Discover how Microsoft 365 Copilot uses generative AI to boost workplace productivity, accuracy, and accessibility. AI is transforming routine tasks, making businesses more efficient. From automating tasks to complex data analyses, AI's role is growing, promising future advancements. This blog series explores Copilot's impact across Microsoft 365 applications. Stay tuned for more changes in your workplace!
The Evolution of AI in the Workplace
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significantly influenced its development trajectory, transforming the way we work. Its power lies in its ability to streamline processes, making technology more accessible, even for those with minimal experience. This has expanded the use of applications that were previously limited by the need for specialized technical skills. AI's integration into the workplace has reshaped routine tasks, enabling businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively. From automating simple tasks to providing complex data analyses, AI's role in the workplace is steadily increasing, with the potential for even greater advancements in the future. As part of our blog series on Microsoft Copilot and its transformative impact on utilizing generative AI, we introduce Copilot across various Microsoft 365 applications. Stay tuned as this significant change continues to make its way into your workplace!
Copilot saves time, increases efficiency and productivity with data accuracy and relevancy of information, redefines how the modern workplace functions across its routine tasks, and aligns with the organization’s security, privacy, and compliance policies set in Microsoft 365. As we explore its vast set of features, we also focus on essential aspects influencing its usage - Data security and accuracy. Read ahead to know more!
To summarize Copilot’s evolution, here’s what Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Technologies, had to say about it.
“Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing, which will fundamentally change the way we work and unlock a new wave of productivity growth.”...“With our new Copilot for work, we’re giving people more agency and making technology more accessible through the most universal interface — natural language.”
How Microsoft 365 Copilot Enhances Productivity
Copilot enhances efficiency, saves time, and boosts productivity by ensuring accurate and relevant data. It transforms routine workplace functions while adhering to Microsoft 365's security, privacy, and compliance standards.
Utilizing Large Language Models (LLM) and Microsoft Graph, Copilot facilitates natural language interaction with computing systems, streamlining workflows and allowing employees to concentrate on strategic tasks, thereby enhancing productivity.
Built on the foundation of Large Language Models (LLM), Copilot uses the advanced Copilot Engine, which processes and orchestrates user input by assessing context with Microsoft Graph—an API linking various M365 Apps, emails, chats, calendars, and their data, sending it to the LLM. The response is then contextually analyzed for security, compliance, and privacy before being delivered to the Microsoft 365 App to generate the appropriate output for the user's query.
Additionally, Copilot for Microsoft 365 includes Business Chat, an interactive natural language chatbot integrated with Microsoft Teams. Business Chat can search across diverse file types, such as presentations, spreadsheets, emails, and Word documents, providing outputs like project status by aggregating relevant information and summarizing it with links to individual items.
Copilot also features the Semantic Index, crucial for its implementation. This tool creates a conceptual map of business information and users, improving search by including advanced attributes like document format, creation time, and typical users. It stores a vast set of vectors—mathematical representations of business information features and attributes. The Semantic Index accesses only the information permitted for the user during a search based on their prompt.
Explore Copilot’s extensive features across various Microsoft 365 Apps, which transform natural language input into impressive visualizations, informative presentations, contextually relevant documents, meeting notes, action items, and more.
Copilot in Various Microsoft 365 Applications
Word: With Copilot in Microsoft Word, users can create a first draft of the document they want to make, generate improvements, edit, and rewrite text to enrich tone, tenor, and information. It can also summarize existing documents regarding existing information in the organizations. Such generative AI helps reduce the time taken for drafting documents such as proposals and the time for research and referencing, paving the way for increased efficiency and accuracy.
PowerPoint: Copilot in PowerPoint helps users create new presentations from Word documents, spreadsheets, and user guidelines. Style, alignment, speaker notes, animation, and images get automatically generated with relevance to the information. It supports the alteration of existing presentations.
Outlook: Copilot in Outlook helps you outline the key points and questions across multiple persons in an email thread. You can automatically compose individual and group responses, edit and summarize them, adjust the length and tone, and have action items flagged. These features make communication faster, more effective, and more productive in a modern workplace.
