Microsoft 365 Copilot

Transforming Productivity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

In the age of artificial intelligence, the business world is changing rapidly, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can gain a significant competitive advantage by adopting generative AI. Microsoft 365 Copilot is at the heart of this transformation, enabling businesses to lead the way while ensuring their security through Microsoft's commitment to responsible AI.

"Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant for work that helps you unlock more value to grow and run your business by boosting productivity and creativity."

What is Microsoft 365 Copilot and how does it work?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant integrated into everyday Microsoft 365 applications. It combines the power of the most advanced AI models with web and business data to provide real-time intelligent assistance and enhanced collaboration.

At the core of Copilot are large language models (LLMs). These models generate responses based on user-generated prompts. The quality and relevance of responses are enhanced through a process called "grounding."

"Microsoft 365 Copilot is based on Microsoft Graph, which includes all your business content and context (such as emails, chats, call transcripts, documents, and more)."

This enables the AI to reason over information from Microsoft Graph to provide more accurate and relevant responses. This information becomes directly accessible within Microsoft 365 applications such as Teams, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint. Enterprise data protection is automatically inherited through existing Microsoft 365 security, privacy, identity, and compliance policies.

The Art of the Prompt

Prompts are how we ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to perform specific actions such as creating, summarizing, editing, or converting content. A good prompt requires "using simple, clear language as if you were talking to a human assistant and providing context."

The components of a good prompt are as follows:

  • Goal: What kind of response do you want from Copilot?
  • Context: Why do you need it and who is involved?
  • Source: What information sources or examples should Copilot use?
  • Expectations: How should Copilot respond to best meet your expectations?

Making Artificial Intelligence Part of Everyday Life

Today's work pace is quite fast, and the flow of information is never-ending. 64% of employees said they struggled to find enough time and energy to do their jobs last year (Work Trend Index Annual Report, May 2023). Microsoft 365 Copilot offers a solution to this challenge.

SMBs participating in the Early Access Program have seen significant gains from Microsoft 365 Copilot:

  • 81% reported an increase in productivity.
  • 76% reported an improvement in work quality.

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft also revealed that SMEs have gained additional financial benefits from using Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Copilot can be used to increase productivity and efficiency in various business processes and departments.

Copilot for Sales: Close Deals Faster

Sales is becoming increasingly challenging. Microsoft 365 Copilot helps sales teams focus on administrative, routine, and repetitive tasks.

  • Copilot Chat: Summarizes recent communications in emails, chats, and documents to prepare for customer meetings.
  • Copilot in PowerPoint: Creates presentations using branded templates and summaries from Copilot Chat.
  • Copilot in Teams: Takes meeting notes and ensures full focus on discussions.
  • Copilot in Outlook: Quickly email customer meeting notes and action items to participants and stakeholders.

Copilot for Marketing: Building More Effective Connections with Customers

81% of customers prefer companies that offer personalized experiences. Microsoft 365 Copilot helps marketing teams turn ideas into revenue-generating business opportunities.

  • Copilot Chat: Creates an asset list for an upcoming product announcement and suggests personalization ideas for different industries and customers.
  • Copilot in Word: Quickly creates the first draft of the messaging and positioning framework (MPF).
  • Copilot in PowerPoint: Creates a single-page document based on MPF and personalization ideas.
  • Copilot in Outlook: Quickly draft emails to be sent to selected customers and provide guidance on tone, length, and structure.

Copilot for Human Resources (HR): Securing the Best Talent

Microsoft 365 Copilot helps you create a more efficient and effective hiring process.

  • Copilot Chat: Collects the latest industry trends and data on competitive job descriptions.
  • Copilot in Word: Copilot Chat creates a job description based on the results.
  • Copilot Agent: The company automatically identifies potential candidates based on keywords in the job description by accessing the HR system.
  • Copilot in Loop: Creates interview questions based on job criteria and develops a plan for questions that each interviewer will ask candidates.
  • Copilot in Teams: Summarizes each candidate's contributions and quickly creates meeting notes from the group interview.

Copilot for Customer Service: Identifying the Root Cause of Customer Issues

83% of customers agree that great service can turn them from one-time shoppers into lifelong customers. Microsoft 365 Copilot helps customer service representatives evaluate and summarize customer interactions.

  • Copilot Studio: It creates a custom tool for the organization's CRM. This tool analyzes customer interactions such as chat logs, emails, and support tickets from Microsoft 365 Copilot to identify recurring issues, patterns, and common themes.
  • Copilot Chat: CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) analyzes feedback and specific behaviors, words, or expressions that could lead to negative customer responses.
  • Copilot in Teams: Presents findings to leadership, customer service, and product teams, summarizes the meeting, and drafts recommendations for process and product improvements.
  • Copilot in Word and Outlook: Quickly updates FAQs, scenarios, knowledge articles, and best practice documents. Drafts emails by pulling information from these documents.

