What challenges did Dunaway face before AI implementation?

Engineers were spending over 10,000 hours annually manually searching and interpreting regulations. Frequent code changes and multiple jurisdiction-specific manuals created compliance risk and delays. Dunaway lacked a single, current source of truth for city-specific regulatory guidance.

What was the impact of the AI solution?

Manual research time was reduced by 90% or more. Accuracy and compliance improved by reducing references to outdated or incorrect codes. Engineers can answer client questions more quickly, including during meetings. The process shortened internal review cycles and freed engineers to spend more time on design work.

Source

Microsoft

Dunaway automates regulatory document review with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Power Platform

Use case typeWorkflow automationUpdated Jun 13, 2026

Dunaway, a Texas-based multi-discipline design, planning, and engineering firm, needed to reduce the time engineers spent manually searching and interpreting city, county, and state regulatory documents across more than 50 Texas cities. The company implemented an AI agent using Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Power Platform components to provide city-specific answers from current regulatory documents with citations and escalation to subject matter experts. Power Automate was used to weekly collect and update documents from an Excel manifest, store them in SharePoint, and organize them in Dataverse for the Copilot Studio agent.

Organization: Dunaway
Industry: Professional Services
Location: United States
Published: May 2025

Reported outcomes

−90%

timeTime & speed

Strategic outcomes

Risk & complianceImproved regulatory accuracy and complianceCustomer experience & trustFaster client question responsesSpeed & agilityShortened internal review cyclesNew product / capabilityBuilt city-specific regulatory Q&A agent

Catalog median for time & speed deployments: −60% across 727 reported metrics. Compare benchmarks →

Primary read

Use case focus

Showing 3 of 4

1Document processing and review
2Compliance automation
3Knowledge management

Engineers were spending over 10,000 hours annually manually searching and interpreting regulations.
Frequent code changes and multiple jurisdiction-specific manuals created compliance risk and delays.
Dunaway lacked a single, current source of truth for city-specific regulatory guidance.

Dunaway built a Copilot Studio agent customized to answer natural-language questions with direct citations to source documents.
Power Automate cloud flows scrape and collect updated regulatory documents weekly from static and dynamic sources.
Documents are stored in SharePoint and organized in Dataverse so the agent can maintain city-specific knowledge separation and avoid knowledge bleeding between jurisdictions.
The solution includes escalation for subject matter expert review and supports faster internal QA/QC.

Technologies

Microsoft Copilot Studio Microsoft Power Automate Microsoft Power Platform SharePoint Dataverse

Manual research time was reduced by 90% or more.
Accuracy and compliance improved by reducing references to outdated or incorrect codes.
Engineers can answer client questions more quickly, including during meetings.
The process shortened internal review cycles and freed engineers to spend more time on design work.

Architecture

An Excel manifest drives weekly Power Automate flows that collect regulatory documents from static and dynamic sources, store them in SharePoint, and load them into Dataverse. Microsoft Copilot Studio then uses the structured content as the knowledge source to answer questions with citations and escalation to subject matter experts, while keeping city-specific information separated.

Sources & evidence1

Groundedness: 5/5

Primary source

AI-generated summary. Verify important details with the linked sources before relying on this case.

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Customer evidence