United KingdomPublic sector2024 – ongoingNational Zakat Foundation
Copilot Studio chatbot and application review agents for aid grants
UK zakat charity cuts aid disbursement wait times by 80% with AI review agents
Problem
Grants took four to five months to decide and pay out, and backlogs grew in busy periods. Staff spent hours checking ID cards and bank statements by hand.
Approach
The charity built web application forms on Power Platform and a Copilot Studio chatbot named Zaki for donors. Agents score each applicant's vulnerability, move urgent cases up the queue and check uploaded documents. They either decide eligibility or flag the case for a person.
Results
Takeaway
The charity gets about 10,000 aid applications in an average month. It now aims for reviews of three days, or as little as four hours.
Categories
- Industry
- Public sector
- Business function
- Production and qualityCustomer service
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- AI agentsConversational and voice AI
- Adoption
- Vendor solution
- Evidence
- Vendor's case study
Sources
Source summaries
Microsoft describes how the UK charity used Copilot Studio and Power Platform to speed up grant decisions. It reports an 80% cut in disbursement wait times.
Full details are in the original sources.