Excel: Copilot redefines the conventional way of using Excel. From automatically creating graphs and visualizations to finding data and correlations to developing and analyzing what-if scenarios and data models, users can use a natural language prompt to leverage the extensive depth of features that Excel provides to users with in-depth technical knowledge.
Teams: Teams have consistently been the most widely used remote communication tool, and Copilot accentuates its vast capabilities. You can automatically organize discussion points, key actions for individual users, and queries in the chat on what you have missed, all without disturbing the flow of the meeting or even after that. Advanced features include:
- Automatic creation of meeting agendas based on the existing chat history
- Debriefing late attendees
- Scheduling follow-up meetings and identifying the right contacts, along with real-time translation in more than 100 languages
In addition, Copilot has also been introduced for Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM, making way for driving generative AI into enterprise management.
Key Features of Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot offers a variety of features aimed at improving user experience. A standout feature is Business Chat, an interactive chatbot using natural language, integrated with Microsoft Teams. It can search through diverse file types like presentations, spreadsheets, emails, and Word documents to deliver necessary outputs, such as project status updates. Another key feature is the Semantic Index, which constructs a conceptual map of business information and users. This improves search capabilities by incorporating relevant terms and advanced attributes, thereby enhancing the search experience and making information retrieval more efficient. As a smart digital assistant, M365 Copilot can compose emails, take meeting notes, create press releases, write code, analyze Excel data, draft enterprise policies, and produce PowerPoint presentations.
Let’s consider the complex conceptual architecture of M365 Copilot, using a common task example:
User interface: Users can give natural language commands to Microsoft productivity apps like PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and others. For example, a user can say, “Create a proposal presentation for a client.”
Prompt engineering: M365 Copilot performs prompt engineering on inputs. It improves the prompt by retrieving business content and the context of a specific client through Microsoft Graph.
Contextualization: M365 Copilot sends the modified prompt to LLM to contextualize the request for the user.
Responsible AI check: M365 Copilot retrieves the response from LLM, makes a call to Microsoft Graph, performs a responsible AI check, conducts a security/privacy review and generates a command. In this case, to generate a PowerPoint presentation in the form of a proposal.
Output: M365 Copilot sends a summarized response to the user and gives commands to PowerPoint to generate a presentation based on the user’s content and client-specific context through Microsoft Graph.
Potential use cases of Microsoft 365 Copilot
Here are some key use cases from workplaces and customer experience management:
Productivity: M365 Copilot can significantly enhance the productivity of frontline workers, knowledge workers and contractors. Copilot for Viva Sales will streamline the sales process by providing deal summaries, drafting contextual emails and granting control over writing style and length. Integration of M365 Copilot with Dynamics 365 will enable automated updates in the CRM system, allowing sales teams to invest more time in core activities.
Superior experience: M365 Copilot has the potential to revolutionize the meeting experience in the hybrid work model, promoting efficient decision-making and seamless collaboration. It summarizes missed team meetings, clarifies questions and crafts follow-up agendas based on chat history. The tool strategically highlights essential meeting content, actions, owners and client references, allowing participants to stay up to date.
Innovation: M365 Copilot democratizes low-code development by enabling individuals with any coding skill level to build applications, chatbots and complex workflows in Power Automate. Users can drive rapid innovation by swiftly creating, enhancing and automating routine tasks with the help of natural language descriptions. By reducing reliance on traditional coding, M365 Copilot accelerates the delivery of customized solutions, fosters agility and makes application development flexible.
Knowledge management: If integrated with a knowledge management system, M365 Copilot can answer frequently asked questions regarding employee benefits and leave policies in natural language without having to browse through multiple articles.
Personal coaching: Copilot in Microsoft Viva gathers upskilling requirements for assigned roles, creates customized learning plans and blocks calendars. It can help leaders streamline learning for their teams. Viva Topics provides employees with a conversational user interface to explore different topics.
Security, Privacy, and Compliance in Microsoft 365 Copilot
As organizations increasingly rely on AI-driven tools like Copilot, ensuring data security, privacy, and compliance becomes paramount. Copilot processes and analyzes user inputs for security, compliance, and privacy reviews before generating the relevant output to the user’s query.
