As an integrated solution for Microsoft 365, Copilot should make employees more productive, efficient and creative. In Office applications like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and Teams, it can generate summaries, collate information, create to-do lists, analyse the calendar and generate graphics data making Copilot your personal assistant providing you with the information you need. Once you’ve used it, you won’t want to be without it.
Technically speaking, it’s quite easy. Businesses using Microsoft 365 can add Copilot at any time, but the decisive factor for successful integration isn’t the IT. Businesses need to ask themselves several questions including what they want to achieve with Copilot, and who they want to involve in the initial phase. Then each department needs to think about how the assistant can be used meaningfully to save time.
Once the decision has been made to roll out Copilot, existing behaviours and ways of working may need to be adjusted. This can bring about a change in mindset and be the trigger for enormous improvements.
Against the backdrop of the rapid growth of generative AI and technologies such as Copilot, it is obvious that the development will be sustainable. Businesses and organisations, which have already dipped a toe into this field, can leverage Copilot to grow and generate benefits for the company. Copilot accesses data in the Microsoft Cloud ecosystem as well as the company’s own, which is hugely advantageous. Compared to Chat GPT, Copilot isn’t only able to answer a general question, but can also respond to specific in-house requirements, using the database that companies make available to the system.
“In addition to the added value for our day-to-day work and business processes, we will be sharing our employees’ AI experiences and expertise with our customers.”
Dirk Müller-Niessner, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Bechtle AG
Is this potential the main driving force behind investment?
Against the backdrop of the rapid growth of generative AI and technologies such as Copilot, it is obvious that the development will be sustainable. Businesses and organisations, which have already dipped a toe into this field, can leverage Copilot to grow and generate benefits for the company. Copilot accesses data in the Microsoft Cloud ecosystem as well as the company’s own, which is hugely advantageous. Compared to Chat GPT, Copilot isn’t only able to answer a general question, but can also respond to specific in-house requirements, using the database that companies make available to the system.
Through user adoption and change management. Companies must focus on the users’ experiences, manage expectations and make it clear to everyone that Copilot isn’t an autopilot, but an assistant that requires human interaction and control. The planning phase needs to consider communication, training, champions programmes, community building and the discussion of use cases.
That depends on how far along in the process the organisation is. Companies already using MS 365, Exchange Online or SharePoint Online have already had their data protection questions answered. IT managers need to focus more on data security and develop a data governance strategy and compliance guidelines to ensure legal requirements aren’t breached. With Copilot integrated into all Office applications, it has access to a lot of corporate data, which means the fundamental structure and quality of the data shifts into the spotlight. The better a company's data is structured, the better an assistant can work with it.
It’s around €30 a month. That means saving just one euro a day using Copilot makes the investment worth it. Having said that, it doesn’t make sense just to deploy Copilot as each department needs to identify specific use cases. That’s the only way we can integrate this new way of working into our day-to-day business.
It’s definitely worth taking the time to inform users well beforehand. There also needs to be communication and training to fully exploit the tool’s potential. A project of this size isn’t a sure-fire success. We are constantly tweaking the different use cases and looking at the application scenarios in individual departments. A whole host of colleagues are supporting the process as opinion leaders, and the experiences we are gathering now aren’t just useful to us as we can share them with out customers, too. We recommend a 6-month trial phase.
Copilot will play a central role in the modern world of work and change our working days. Support will continue to improve and the tool will become increasingly intuitive to use. Businesses and organisations that invest in Copilot will benefit from an increase in productivity and automated processes, which in turn can lead to greater market success.
