Have you ever wanted a personal assistant but don’t have the budget? Or maybe you’ve
got a limited knowledge of Microsoft Excel and have to pull out key metrics but don’t have
the time to learn all the features?
In this article we’ll be discussing Microsoft Copilot and how business owners and CEOs can
make use of AI to improve their workflow and efficiency. As a bonus we’ll look at the
associated costs so you can make the right decision if Copilot is something worth deploying
to key staff members in your team.
Background To Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot was released in November 2023 with much fanfare however many
technology professionals and IT companies felt the launch went down like a lead balloon.
This was due to lack of access and requirement by Microsoft to have a minimum user count
in the Microsoft 365 tenant of 300 which left many businesses unable to access the new
Copilot product.
However this has now changed and Copilot is now available to businesses of all sizes. Built
on Open AI’s ChatGPT technology Copilot uses AI to make your workflow more efficient in
the Microsoft 365 suite of products.
Use Cases for CEOs
Copilot works in following suite of Microsoft 365 products:
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Powerpoint
In addition to these products Copilot can be accessed via a ChatGPT style interface in
Microsoft 365 Chat and also as a side bar when logged into Microsoft Edge.
We’ll be covering the most useful features specifically for high level work of CEO’s and
business owners.
Copilot for Microsoft Teams- the best use case is the ability to interface Copilot with
meeting transcriptions so you no longer have to rely on a personal assistant to take meeting
minutes, action points and who is responsible. Copilot for Teams auto generates the
minutes and all the associated points within the meeting.
Copilot for Excel allows you take ask questions of the data within an excel file in natural
language. Don’t know how to create a pivot table? Don’t worry just ask Copilot to create a
pivot table and a relevant chat that can make the data come to life.
Copilot for Outlook is a time saver – have you maybe been on vacation and stopped reading
those long email chains? Coming back into the office on Monday morning you Copilot will
read a multi part email chain and summarize the key points so you don’t have to.
Microsoft 365 Chat – this is very similar to ChatGPT however Copliot integrates what is
known as the Microsoft Graph data of your organization – this is all the files accessible to
you in Sharepoint and other Microsoft 365 sources. Here’s an example of a prompt you
could use: “Create a FAQ based on our vacation policy”.
What’s the cost?
Copilot comes at an additional cost to businesses on the Microsoft 365 platform in addition
to your current license costs you can expect to pay $30/month/user – be aware that it’s an
annual commitment as such we suggest that you get a review done by your IT provider or
contact us today to figure out what’s best and what users may benefit from Copliot’s
features to make your business more efficient.