This rigorous review process aligns with Microsoft 365's policies, ensuring that sensitive information is protected and that the organization complies with relevant regulations. By prioritizing these aspects, Microsoft 365 Copilot helps build trust and confidence among its users.
Data Security and Accuracy in Microsoft 365 Copilot
Data security is a major concern for enterprises using Copilot with Microsoft 365, as the core business data is what gets accessed.
Microsoft addresses this aspect with various features such as two-factor authentication, M365 Isolation controls, permission-based access for individual users to have at least view privileges for the data they are requesting, along with a feature to configure access only to information on the user’s tenant, and not other tenants that they are a part of (Such as with B2B guest access).
These safety measures prevent data leakage into user groups. Copilot ensures the confidentiality of individual information that is of primary importance in a workspace in a secure, compliant, and regulated manner and guarded by Microsoft’s enterprise-grade security policies. It adheres to various compliance requirements such as the European Union (EU) Data Boundary and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations).
Furthermore, in regards to data accuracy, Copilot is backed by constant innovation and best practice implementation of guardrails, content filters, and blocking of sensitive data with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service. It uses advanced Microsoft technologies such as InterpretML and Fairlearn to detect and rectify data bias. Business data is not used to train other LLMs, is integral to the specific business, and is not available to access by ChatGPT.
The Future of Generative AI in Business
The introduction of Microsoft 365 Copilot marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of workplace technology. As Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft Technologies, stated, “Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing, which will fundamentally change the way we work and unlock a new wave of productivity growth.”
The future of generative AI in business is promising, with the potential to further enhance productivity, accuracy, and accessibility. As AI technology continues to advance, businesses will increasingly leverage these tools to drive innovation, streamline operations, and achieve new levels of efficiency.
Recommendations for getting started with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Planning and assessment: Start with one of the potential use cases described above. Conduct a comprehensive assessment of current Microsoft 365 landscapes, define measurable objectives and involve all the key stakeholders.
Pilot deployment: Undertake a pilot deployment in a controlled environment to test the Microsoft 365 Copilot functionality. Evaluate it against the objectives defined in the planning and assessment phase.
Security and compliance: Work with the enterprise security team to review Microsoft 365 security settings in line with the enterprise security guidelines. Involve the security team at an early stage of the pilot deployment phase.
User training and change management: Develop a robust training plan and educate employees about the workplace experience that M365 Copilot can offer. Build a knowledge base to capture the lessons learned and keep updating it to avoid repeating issues. Establish a communication strategy to address users’ concerns/suggestions, manage resistance and drive adoption. Foster a culture of collaboration with the pilot team and encourage them to provide feedback.
Expansion: Take the deployment of M365 Copilot to a larger user group with more use cases after the knowledge base has been updated with lessons learned in pilot deployments.
While keeping an eye on the future of generative AI, FindErnest is incorporating additional products into its suite of digital workplace products that are built upon its AI-enabled Nucleus platform. We aim to elevate user experience and increase productivity in modern workplaces.
Licensing and Extensibility
Licensing for Copilot in Microsoft 365 will be available alongside Microsoft 365 Chat. Copilot in Microsoft 365 features an extensibility model that allows the integration of third-party services through plugins. Presently, there are three types of plugins available: ChatGPT plugins, Power Platform connectors, and Teams message extension plugins.
These functionalities of Copilot in Microsoft 365 contribute to time-saving, increased efficiency, and enhanced productivity by ensuring data accuracy and relevance. It revolutionizes the modern workplace by facilitating routine tasks while adhering to the organization's security, privacy, and compliance standards. Copilot in Microsoft 365 is a breakthrough in generative AI, making it accessible even to beginners.
To learn how Copilot in Microsoft 365 can boost your business productivity, feel free to reach out to us. FindErnest is a Microsoft Solutions Partner with extensive experience in delivering custom solutions using Microsoft technologies across a range of industry sectors.
In summary, Findernest's Microsoft 365 Copilot services empower organizations by enhancing productivity through AI-driven tools, ensuring seamless integration with existing systems, providing comprehensive training and support, maintaining high standards of security and compliance, facilitating quick deployment, and promoting continuous improvement. These offerings position Findernest as a valuable partner for businesses looking to harness the full potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
