Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) represent a new technology that can shape the radio wave propagation and thus offers a great variety of possible performance and implementation gains. Motivated by this, we investigate the achievable sum-rate optimization in a broadcast channel (BC) that is equipped with an RIS. We exploit the well-known duality between the Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) BC and multiple-access channel (MAC) to derive an alternating optimization (AO) algorithm which optimizes the users' covariance matrices and the RIS phase shifts in the dual MAC. The optimal users' covariance matrices are obtained by a dual decomposition method in which each iteration is solved in closed-form. The optimal RIS phase shifts are also computed using a derived closed-form expression. Furthermore, we present a computational complexity analysis for the proposed AO algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed AO algorithm can provide significant achievable sum-rate gains in a BC.