Alice Crow , Pittsburgh's Public Source; ‘Five years in AI is an eternity’: Inside Pittsburgh’s work to govern a technology moving too fast to predict
"The city decided to work with it, creating standards for generative AI usage. The early policy, which became public in 2024 through a series of Public Source articles, was largely restrictive, designed to curb risky behavior like putting private resident data into commercial AI tools.
Pittsburgh updated its policy in 2025, designating Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat as its recommended tool for city employees, meaning data entered into Copilot stays within the city’s Microsoft system and isn’t used to train AI models, according to the policy.
City employees are also being told which AI tools to use, what information to keep out of them and when to disclose that they’ve used the tech.
Today, as officials set those guardrails, they’re also leaving room for experimentation, asking how AI could improve city work."