Copilot for Finance: Get Insights Faster

76% of CFOs say that manual tasks take up too much of their finance teams' time and effort. Microsoft 365 Copilot enables finance teams to focus on high-value tasks.

  • Copilot in Excel: It allows you to ask questions about data and quickly generate visualizations.
  • Copilot in Teams: Plans meetings with business leaders to gain their perspectives on what drives their numbers.
  • Copilot in PowerPoint: Creates presentations based on the analysis of data in Excel and information gathered from interviews with business leaders.

Increase Return on Investment (ROI) with Supercharged Productivity

According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact report commissioned by Microsoft, the return on investment for SMBs using Microsoft 365 Copilot can range from 132% to 353%.

Forrester also found that SMBs can experience the following benefits:

  • Up to 6% more net income.
  • 20% lower operating costs.
  • 25% faster hiring process for new hires.

These financial benefits are achieved through faster time to market, increased productivity, and improved employee satisfaction.

  • Faster Time to Market: Marketing time for new products is expected to decrease by 16% to 20%.
  • Increased Productivity: 51% of businesses using Microsoft 365 Copilot reported savings of up to 20% in supply chain costs, while 59% reported savings of up to 20% in operating costs.
  • Improved Employee Satisfaction: Thanks to employees taking on more satisfying tasks, an average increase of 18% in employee satisfaction and a reduction of up to 20% in turnover rates are expected.

Microsoft's Commitment to Safe and Secure Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft is committed to advancing artificial intelligence based on ethical principles that put people first. These principles have been defined through a systematic approach to responsible artificial intelligence.

Responsible AI Principles

Microsoft has adopted the following principles to guide its AI work:

  • Fairness: Treat everyone fairly.
  • Privacy and Security: Protect users' private information and resist security attacks.
  • Inclusivity: Prevent barriers with designs that accommodate people with different abilities.
  • Accountability: Hold AI designers accountable for system operations.
  • Reliability and Security: Ensure that artificial intelligence systems operate reliably, securely, and consistently.
  • Transparency: Educate stakeholders on how and why AI systems work.

Enterprise Data Protection (EDP)

Microsoft provides enterprise data protection (EDP) in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot for users who sign in with a Microsoft Entra ID account. The same enterprise terms that apply to Microsoft 365 commercial offerings also apply to Copilot.

The EDP commitment provides the following:

  • Your data is private: We will not use your data in any way other than as instructed.
  • We keep your data safe: We protect your data with encryption at rest and in transit, rigorous physical security controls, and data isolation between tenants.
  • Your access controls and policies apply to Copilot: Copilot respects your existing settings, such as sensitivity labels, retention policies, and administrator controls.
  • You are protected against artificial intelligence security and copyright risks: We provide protection against risks such as malicious content and request injections, as well as copyright concerns through our Customer Copyright Commitment.
  • Your data is not used to train foundational models: This includes all Copilot prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph.

"We're getting faster responses with Copilot... Customers can bring us more work thanks to our ability to get things done faster. This could mean 15% more work." (Forrester Study: Vice President of Technology Services, Managed Technology Solutions)

"Becoming proficient in AI now is absolutely critical to preparing for the capabilities that will be available in a few years. In five years, running a business without Copilot will be like trying to run a company today using typewriters instead of computers." (Forrester Study: Vice President of Technology Services, IT Services and Business Consulting)

This detailed briefing document summarizes the comprehensive value Microsoft 365 Copilot offers businesses, its working mechanisms, its applications in various functions, and Microsoft's commitment to responsible artificial intelligence.

