For each of the following questions, indicate either yes, no or N/A, and explain your answer.
10.1 Incorporating diversity
Are you satisfied that you have incorporated diversity and people with appropriately diverse skills, experience and backgrounds throughout the lifecycle of your AI use case?
Consider how you have incorporated diversity of perspective through the lifecycle of your AI use case – for example, through the choice of data, composition of development and deployment teams and the stakeholder and user groups to choose to consult.
10.2 Human rights obligations
Have you consulted an appropriate source of legal advice or otherwise ensured that your AI use case and the use of data align with human rights obligations?
It is recommended you complete this question after completing previous sections of the assessment. This approach will enable a more considered assessment of the human rights implications of your AI use case.
11. Internal review and next steps
11.1 Legal review of AI use case
This section must be completed by a qualified legal adviser. Ensure any supporting legal advice is available for the remaining review steps. Repeat this step if there are significant changes.
The response to this section should include:
- the statement ‘I am/am not satisfied that the AI use case and the use of data meet legal requirements’
- comments (optional)
- name and position of legal adviser
- date.
11.2 Risk summary table
In the table below, list any risks identified in section 3 (the threshold assessment) or subsequently as having a risk severity of ‘medium’ or ‘high’. Also list any instances where you have answered ‘no’ in any of the questions in sections 4 to 10.
As you proceed through internal review (section 11.3) and, if applicable, external review (section 11.4), list any agreed risk treatments and assess residual risk using the risk matrix in section 3.
| Risk summary table | ||
| Risk | Risk treatments | Residual risk |
| [Example] | [Example] | [Example] |
11.3 Internal review of AI use case
An internal agency governance body designated by your agency’s Accountable Authority must review the assessment and the risks outlined in the risk summary table.
The governance body may decide to accept any ‘medium’ risks, to recommend risk treatments, or decide not to accept the risk and recommend not proceeding with the AI use case.
List recommendations of your agency governance body below.
11.4 External review of AI use case
If, following internal review (section 11.3), there are any residual risks with a ‘high’ risk rating, consider whether the AI use case and this assessment would benefit from external review.
If an external review recommends further risk treatments or adjustments to the use case, your agency must consider these recommendations, decide which to implement, and whether to accept any residual risk and proceed with the use case.
If applicable, list any recommendations arising from external review below and record the agency response to these recommendations.
The assessment should answer the following questions about the external review.
- Has your AI use case been subject to external review? Answer yes, no or not applicable.
- Who conducted the external review?
- What date was an external review last completed?
- What are the external review recommendations?
- For each recommendation, what is the agency response?
The majority of trial participants are positive about Copilot
Most trial participants are optimistic about Copilot and wish to continue using Copilot.
Trial participants had high expectations prior to the start of the trial. As shown in Figure 1, the majority of survey respondents (77%) who completed both the pre-use and post-use survey reported an optimistic opinion of Copilot. This indicates the initial high level of optimism held by trial participants have been largely met.
Trial participants, regardless of job family, ubiquitously praised Copilot for automating time-consuming menial tasks such as searching for information, composing emails or summarising long documents. In addition, trial participants also acknowledged it was a safer alternative than accessing other forms of AI.
The positive sentiment was not uniformly observed across all MS products or activities
There were mixed opinions on the usefulness and performance of Copilot across Microsoft applications.
While the majority of pulse survey respondents were positive about Copilot’s functionality in Word and Teams, capabilities in other Microsoft products were viewed less favourably, in particular Excel. As shown in Figure 7, Excel had the largest proportion of negative sentiment with almost a third of respondents reporting that it did not meet their expectations.
Data table for figure 1
Pre-use and post-use survey responses to 'Which of the following best describes your sentiment about using Microsoft 365 Copilot?' by respondents who completed both (n=330).
| Sentiment | Pre-use sentiment | Post-use sentiment |
|---|---|---|
| Very pessimistic | 1% | 1% |
| Slightly pessimistic | 8% | 7% |
| Neutral | 15% | 14% |
| Slightly optimistic | 42% | 42% |
| Very optimistic | 34% | 37% |
Totals may amount to less or more than 100% due to rounding.
OffThe positive sentiment was even greater when post-use survey respondents were asked if they wish to continue using Copilot after the trial. As shown in Figure 2, 86% agreed or strongly agreed that they want to keep using Copilot, with only 5% disagreeing, highlighting an overwhelming desire for survey respondents to continue using Copilot.
Survey respondents indicated their desire to continue using Copilot was due to its impact on productivity, praising its ability to summarise meetings and information, create a first draft of documents and support information searches. Trial participants who had a negative sentiment towards Copilot viewed that Copilot was a ‘time drain’ as additional effort was required to prepare the data (for prompting) and edit any outputs considered inaccurate or irrelevant.
The majority of trial participants across all job families and classifications are positive about Copilot.
Across all job classifications and job families, the majority of trial participants want to continue to use Copilot. The overwhelming desire to continue using Copilot was also apparent in other agency evaluations: 96% of Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) trial participants wanted to continue using the tool when asked in a mid-trial survey (Department of Industry, Science and Resources 2024).
As shown in Figure 4, SES had the highest proportion of trial participants (93%) wanting to continue to use Copilot. Note, due to the smaller sample size of SES respondents, there is greater uncertainty associated with this estimate and a margin of error at a 95% confidence level greater than 0.05.
Data table for figure 2
Off
Post-use survey responses to 'What extent do you agree with the following statement: I want to continue to use Microsoft 365 Copilot after the trial' (n=827).
| Sentiment | Response (%) |
|---|---|
| Strongly disagree | 1% |
| Disagree | 4% |
| Neutral | 9% |
| Agree | 40% |
| Strongly agree | 46% |