Luton DDAT takes Microsoft Copilot for a spin

App to the Future is an event that offers a very hands‑on way to see what Copilot and AI agents can really do for everyday work and public services.

DDaT team at MS CoPilot event in London.

Image showing DDaT service representing Luton Council at App to the Future.

DDaT team in photo from left to right:

Ben McCartney, Head of Workplace Experience
Donna McLeod, Strategic Manager, DDAT Security Compliance and Governance
Hazel Lunn, Head of Technology & Infrastructure
Atika Mohammed, Director of Digital Data and Technology
Kevin Rowe, Head of Digital Development
Cezary Rychlicki, Senior Network Engineer
Nicola Egan, Head of Innovation, Delivery & Data
Rana Bilal, Desktop Manager

What is App To The Future?

Imagine an escape room crossed with a digital skills lab. In App to the Future, you race against the clock (15 minute deadline!) to crack clues to ‘rescue’ time‑travelling agents, using:

Microsoft 365 Copilot
Power Platform
Azure AI
Microsoft Fabric

It’s fast, hands‑on and the perfect way to test how AI can remove busy work and power better services.

See App to the Future.

A dash of friendly competition

⏱️ Team 1 took on Agent Helix – Copilot for Microsoft 365. With the timer ticking down, we crossed the line in just under 13 minutes (deadline: 15).

🚀 Team 2 tackled the Fabric Agent, took this to another gear and finished their mission in a shade over 7 minutes – the fastest ever!

🤝 For the finale we combined forces for Agent Abacus (using Azure) — two teams, one mission, and a very satisfying ‘mission accomplished’.

What we learned — and how we’ll use it in Luton

Draft once, refine faster

Copilot can create solid first drafts for resident letters, service updates and committee papers, so officers spend time improving the message instead of starting from scratch.

Meeting memory that actually helps

Use Copilot to summarize Teams meetings, pull out actions by owner and due date, and drop them straight into Planner — so follow‑up is automatic, not ad‑hoc.

Case prep with less admin

Bring key points together from emails and documents so practitioners can prepare quicker and spend more time with people.

Everyday automation

Low/no‑code flows to remove re‑keying between systems (think: service request triage, reminders, status updates), with approvals and audit trails baked in.

Data that tells a story

Use Fabric/Power BI to spot trends (missed appointments, seasonal demand, repeat queries) and feed those insights back into service design.

Clearer, more inclusive comms

Plain‑English drafts, translation support and consistent templates help residents get answers first time.

How this supports better outcomes for staff and residents

More time for frontline work by cutting routine admin
Faster answers for residents through better knowledge search and document summaries
Consistent templates and guardrails that keep content accurate and accessible
Strong governance so AI assists people – not the other way around

Some golden tips we picked up on the day

Give Copilot feedback on responses — it will learn your preferences and tighten future results.
When Copilot nails it, ask: ‘what prompt would have produced this answer?’ Save that as a reusable shortcut — Jeopardy ITV show‑style, it’s all about the right question.

My Copilot experiences

From my Senior Network Engineer perspective, the win is obvious: let AI draft notes, summarize incidents and prep comms, so I can focus on the fun stuff: