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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP GUIDE
MAXIMISING EFFICIENCY WITH MICROSOFT COPILOT
10 minute read
Author: Haydon Kirby – IT Account Director
An introduction to Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot is front and centre of Microsoft’s renewed push to make workplaces and workforces more productive and efficient. Whether in-person, remote, or a mixture of the two, there is a heap of new functionality at your disposal when you subscribe to Copilot.
In this guide, we run through what Microsoft 365 Copilot actually is, the core features ready to use today, and look at how different industries can use them. We reference data provided by Microsoft in both real-world samples of early users and data models created using Microsoft’s comprehensive understanding of its user base. When referring to “Copilot” throughout this guide, we refer to Microsoft 365 Copilot; not to be confused with Microsoft Security Copilot or any other variation
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is an add-on AI assistant complementary to the Microsoft 365 suite. You can add Copilot to any existing user with an eligible license. Not to be confused with the free version of Copilot, still accessible via Bing and Windows, Microsoft 365 Copilot is the only AI assistant available inside apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. When Microsoft bought a $10bn, 49% stake in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, it unlocked the possibility to embed prompt-style queries to all its productivity applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams, Outlook, etc.).
Using real language “prompts”, like you would in Chat GPT, Copilot users can now ask any Microsoft tool to help them out with a query, design idea, or data analysis. Once you have the license, the Copilot companion appears in the top sidebar across the Microsoft application stack. Here, you can upload documents for data analysis, extraction, and visualisation. It’s also possible to create summaries of inbound communications and even ask Copilot to create email responses and generate proposals off the back of meetings.
You can also use Copilot standalone as a high level app to get an overview of your workflows, to-do lists, and meetings. By using back-end artificial intelligence combined with front-end user input, Copilot can now assist any user with creation, delegation, and administration that usually eats up precious time in the workday.
Microsoft Teams Copilot Features
1 – Meeting summaries
The headliner in the Copilot feature list is real-time meeting summaries that generate dates, names, and key points during calls. If a task has been assigned to you (or anybody), a task list appears with action items.
As soon as a Teams meeting starts, a real-time transcript starts generating so participants (those in attendance or absent) can choose to catch up on meeting notes after the meeting, extract key points from the Copilot summary, review shared content (like PowerPoint presentations), and ask questions to get specific insights.
Copilot allows you to get the full meeting context even when you don’t attend the full meeting.
To get sent meeting summaries, make sure you “Follow” a meeting when you’re not in attendance and your Copilot makes sure you have everything you need. When you join a meeting, you automatically follow it and get access to the meeting notes and action items generated. Every time you miss a meeting but have opted to follow it, you’ll get a notification when your meeting recap is ready.
You can even ask questions about why decisions were made. Copilot summarises responses from meeting attendees to provide rationale behind why your colleagues make certain decisions.
2 – Chat summaries
Inside chat messages, you get similar functionality. Recognising that chats can become overwhelming, Copilot pulls out key points from conversations you may have missed, like when you arrive late or choose to skip a meeting. For example, if you’re catching up on a group chat that significantly moved a project along while you were working on something else, Copilot saves you from needing to read every single message by providing detailed, contextual summaries.
Microsoft PowerPoint Copilot Features
1 – Input-based presentation creation
If you have a file full of information, there’s no longer a need to spend time duplicating it in the form of a PowerPoint file. Instead, you can upload the file to Copilot and ask it to create a draft presentation with a suggested design style. If you don’t like the style, simply ask Copilot for another suggestion.
2 – Automatic formatting
When formatting a presentation, it can be a serious time suck. Moving objects to fit into new templates and figuring out what words can be omitted so your deck looks credible is one of the most agitating tasks there is.
Copilot removes that annoyance by auto-formatting to fit your layout, reducing text, correctly sizing images, and aligning with existing content and animations.
3 – Suggested speaker notes
Creating a presentation is one thing. But what about adding speaker notes? In most cases, your PowerPoint is going to be presented to a group of people. So you need to be armed with an impactful script. Copilot can generate these too. All you need to do is ask.
4 – Presentation summaries
At the other end of the spectrum, if you receive a large presentation but are short on time, you can ask Copilot to summarise the key points. This gives you a bulleted list of takeaways and action items you can digest in your restricted time.