Frequently Asked Questions

1What is Microsoft 365 Copilot and how does it benefit businesses?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that integrates with the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day. It combines the most advanced AI models with your web and business data to boost productivity and creativity. It helps small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) gain a competitive advantage by automating business processes, enabling them to focus on acquiring new customers and scaling securely. It accelerates information retrieval, provides a starting point for content creation, and supports creativity.
2How does Microsoft 365 Copilot work?
Microsoft 365 Copilot works with artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) that form its core intelligence. These LLMs generate responses based on prompts created by users. The quality and relevance of these responses are significantly enhanced through a process called "grounding," which leverages information from Microsoft Graph (including all your work content and context, such as emails, chats, documents, and more). This enables you to receive contextual and useful information within Microsoft 365 applications. All of this is supported by enterprise data protection that is automatically inherited through existing Microsoft 365 security, privacy, identity, and compliance policies.
3What are the key differences between Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot is free and offers basic GPT Large Language Model capabilities with web grounding, meaning it provides results based on general internet knowledge. Microsoft 365 Copilot, on the other hand, is paid (US$30 per month) and includes the basic GPT-4o model as well as "business grounding" capabilities obtained from internal company resources via Microsoft Graph. Additionally, Microsoft 365 offers in-app integration, custom agents, a Prompt Library, a Copilot Dashboard for measurement and adoption metrics, and more comprehensive enterprise data protection.
4What is a prompt and what are the components of a good prompt for effectively using Microsoft 365 Copilot?
A "prompt" is how you ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to do something, such as creating content, summarizing, editing, or converting. Giving a prompt is like chatting with a human assistant; it is done using simple, clear language and providing context. The key components of a good prompt are: Goal (What kind of response do you want from Copilot?), Context (Why do you need it and who is involved?), Source (What information sources or examples should Copilot use?), and Expectations (How should Copilot respond to best meet your expectations?).A "prompt" is how you ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to do something, such as creating content, summarizing, editing, or converting. Giving a prompt is like chatting with a human assistant; it is done using simple, clear language and providing context. The key components of a good prompt are: Goal (What kind of response do you want from Copilot?), Context (Why do you need it and who is involved?), Source (What information sources or examples should Copilot use?), and Expectations (How should Copilot respond to best meet your expectations?).
5How does Microsoft 365 Copilot help employees in their daily workflows, and what advantages does it offer?
Microsoft 365 Copilot addresses the digital debt problem, reducing the time and energy constraints faced by employees. According to a study, 64% of employees struggle to find enough time to complete their work. Small and medium-sized business customers who participated in the Early Access Program achieved significant gains with Microsoft 365 Copilot: 81% reported increased productivity and 76% reported improved work quality. By automating administrative and repetitive tasks across various departments such as sales, marketing, human resources, customer service, and finance, it enables employees to focus on more strategic and high-value work.
6What is the financial return of Microsoft 365 Copilot for SMEs?
According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact report commissioned by Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Copilot's return on investment for small and medium-sized businesses can range from 132% to 353%. Forrester also found that SMBs could experience up to 6% higher net revenue, 20% lower operating costs, and 25% faster onboarding time for new hires. These financial benefits are attributed to faster time-to-market, increased productivity, and improved employee satisfaction.
7What are Microsoft's responsible AI commitments and data protection policies regarding Copilot?
Microsoft is committed to advancing artificial intelligence in accordance with ethical principles that put people first. These principles are defined by Microsoft's systematic approach to responsible artificial intelligence. They include Fairness, Privacy and Security, Inclusion, Accountability, Reliability and Security, and Transparency. Additionally, a secure AI experience is provided through corporate data protection (EDP) policies. These commitments include: your data not being used without your instructions, your data being protected with encryption and physical security controls, your existing access controls and policies being applied to Copilot, protection against AI security and copyright risks, and your data not being used to train foundational models.
8Which Microsoft 365 applications does Microsoft 365 Copilot integrate with, and can you provide examples of its functionality?
Microsoft 365 Copilot integrates with everyday Microsoft 365 applications such as Teams, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Loop. For example: Teams: Take meeting notes and summarize conversations. Outlook: Quickly draft emails and provide guidance on length, structure, and tone. Word: Create initial drafts for documents and assist with ideation. PowerPoint: Create presentations with branded templates and generate slides from summaries. Excel: Ask questions about data and quickly create visualizations. Copilot Chat: Summarize communication across emails, chats, and documents, and suggest content ideas. Copilot Agent/Studio: Can access internal systems like the company's human resources system or create custom agents for customer service, identify patterns, and recurring issues. Teams: Toplantı notları alabilir, konuşmaları özetleyebilir. Outlook: E-postaları hızlıca taslak haline getirebilir, uzunluk, yapı ve ton konusunda rehberlik sağlayabilir. Word: Belgeler için ilk taslakları oluşturabilir, ideasyon konusunda yardımcı olabilir. PowerPoint: Sunumları markalı şablonlarla oluşturabilir, özetlerden slaytlar üretebilir. Excel: Veriler hakkında sorular sorabilir ve hızlıca görselleştirmeler oluşturabilir. Copilot Chat: E-postalar, sohbetler ve belgeler arasında iletişimi özetleyebilir, içerik fikirleri önerebilir. Copilot Agent/Studio: Şirketin insan kaynakları sistemi gibi dahili sistemlere erişebilir veya müşteri hizmetleri için özel ajanlar oluşturabilir, desenleri ve tekrar eden sorunları belirleyebilir.

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