally enhancing communication.

“In the training, users asked for a lot of user tips and they went through them together. One concrete example is preparing for meetings with M365 Copilot chat. If you were not present at the previous meeting, Copilot will update you up to date,” describes Application Specialist Karoliina Falck.

It is worth taking the time to familiarize yourself with it. When registering for the Tampere pilot, it was recommended that in the early stages, it would be good to reserve about four hours a week for participating in M365 Copilot training and, for example, practicing prompts.

“When you adopt this new way of working, it’s really easy to give up. We have emphasized that when you dedicate enough time to this, then concrete benefits will start to appear,”

Kouhi points out.

Deployment committed the staff

About 260 employees were involved in the M365 Copilot pilot, which started in May last year. There was a really diverse representation from different service areas and units.

“It has been great to see how committed our management has been to this project,” Kouhi says. “At one senior management event, we asked how many had already used M365 Copilot and about 80% of the participants raised their hands.”

“After the pilot phase, which ended in October 2024, we conducted an extensive user survey, based on which we were able to make profitability calculations. In the survey of over 100 respondents, satisfaction was top-notch, with only one respondent not wanting to continue using M365 Copilot,” Salonniemi says.

After the pilot, the M365 Copilot deployment became a continuous service, and more licenses have already been acquired.

Learning circles as drivers of orientation

One of the factors that made the implementation project successful was the utilisation of the learning circles. In the induction method, commonly called the Champions model, the idea is to gather a group of the most enthusiastic and active users into a group that takes what they have learned to the entire organization.

In the Tampere region project, about 20 people signed up for the learning circle.

“This was a very useful thing for us. In the learning circle, M365 Copilot was used together and experiences were shared. Along the way, the operations were also tailored to suit the current issues and challenges,” says Development Specialist Riikka Lindsten. “This was a high priority, especially in the pilot phase, and we made sure that everyone had enough time reserved. The learning circle model will continue in the future.”

Utilizing AI agents as the next development target

As a spin-off of the actual M365 Copilot pilot project, the regionally open learning circle launched by the City of Tampere gathered more than 130 participants who, together with Sulava’s consultants, have designed AI agents in the Copilot Studio environment.

Copilot Studio is a graphical, low-code tool for citizen developers that enables organizations to create rich AI-powered agents that assist and automate tasks.

Innovation workshops and learning circles related to the design of agents sought new uses for Copilot in the Tampere region organization. The events attracted a good number of participants.

“We are still in the very early stages of this, and the learning circles are researching and finding out what Copilot Studio enables us,” Kouhi says.

You always dare to ask Sulava

According to the M365 Copilot project team in the Tampere region, working with Sulava has been very effective.

“It has been easy to cooperate with Sulavat all the time, and I have always been able to ask them for help with a very low threshold. It has never felt like no one would dare to ask them for help,”

Falck says.

The joint Teams group and training in the learning circles were highly appreciated.

“In the Teams group, we were able to share both good and bad experiences, which was considered good. The activities of this team are still ongoing. Clearly, Sulava’s consultants have so much experience in these kinds of projects that the cooperation can be described as very effortless,” Salonniemi continues.

Sulava’s role in the learning circle was also strong.

“The cooperation with the learning circle was excellent and professional. Sulava handled the training smoothly and received great support so that you could just be involved in bringing your views and thoughts. Our needs were taken into account all the time, and the whole was flexibly and professionally modified along the way,” Lindsten describes.

Author: Juhani Lassila
Published in May 2025