Microsoft Word Copilot Features
1 – Image generation and formatting
If you’re tasked with creating presentations or graphics, but are more comfortable with creating a Word document, starting from a blank canvas is a serious blocker.
When Microsoft added a new tool to its 365 suite, the tool named Designer enabled users to create graphics suitable for almost any medium. With Copilot in Word, you can now ask Designer to generate images without the time and pain of formatting around the document you’re working on.
2 – Automated editing
When editing documents, you can ask Copilot to suggest better options for your suggested audience or specific tone of voice. For example, if you draft a business proposal for a CIO of a manufacturing firm, Copilot can make suggestions that will resonate better.
Inconsistencies in flow, formality, and tone can be highlighted by asking a single prompt. You can choose to either have them highlighted or applied straight away.
3 – Document creation
When employees are provided with an outline or structure to work from, Copilot can now fill in the gaps, providing a first draft using both internal and external sources (if integrated).
You can choose to tweak the document yourself or use prompts to help Copilot get you to as near a final product as possible.
Microsoft Excel Copilot Features
1 – Data interpretation
For employees using Excel, but without formal accounting training, working with complex formulas and creating graphs off the back of data doesn’t come naturally.
To get to the desired outcome, they can now ask “what if?” questions and write prompts that provide instant graphs and trend analysis. Instead of spending hours interpreting data, Copilot provides concise summaries with suggestions to change or improve the data.
2 – Data visualisation and presentation
You can even ask Copilot to help with formatting to make your data and tables more presentable. Using the sidebar module, you can have a conversation with Copilot to make tables, graphs, and data more presentable to different audiences.
Microsoft Outlook Copilot Features
1 – Email summaries
With one of the largest losses of productivity cited as too much time in emails (as much as 6 hours per day), Copilot brings a welcome relief to your inbox. For long and wordy emails, you can get automated email summaries to extract the most important elements. This is especially useful when out of the office and catching up on email on your mobile.
2 – Catch-up prioritisation
If you’ve been away for a while, Copilot can prioritise emails based on time and sentiment. For example, if you’ve been asked to create something with a looming deadline, you don’t want it buried under less important emails that aren’t time-bound.
3 – Draft email responses
When responding to emails, you can ask Copilot to draft a response with the click of a button. If you’re not happy with the draft, ask for changes in text length and/ or writing style.
The business benefits of Microsoft Copilot
The goal of Copilot is to reduce mundane tasks through automation. Thus, freeing up humans to allocate time to value-adding tasks that can’t be completed by machines.
When you enable staff members to work autonomously, expect your business to benefit in these five major areas.
These are all examples of generic business benefits, applicable to all executives, managers, and individual contributors. While all important to reach maximum productivity, there are features we can look at in specific industries. In the next section, we look at specific use cases (and their benefits) for businesses in the finance, recruitment, professional services, and eLearning sectors.
Some example use cases for Microsoft Copilot
Financial Services
Whether you’re creating business projections or managing invoice queries, there’s a host of functionality for financial services companies to benefit from:
Recruitment
Professional Services
eLearning
Manufacturing
Microsoft Copilot licensing overview
Please note this was 2024 pricing – pricing may have since changed.
The cost for Microsoft 365 Copilot is £296.40 per user per year. This cost is additional to your existing Microsoft 365 licensing, which may include plans like Business Standard, Premium, E3, or E5.
Note: You don’t need to license every single user in your business.
Only assign a Copilot license to those users who will benefit the most. To access Copilot, you must also use Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) as well as adopted modern cloud services from Microsoft.
Return on investment from Microsoft Copilot
While Copilot licensing is simple, the bigger question is about what you are getting in return. The ROI conversation around Copilot is about saving time and making employees, managers, and executives more efficient and productive. By “fixing” meetings, automating information search, and removing the blocker to first draft creation, Copilot stands to save hours of time per month and boost personal productivity by at least £100 per month. When compared to the cost of around £25 per user month, the benefits present a 400% return on investment.
Download this useful guide now as a pdf
Download a free copy of this guide to refer back to the core features of Microsoft Copilot and the various use cases.