Williams transforms frontline work with Copilot, gaining 90% adoption

Energy companies are under growing pressure to meet rising demand, modernize operations, and get more value from workforces. As leaders look to improve productivity and safety, many are rethinking frontline work. Thousands of documents stand between frontline workers and the hands-on part of their jobs. Whether it’s pulling permits, finding maintenance manuals, or manually filling out forms, hours or days spent in the office could be devoted to inspections and repairs.

Bringing AI to the frontline first

With most of its workforce in the field, Williams recognized an opportunity to lead with empowerment. The Tulsa, Oklahoma–based natural gas company, which employs 6,000-plus employees, deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot directly to frontline employees. This effort was designed to enhance productivity, simplify daily work, and equip teams with AI as a core capability, helping to simplify processes.

Along with providing Copilot access, Williams enabled employee-led workflow creation, allowing individuals to develop agents based on their own needs, and then connected them through an orchestrator, making all capabilities available to everyone. “We have a team dedicated to Copilot that helped us with the initial training, and they’re available if we need them,” says Andy Williams, Operations Supervisor, Williams. “But as far as the instructions and knowledge bases, we’re doing that in the field.”

Accelerating operations with Copilot

Copilot now supports critical operations across Williams. It helps generate plans, interpret procedures, and assess regulatory requirements, reducing manual review and accelerating execution. Copilot not only assists with troubleshooting, decision-making, and safety reporting, but it improves resolution speed, documentation quality, and compliance.

With the introduction of Copilot, AI adoption at Williams jumped from single digits to more than 90%, saving countless hours across the board. One operations tech, Andrew Allen, has reinvested that time into seeing what more he could do with Copilot. He developed an anomaly detector that uses Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork to turn routine operating data into an early warning system. Copilot Cowork pulls equipment data reports from a distribution list in Outlook and compares the data with baseline equipment stats. If anything is off, like rising thermocouple temperatures, falling oil pressure, or increasing vibration, it generates an alert. Allen can then proactively address problems before they become costly—or dangerous. “We used to go down to the turbines, take parameter readings, put our eyes on them, and make a best guess if they’re running efficiently or not. Since using Copilot, I’ve automated our anomaly detector to indicate if there are issues,” says Andrew Allen, Operations Technician Senior, Williams.