Innovation Hub – 2025 retrospective

20 January 2026

Digital services launched the Innovation Hub a year ago, making it easier for everyone to suggest new ways we could use technology to improve existing processes, or give us the opportunity to do things we previously couldn’t!

It's been a busy 12 months in the Innovation Hub, and we’ve had some brilliant successes:

M365 Copilot: We launched the licenced version of Copilot in early 2025 and saw some amazing feedback around increased productivity and time saved.
Copilot Chat: Thanks to the success of M365 Copilot, we deployed Copilot Chat to the whole organisation. Even though Copilot Chat isn’t integrated within MS Office, the feedback around increased efficiency has been fantastic.
Simply Translate: The introduction of this online AI translation tool has seen a significant decrease in translation costs, as well as providing a much quicker service, which has been incredibly beneficial for residents whose native language isn’t English.
Windows Hello: This feature has enabled faster login with the introduction of PINs, fingerprints and facial recognition.
Microsoft Translator: We’ve made the app available on all corporate smartphones which allows for real-time translation, providing a more inclusive and efficient service to residents whose native language isn’t English.
Org Explorer: Enabling Org Explorer in Teams has made it much quicker to get an up to date overview of the organisation structure.

We're also actively working on a number of other new solutions including a transcription app which we've developed in-house. It's called Recap, and it's designed to record your in-person meetings and then transcribe them into document templates. We're really excited about Recap and we'll be telling you more about it when we launch it next month.

If you have any innovation ideas, please let us know about them – we’d love to hear from you!