Nordre Follo Tunes Up Public Hearings with AI-Powered Tool

The Nordre Follo municipality in Norway has implemented a modernized public hearing workflow using Microsoft Copilot Studio. The municipality, which serves around 60,000 residents, partnered with Atea to develop a 'hearing agent' that streamlines the process of collecting and summarizing citizen feedback.

Before implementing the new system, caseworkers manually transferred PDF submissions into SharePoint, where they would read each document in detail, extract key themes, and compose summaries. This labor-intensive process was time-consuming, especially for large-scale hearings, which could generate up to 150 submissions.

The hearing agent uses Microsoft Copilot Studio and SharePoint to automate the summarization process. Citizens submit responses through structured web forms during a hearing period, which are then uploaded to a designated library where the agent processes each document. The agent generates summaries that extract key themes, objections, and regulatory concerns, categorizing inputs by topic, stakeholder type, and sentiment.

The municipality plans to further integrate Microsoft Copilot Studio with other tools, including Microsoft Fabric and Power BI dashboards, to increase transparency and provide real-time insights into the hearing process. Byström noted that the new system has 'given us new ideas on how we can do things,' allowing them to re-examine their processes and improve efficiency.