The Estonian Parliament trains MPs and staff in using AI tools

The Estonian Parliament has responded proactively to the proliferation of AI-based tools in the workplace. Anticipating the transformative effect of this technology, parliament has engaged with members and staff, providing guidance and practical training for popular AI tools.

Rationale

The rationale behind this approach is that AI has already entered the office workspace, whether formally approved and regulated or not. For the Estonian Parliament, this is such a fast-moving space that, for the moment, rather than developing overarching AI governance frameworks and rules, it is opting to focus on educating users and promoting good use. As the IPU’s Guidelines for AI in parliaments make clear, having informed users is a key part of the equation for promoting the safe and effective use of trusted AI tools.

Content of the training sessions

The practical training has focused on the capabilities of, and good practices for using, common AI tools that users in parliament are likely to encounter in their work, such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity. Topics covered have included analysing data and text, compiling documents and preparing presentations, and conducting web-based research. Using practical examples, staff and members have gained knowledge and skills in prompt-writing, helping to ensure accurate, high-quality results when using AI. In this context, AI tools are promoted as “personal assistants”, with parliament emphasizing that those using the tools remain responsible for the results (the “human-in-the-loop” approach).

Five training events have been held since late 2023. One event, in November 2024, was attended by 10 MPs. An average of 60 staff members have attended the other events.

For the events held so far, the external training team brought in by parliament has comprised recognized AI experts and trainers within Estonia who could focus on the application of AI and on practical steps towards greater individual and organizational efficiency using these new tools.

AI pilot project

Alongside training on commercially available AI tools, the sessions have also served as an opportunity to promote parliament’s own AI pilot project, which features prompting tools, based on different OpenAI models, that can look into the parliamentary legislative database (EMS) and the country’s official gazette (the Riigi Teataja). Staff and members were taught how to use these tools to assist with information-gathering and analysis related to Estonian laws and legislative documents. Specifically, the tools allow users to discover details about current Estonian laws as published in the official gazette, offer information on documents processed in the legislative database, answer questions in both Estonian and English, help users find specific legislative texts or details about legal provisions, and clarify the status and content of legislative proposals and amendments.

Next steps

The Estonian Parliament believes in promoting the good use of AI tools and is now in the process of establishing internal rules and guidelines for AI in parliamentary work. In doing this, it is keen to avoid “reinventing the wheel” and will learn from other parliaments through relevant networks and opportunities for inter-parliamentary cooperation.