In recent years, the surge in AI technologies, particularly generative AI, has opened up new vistas for organisations looking to enhance productivity, innovation, and overall efficiency. One notable example is Microsoft 365 Copilot, a generative AI assistant designed to augment human capabilities and streamline various business processes.
In this blog, we’ll be exploring the practical applications of Microsoft 365 Copilot and how AI can fundamentally transform parts of your business.
What is the role of AI in business?
The concept of AI was first discussed in the 1950s – but the capabilities have evolved significantly since then. In recent times, AI’s primary function was to automate well-defined and repetitive tasks through robotic process automation (RPA). of AI enabled organisations to save time and reduce operational costs by replacing manual processes with automated ones. However, with the advent of generative AI and large language models, the landscape of AI applications has expanded dramatically.
Powered by new Large Language Models like those developed by OpenAI, generative AI can understand and generate human-like language, audio, video and images, making it a versatile tool for various business applications. Unlike RPA, which focuses on clearly defined task automation, generative AI can assist humans more flexibly in their day-to-day work, enhancing productivity, creativity, and overall efficiency. It can also power autonomous agents to perform processes independently, in an intelligent and adaptive way.
Putting AI to use with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a prime example of how generative AI can be leveraged to augment human capabilities in the workplace. As a collaborative assistant, Copilot is designed to help users with tasks such as drafting documents, summarising meetings, generating content, and more. Its primary goal is to free up time for employees to focus on more valuable and creative tasks as well as to enable them to perform tasks that they previously did not have the skill or experience to perform.
As well as supporting every business user, Copilot can now also support every business process: Through the use of Copilot Agents, the AI capabilities of Copilot can be leveraged autonomously with Agents performing tasks either at the request of a human or triggered by some other system event.
Agentic AI will be the next wave of capability and value that we will see benefitting out organisations.
Enhance productivity
One of the most significant benefits of Copilot is its ability to enhance productivity. For instance, when returning from a holiday, employees no longer need to sift through a backlog of emails. Instead, they can ask Copilot to summarise the most important messages, enabling them to prioritise tasks effectively. Similarly, Copilot can summarise lengthy documents, saving valuable time and allowing employees to focus on higher-priority activities.
Let creativity run free
Copilot also plays a crucial role in fostering creativity within the workplace. Whether drafting a blog post or creating a proposal, the blank page syndrome can be a significant hurdle.
Copilot helps overcome this by generating initial drafts based on provided prompts. This allows users to build on the AI-generated content, refining and personalising it to suit their needs. The result is a more efficient and streamlined creative process.
Upskill your employees
Another advantage of Copilot is its potential to upskill employees. By assisting with tasks that may be outside their usual expertise, Copilot enables users to develop new skills and capabilities. For example, creating a custom privacy policy for a website might typically require legal expertise. However, with Copilot’s assistance, users can generate a tailored policy quickly and efficiently, ready for approval from the legal team.
Getting started with Copilot
For businesses looking to implement Copilot, several prerequisites must be considered. Firstly, a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence is required, which is an add-on to any base Microsoft 365 licence. Additionally, user data, documents, and emails must be stored in the cloud, as Copilot relies on cloud-based data to function effectively.
Another way for organisations to get started with Copilot is to use the new Copilot Chat application for all users, and to focus their Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses on those users who will get most initial benefit. Free to use for any user with a Microsoft 365 license, Copilot Chat provides simple access to gen AI capabilities whilst protecting your enterprise data.
Copilot Chat users can also engage with Copilot Agents on a pay-as-you-go basis, enabling them to engage with specific automated processes, or reason over specific sets of enterprise data without the need for a full Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Data security and risk management
Before deploying Copilot, it’s essential to assess the data sharing risk within your organisation. Although Copilot does not inherently change data security risks, it can potentially surface overly shared sensitive documents. Therefore, conducting an audit of data and document sharing practices is advisable. Tools like Microsoft Purview can help identify sensitive documents and mitigate sharing risks by adjusting permissions accordingly.
Adoption and change management
Successful implementation of Copilot requires careful planning and user adoption strategies. It is crucial to manage user expectations and provide adequate training on how to engage with the AI assistant.
