Work Smarter with Microsoft Copilot and Office 365
March 26, 2024
Organizations across the globe are struggling to keep up with the pressure of demands and the pace of work. According to a Microsoft 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report survey, 68% of people say they don’t have enough uninterrupted focus time at work; 62% of people are spending too much time searching for information; and 57% of an employee’s time is spent on communication through meetings, email and chat.
Generative AI represents enormous opportunities to reduce busywork, end information overload and work smarter. Imagine living in a world where you can:
- Radically rethink your workday and delegate tasks to AI to protect focus time for the creative work that leads to innovation
- Get answers instantly, identifying only the important information to restructure your day for success
- Quit spending so much time in your inbox or meeting notes, making more efficient use of your time with AI-powered intelligent meeting recaps, transcripts and recordings
Fortunately, that world is here today with the rollout of Copilot for Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft’s AI-powered Copilot is designed to integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft 365 apps that organizations use every day. These apps include Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint.
Built on Microsoft’s comprehensive approach that focuses on security, compliance, responsible AI and privacy, there are multiple ways to combine the power of Copilot and Microsoft 365 tools. Below are just some of the most common use cases.
In Microsoft Outlook, use Copilot to:
- Create an email based on context and suggest an appropriate template
- Summarize an email received from a co-worker
- Help schedule a meeting by suggesting times, locations and resources
- Create a task list with deadlines based on email content
- Search an inbox for all emails related to a specific project
- Suggest ways to filter and prioritize emails based on urgency
In Microsoft Teams, use Copilot to:
- Find a list that a co-worker mentioned in a recent meeting and add it to a new document
- Manage tasks by suggesting task lists, deadlines and other task-related information based on the project
In Microsoft Word, use Copilot to:
- Summarize a document or write a paper on a topic
- Suggest sources for topics in a specific document
- Make a document more accessible by recommending alternative text for images
In Microsoft Excel, use Copilot to:
- Easily discover profitable products each quarter
- Calculate EBITDA based on this table
- Suggest formatting for specific cells
- Determine the best charts/graphs to visualize data
- Write a macro to automate specific steps
In Microsoft PowerPoint, use Copilot to:
- Create a presentation from a Word document
- Apply company branding to a presentation
- Create slides and content based on the following purpose and content
- Suggest multimedia and interactive content (videos, polls, etc.) for a presentation
In Microsoft SharePoint, use Copilot to:
- Create a new product site featuring a company logo and a personal message from leadership
- Develop a page for the company foundation using information from a slide deck
- Rewrite key content on a webpage
- Identify common themes across files
Insights from Early Adopters of Copilot
Early adopters of Copilot are overwhelmingly satisfied with Microsoft’s AI technology. According to Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index special report, Copilot is a game changer for the future of work with its seamless integration with Microsoft 365.
- 77% of people who used Copilot said they didn’t want to go back to working without it
- Users said they save 10 hours per month
- 70% of users said they were more productive, and 68% said it improved the quality of their work
- 64% of users said Copilot helps them spend less time processing emails
- 85% of users said Copilot helps them get to a good first draft faster
Sales and Customer Service Opportunities
Sales is one of the most important areas in organizations. Copilot provides broad opportunities to drive impact in this area.
From the Work Index Study, 133 Microsoft salespeople who used Copilot for Sales at least weekly reported significant opportunities.
- 83% said Copilot for Sales made them more productive
- 79% said it reduced the amount of administrative work they had to do
- 78% said it helped them stay in the flow of work
- 73% said they could complete tasks more easily
- 68% said they could keep their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems up to date with less effort
- 67% said they were able to spend more time with customers
Cherry Bekaert’s Approach to Copilot and Accelerator Workshop
As a certified Microsoft Partner, Cherry Bekaert is offering an accelerator workshop to help organizations with their adoption of Copilot. The workshop addresses two key areas of Copilot: The “out of the box” capabilities of Copilot in Office 365 and the capabilities of Copilot Studio for creating solutions across your organization. To learn more about this workshop, please contact Nate Regimbal, New Practices & Solutions Leader for Cherry Bekaert.