Whakarongorau uses Copilot Studio for faster, more connected telehealth care

A person texting New Zealand’s free mental health line, 1737, or using webchat to access Women’s Refuge may have spent years working up the courage to reach out for support. 

At-risk contacts – people seeking support who are at risk of harming themselves or others – have nearly doubled in five years. Mental health contacts now take 50 per cent longer on average. And when someone is waiting in a queue while they’re in distress, that wait matters. It can lead to the interaction ending before it truly begins.

“We know that in the first moments that someone reaches out to us, that might be the most important contact that they make that day, that week, that month or in their life,” says Anna Campbell, Chief Support Services Officer at Whakarongorau Aotearoa, the organisation that runs the services. 

“We tell kaimahi [staff] to just focus on that call that’s in front of them, but we know they always feel the burden of thinking: what if it’s the person after this that I don’t get to, and that person was the one who really needed my help?”

Now, AI is helping to ensure more people receive the support they need while they wait to connect to human care. Those texting the 1737 SMS service or connecting via webchat to Women’s Refuge are greeted by AI service ‘Welcome’, an agent that gathers important details and context and holds them on the line while they wait to connect with a counsellor. When the counsellor answers, the context is there. They can focus on care from the first moment.

It is part of a broader program of AI adoption across Whakarongorau, which delivers free, 24/7 national telehealth services. In fact, Campbell’s team oversees technology, data, people services and Māori services development across more than 30 lines, including Healthline, the 1737 line, Quitline, and family violence and sexual harm lines.

AI does the groundwork so clinicians can focus on care

Last year, the organisation supported more than 700,000 people with over 1.1 million contacts. Around 15,000 contacts a year come through the family violence services, and 60 per cent of the 30,000 people who used the 1737 Need to Talk? service made contact via SMS. 

Campbell’s team first prioritised the service lines under the greatest strain – mental health and family violence helplines – and asked frontline staff where time was being lost and where experience could be improved. “We have a principle that is: we don’t do anything to you; we do with you,” she says. “We went with a pull model.”

Shannon Turner, who works across customer experience, equity and cultural safety as Customer Experience Specialist and Cultural Lead (Pou Tikanga) at Whakarongorau, helped shape the guardrails. Te Korowai – a framework grounded in Te Ao Māori values – guided the process, with foundations in manaakitanga (upholding the dignity and wellbeing of those we serve) and whanaungatanga (the practice of building strong relationships through connection, trust and belonging).

“Te Ao Māori and the framework of Te Korowai shaped the way we introduced Welcome by giving us the time to pause, reflect in every step and not be in a rush to deliver it,” says Turner.

The boundaries were clear from the outset. People would always know whether they were interacting with AI or a human, and AI does not diagnose, counsel, treat or provide clinical advice. Confidentiality, privacy and auditability were non-negotiable, and the design process drew on advice from external parties like Changing Minds, a lived-experience advocacy organisation.

Compounding successes with multiple AI solutions

With guardrails in place, several AI tools are now in use. Tristan Coombes, Innovation Lead at Whakarongorau, built an agent in Microsoft Copilot Studio to help staff search across hundreds of clinical, non-clinical and technical policies – a task they had previously found slow and frustrating. Roughly 30 per cent of the organisation now uses it.

Microsoft 365 Copilot has also been adopted across support teams, with 97 per cent of licensed users now using it daily. “I’ve had people threaten to leave if I take that licence off them,” says Campbell.

As a result, back-office tasks that once took a week now take an hour, and staff have set up channels to share prompts and tips. On the frontline, Copilot automatically summarises the notes frontline teams take during each contact.

Then there’s the Welcome agent (built on Microsoft Azure), which will be used in the Women’s Refuge webchat and in the 1737 SMS service. “I think of crickets; the sound of crickets,” says Turner. “Welcome removes that silence – people know they’ve arrived, and they feel seen and heard.”

“Welcome is not there to replace our incredible people,” adds Campbell. “It’s there to hold the people who need that until they can speak with one of our people. And when our people do speak to them, they already know them a little bit.”

Coombes is now working on voice integration for Welcome, extending it beyond text-based channels, continuing the organisation’s relentless drive to support as many people as possible. 

“We’re a social enterprise. We’re small and mighty,” says Campbell. “The more people that we can support when they reach out in that moment of absolute vulnerability and need, the more we’re living our purpose every day.”

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Watch the complete sit‑down interview here to dive into the full conversation and explore the key points in greater detail.