Users need to understand the concept of prompting and how to create effective prompts to get the desired output from Copilot. Additionally, it’s essential to address concerns about AI replacing jobs. Emphasise that Copilot is designed to assist, not replace, employees to help alleviate such concerns.
Practical applications and use cases
Copilot’s versatility allows it to be used in various practical applications across different business functions. What are some of the most valuable use cases?
Summarise and catch up on meetings
Copilot can be invaluable for summarising meetings and providing catchups for latecomers. By enabling transcripts and video recordings, Copilot can generate minutes and action items from your Microsoft Teams calls, ensuring that all attendees are on the same page. This functionality is particularly useful for long meetings or workshops, where summarising key points can save significant time.
Research and content generation
Conducting research and generating content are among Copilot’s core competencies. Rather than spending hours sifting through search engine results, you can leverage Copilot to provide comprehensive and relevant information based on detailed prompts.
This approach makes it quicker to get a working draft ready, allowing you to focus on refining and finalising the content. Search engines are optimised for time to results, generating thousands of results very quickly. Gen AI assistants like Copilot are optimised for time to output, taking longer to reason over the results that they find, but producing an output which is close to the finished product.
Email and document management
Managing large volumes of emails and documents can be overwhelming. Copilot aids in this by summarising emails, identifying priority messages, and extracting key information from documents. This capability ensures that employees can stay organised and focused on critical tasks without being bogged down by administrative work.
Legal documentation
Legal teams can benefit significantly from Copilot’s ability to analyse, draft, and compare legal documents. By automating routine tasks such as contract summarisation and rewording, Copilot allows legal professionals to focus on more strategic and value-added activities. Of course, it’s always important to ensure Copilot’s output is accurate.
Building a business case for Microsoft 365 Copilot
When considering the implementation of Copilot, you need to build a robust business case that demonstrates its value to the organisation. Instead of investing heavily upfront, a phased approach is recommended. Start with a small investment, allowing users to experiment with Copilot and measure its impact on productivity and efficiency.
Value experimentation
The concept of value experimentation involves giving users the freedom to explore Copilot’s capabilities and identify areas where it can add the most value. By staying close to users and gathering feedback through surveys, anecdotes, and time-motion studies, organisations can develop a clear understanding of Copilot’s benefits. This iterative approach allows for scaling the investment based on tangible results and user experiences.
Transforming ways of working with Copilot
The transformative potential of AI, particularly generative AI, is immense. Microsoft 365 Copilot exemplifies how AI can augment human capabilities, enhancing productivity, creativity, and overall efficiency. By understanding the practical applications of Copilot and implementing it strategically, businesses can unlock significant value and drive meaningful change.
Microsoft recently commissioned research by Forrester to measure the commercial impact of Copilot so far. The highlights are:
- 4% increase in revenue over three years
- 45% increase in net margin due to reduced costs
- 12% reduction in employee churn
- 30% reduction in new hire on-boarding time
- 457% ROI
Whilst you may want to take some of these numbers with a pinch of salt, it is undeniable that many organisations are gaining great benefit from using tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat. What matters to you is how you and your organisation can leverage this capability to maximum benefit for you.
Agentic AI
The capabilities of Copilot can be extended through the low-code development environment or Copilot Studio. One of the most compelling new features of Copilot Studio is its ability to empower users to create intelligent agents that can operate autonomously. By using Copilot Studio, users can design and deploy AI agents tailored to their specific business needs. These agents can handle a wide range of tasks, from customer service inquiries to data analysis, and even complex decision-making processes.
Leveraging the autonomous power of these agents can drive substantial business value. They can work tirelessly around the clock, ensuring that critical tasks are completed efficiently and accurately. This not only frees up valuable human resources to focus on more strategic activities but also enhances overall operational efficiency and accuracy of output. By integrating these autonomous agents into your workflows, you can significantly improve productivity, reduce costs, and ultimately achieve a higher return on investment.
As the AI landscape continues to evolve, it’s crucial that you stay informed about the latest developments and best practices. Engaging with AI experts and leveraging resources like Copilot can help you navigate this dynamic landscape and harness the full potential of AI technologies.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a powerful tool that can revolutionise various aspects of your business. By embracing AI and fostering a culture of innovation, you can stay ahead of the curve and achieve sustained success in an increasingly competitive world.
