Kimley-Horn brings Microsoft 365 Copilot to AEC work

In transportation systems engineering, the work is rarely abstract. It shows up in a commuter’s morning, in the safety of an intersection, and in the clarity of traveler information when conditions change. Kimley-Horn is a premier planning and design consulting firm in the United States, supporting complex public and private sector infrastructure projects at scale. For Melissa Hewitt, Senior Vice President and Growth Leader at Kimley‑Horn, who has spent decades applying technology to transportation systems, the mission stays consistent: “Safety, reliability, mobility. Ultimately, it’s about access to opportunity for the public.” 

But expectations have changed. The systems that agencies rely on now must “adapt in real time. Respond to uncertainty and evolve as conditions change,” she says. And meeting that bar requires transparency: “We need to earn public trust through transparency, and technology plays a big role in how we do that today.”

Kimley-Horn brings a people-first approach to public and private sector infrastructure projects, combining multidisciplinary expertise to help make communities safer, stronger, and more connected.

In the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector, the hardest work often happens between disciplines—where engineers, planners, and project teams must align across reviews, documentation, and shared decisions. “Some of the most time-consuming work has been the coordination—tracking down assumptions, reconciling comments, and parsing data across systems,” Hewitt explains.

For Nick Otto, Chief Technology Officer at Kimley-Horn, the coordination challenge is inseparable from accountability. Engineers need to understand how conclusions are formed and be able to stand behind decisions. “The black box problem with AI is a huge one for us,” he says. “Our engineers need to know: how did it make the decisions? What was referenced? What were the sources?”

When coordination slows, projects slow with it. Reducing that coordination element helps accelerate delivery, so agencies and communities see the benefits sooner, including lower costs and faster delivery.

Augmentation, not automation

To address these coordination and transparency challenges, Kimley-Horn focused on tools that would support—not replace—engineering judgment.

“Our approach has always been about augmentation, not necessarily automation. Tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot don’t replace that engineering judgment, but they make the underlying work more visible, more traceable, more efficient.” Hewitt says.

Microsoft Teams became Kimley-Horn’s shared workspace, while Copilot added a synthesis layer—helping teams move from searching to deciding. After deployment, team members rapidly adopted transcription and meeting summaries, reducing the need for dedicated note‑takers and enabling engineers to stay focused on the work itself. Teams, Hewitt says, brought a change in how people find and trust information: “Creating that shared persistent workspace has been a game changer.”

And Copilot helped Kimley-Horn’s consultants move from searching to deciding. “Copilot has really helped teams to quickly synthesize information so we can focus on our analysis and our engineering decisions instead of retrieval,” she says. 

One surprise came quickly. After deployment, Otto saw team members rapidly adopt recording, transcription, and meeting summaries—changing how people collaborate day to day. In a consultancy environment with constant meetings, it meant teams could focus on the conversation instead of assigning a dedicated note-taker—and rely on summaries and decisions afterwards.

From scattered innovations to smarter solar design

In Kimley-Horn’s renewable energy work, the stakes are rising fast. Energy demand is projected to grow by 35–50% by 2040, and utility-scale solar is positioned to help meet that demand responsibly. For Erik Strock, civil engineer focused on utility-scale solar, AI is less about novelty and more about getting closer to the best answer—faster. On a 1,000-acre site, the core question is simple: how much power can you generate, and how efficiently can you deliver it?

That’s where faster iteration changes outcomes. Strock describes using AI-created tools to test scenarios and fine-tune site decisions: like how slopes, grading, and layout affect performance. In one example, that speed helped Kimley-Horn achieve a 50% reduction in grading while keeping the same power production—meaning less earthwork, lower cost, and a faster path to construction.

Adoption that sticks: put AI where work already happens

As Kimley-Horn expanded AI access, the company leaned into what would drive real adoption: meeting people in their workflows. “Copilot breaks down barriers to adoption. The seamlessness of the way that Copilot is integrated with our already existing workflows is like a superpower.” Strock says.

He describes using Teams transcription and Copilot to turn meeting transcripts into structured, client-ready summaries in minutes—freeing time for the work that only humans can do. 

To make adoption practical, Strock started what he calls an “AI workout”—a recurring session built on “sets and reps,” where teams practice small, repeatable Copilot tasks until they become second nature. The goal is confidence and helping engineers build fluency inside tools they already use every day.

For Strock, making AI stick isn’t just a tool challenge: it’s a people one. He points to how teams talk a lot about IQ and EQ, but the capability that matters most right now is AQ (adaptability quotient). In a profession built on proven methods and repeatable processes, the hardest part of change is letting go of “the way we’ve always done it” and staying open to better workflows as they emerge.

That’s also why he encourages teams to build comfort with uncertainty. AI introduces new possibilities, but also new questions. Instead of rushing back to the familiar, Strock encourages his teammates to stay steady long enough to learn, iterate, and come out the other side with more confidence and better work.

What becomes possible

As demand grows for what comes next—agents—Kimley-Horn is deliberate about centering on value and governance. Otto describes an approach that involves identifying the highest impact areas, then building in a secure, structured way through a vetting process before broader enablement. 

Rather than promising automation for its own sake, Kimley-Horn is focusing on empowering consultants. “What we can get from some of these tools is putting more power for citizen development within the hands of those engineers,” Otto says. “In the past it was: ‘Can we get in the queue for someone from IT?’ Now we can put those capabilities in their hands.”

That’s where Copilot becomes a turning point: not replacing engineering judgment but reducing the friction that slows decisions—so teams can walk into high-stakes conversations aligned on context and ready to move. 

The broader impacts show up where infrastructure always shows up: in shorter queues at intersections, clearer traveler information during disruptions, and the confidence agencies feel when they can explain decisions to the public.

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