Copilot: The new AI tool from Microsoft

Sep 27, 2023

Microsoft
artificial intelligence & RPA

Everyone's talking about it, so what is the newest Microsoft tool and how can it help?...

What is CoPilot?

Copilot is an AI-powered writing assistant that can generate high-quality text for any type of requirements, such as emails, blogs, reports, presentations, and more.

Copilot compliments your existing Microsoft Office, Power Platform, D365 Customer Engagement (CRM), and ERP tools to boost productivity and creativity. It does this in several ways:

Understands your intent and context from your keywords, phrases, or sentences.
Suggests different ways to express your ideas, tone, and style.
Learns from your feedback and preferences.
Generates information based on your definitions.

And Yes, Copilot was used to help get this blog together!

Where can Copilot be used?

Copilot can be used across your existing Microsoft estate:

Productivity and Collaboration Tools
Word; Outlook; Excel; PowerPoint and Teams
Copilot can help you create and edit documents, emails, presentations, and spreadsheets with ease and confidence. It can also help you format, organize, and structure your content according to your preferences and standards.
Reference: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot | Your Copilot for Work - YouTube
Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP
Sales; Customer Insights; Customer Service; Field Service; Finance; Project Operations; Business Central and Supply chain management
Copilot can help you manage and optimize your customer relationships and business processes across applications.
Reference: Introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot - YouTube
Power Platform
Power Apps; Power Automate; Power Virtual Agents (PVA); Power Pages and Power BI
Accelerate app development, build websites with Power pages, create virtual agents, generate automation based on an idea, and much more!
Reference: Copilot AI updates across the Power Platform | Automate, apps, pages & virtual agents - YouTube

How can Copilot help you?

Focusing in on the technology we use, it’s going to streamline how businesses work and save time on your day-to-day work:

Word – Getting writers block or just need some creative inspiration? Use Copilot to generate drafts and save you hours of work.
Outlook – Manage your inbox efficiently and generate email responses.
Power Point – Tap into features you probably overlook, by creating prompts Copilot can generate a whole slideshow and even reference documentation.
Excel – Analyse data sources to support and refine data structures and formats.
Microsoft Teams – Taking meeting notes and follow up activities? don’t worry about that, let Copilot produce a summary of key topics and follow up activities for you.
Power Platform – Apply Copilot to you build business applications, automate processes, Create virtual agents and much more.
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement tools (CRM) – Elevate your customer engagement tools by introducing Copilot to reduce time spent on tasks, draft contextual answer to queries and improve your campaigns.
Finance and Operations (ERP) – Generate customer reminder emails, collection account summary and business planning AI-powered insights.

Considerations when adopting Copilot...

Copilot is a powerful and innovative technology that can enhance your writing skills and productivity. However, there are some considerations that you should keep in mind when using it, such as:

It is not a replacement for humans. It is designed to assist you with your writing, but it cannot replace your creativity, judgment, and expertise.
It is not a source of truth. It is a tool that can provide you with suggestions and information, but it cannot guarantee the accuracy, reliability, and validity of the content that it generates. You should always verify and cite the sources, data, and facts that Copilot uses and make sure that they are relevant and trustworthy.
It is not a magic solution. It is a tool that can improve your writing, but it cannot solve all your problems and challenges. You should always use your own knowledge, experience, and intuition to guide your writing and make the best decisions for your content.

How can you get your hands on it?

Copilot is currently exclusively available to those signed up to the early access programmes. However, general availability is expected within the coming months where you'll then be able to trial or purchase a license.