Discover the power of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. From Word to Teams, this AI assistant helps you unlock the full potential of your Microsoft 365 applications.
As more and more companies experience the benefits of artificial intelligence firsthand, the prevalence of technologies that utilize AI, machine learning, and natural language processing will only continue to grow.
According to a survey by AuthorityHacker, AI is poised to supply upwards of $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Additionally, over one third of businesses surveyed have already adopted some form of AI with 9 out of 10 organizations seeing AI as a positive driver of competitive advantage.
Kwixand’s Professional Services Manager, Sebastian Alexander, recommends, “AI is here to stay, and the time to embrace this technology is now. There’s a lot of unnecessary fear around AI. The idea that AI is going to take your job is a misconception. AI can make your job easier, empowering you to be the best at what you do. Let it.”
While Microsoft has been gradually integrating AI capabilities into its software for some time, the launch of its dedicated AI assistant, Microsoft Copilot, takes things to the next level.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot uses large language models (LLMs) and the data in your systems to craft content, automate workflows, fetch and analyze data, and enhance collaboration, all from the prompts you provide in your own words. The Copilot AI creates a one-of-a-kind knowledge model, unique to your organization, that compiles your system data as well as your prompts to offer exponentially more accurate and useful responses.
Copilot is compatible with a wide range of Microsoft offerings including Microsoft 365, Edge, Bing, and Windows 11. With Windows 11 integration, calling up Copilot is even easier than using it with convenient taskbar locations and a simple keyboard shortcut: Win+C.
What Microsoft 365 Programs Does Copilot Integrate With?
With Microsoft 365 integration, Copilot becomes accessible in all of your most used applications, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams, Outlook, Loop, and Whiteboard. The Copilot AI performs program specific tasks to help you make the most of your suite of Microsoft solutions.
1️⃣Word: By utilizing the power of LLMs, Copilot for Word can help you save time and craft better content. The AI assistant has a wide range of capabilities in Word from rewriting and drafting new content to summarizing documents and transforming text into tables. Copilot can find ways to enhance your writing by adding in supporting details based on what you’ve already written as well as on information from up to three reference files. If your role involves less creating and more reading, you can use Copilot to answer your questions about the document to get to the exact information you need in a snap.
2️⃣Excel: With Copilot in Excel, you can explore data insights, identify trends, and explore different outcomes all with a simple prompt. The AI can suggest formulas for new columns and create graphs, charts, and other visualizations based on your data. Not only does Copilot help you create these visualizations it also helps you navigate and interpret them. From filtering, sorting, and highlighting, to revealing insights in charts and PivotTables, and even answering direct questions about the data, Copilot makes using Excel a piece of cake.
3️⃣PowerPoint: Using Copilot in PowerPoint opens the door to a range of productive features such as building slides using your corporate template, organizing your presentation into sections with heading slides, crafting unique and relevant imagery, and editing your slides and text for clarity and efficiency. Copilot can also add speaker notes based on your prompts or a provided outline and provide bulleted summaries of long slide decks.
4️⃣Outlook: With Copilot for Outlook, you can get through your inbox faster than ever before. You can use Copilot to draft emails, make improvements to communicate more effectively, strike the right tone, and even draft your own custom suggested replies to make easy responses your own. The AI assistant can also summarize long email threads to help you stay up-to-date without having to scroll through weeks worth of responses.
5️⃣Teams: By using Copilot in Teams you can unlock a new level of productivity with more efficient meetings. If you’re running late to a meeting, or happen to miss one altogether, Copilot will give you a summary of what you missed. With Copilot, you don’t even have to wait until the meeting is over to get a summary of the key points discussed, complete with next steps, where people were and were not in agreement during the meeting, and even assigned tasks; you can access all these insights through Copilot in real-time during your Teams meeting or revisit them after in the Recap tab.
Read More: 10 Tips for Microsoft Teams You May Not Know
6️⃣Loop: Copilot in Loop helps you compose content, stay on top of edits, and collaborate with your team members. You can use Copilot to summarize your Microsoft Loop pages with a list of highlights that will appear at the top of the page and can be sent to collaborators via Teams or Outlook. When using Copilot in other Microsoft 365 programs, you can instantly send your summaries directly into Loop for easy access across your team.
7️⃣Whiteboard: With Copilot for Whiteboard, you can foster more creativity and collaboration for more effective brainstorming and better original ideas. Copilot only needs one or two words to start suggesting new marketing copy and helping you visualize new concepts in Designer. You can also use Copilot to sort your ideas by theme, saving valuable time over manual organization.
Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365
Beyond the basic Microsoft 365 applications, the Copilot AI assistant is also available across the Dynamics 365 platform to help you make the most of your customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. With Copilot for Dynamics 365 you can automate tedious manual tasks and foster a culture of ideas among your team.
✴️Business Central: Using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Central allows you to streamline the process of product listing creation. Copilot can take simple details about your product, such as size, color, or material, and use them to craft product descriptions for use in your online storefront. You can even set custom parameters for format, length, and tone. If you are using a Shopify storefront, you can also publish your products and descriptions right to your Shopify store.
✴️Supply Chain Center: With Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center, you can stay ahead of supply chain issues. The AI assistant automatically incorporates information about external factors, including financials, geography, and weather, to generate predictive insights. By monitoring these factors, the Supply Chain Center Copilot can warn you of potential issues with materials, carriers, distribution networks, and inventory. Copilot can even draft emails to impacted partners when these issues are looming to help you and your partners take proactive steps to mitigate any disruptions.
✴️Sales and Viva Sales: Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales cuts time on clerical tasks to get you back to interacting with clients faster. The AI assistant helps you write emails in response to customers, summarizes Teams meetings, and incorporates data from your CRM and insights from recorded Teams calls to provide you with all the information you need to reach out to leads and convert them to customers.
✴️Customer Service: Using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service allows you to deliver the highest level of customer care. Copilot can draft contextual answers to inquiries via email or chat, providing an interactive chat experience. You can even take it a step further with a virtual agent that you can customize with conversation boosters using Power Virtual Agents.
✴️Marketing: With Copilot in Dynamics 365 Marketing, you can create more enticing email campaigns and get them in front of the right leads. The AI assistant allows you to easily create custom target segments simply by describing desired aspects of the customer segment. You can also use Copilot in Dynamics 365 Marketing to build the content for your email campaigns, from initial inspiration to editing. Copilot provides suggestions based on the topic, your previous marketing emails, and even relevant internet sources.
✴️Customer Insights: You can use Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to simplify your workflow and get even more custom matching for targeted customer segments. When you use Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, you can build uniquely tailored customer segments and get suggestions for further segments and criteria to reach leads you would have otherwise missed.
Check out these blog posts for more on Microsoft Dynamics 365:
How Do I Get Copilot for Microsoft 365?
There are a number of requirements for Copilot that need to be met in order to access the AI in Microsoft 365. First, as of November 2023, Copilot is only available for Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 enterprise license holders, but don’t worry. Copilot functionalities for other Microsoft applications have already started to roll out through free Windows 11 updates as well as in Bing and Edge.
On top of your Microsoft 365 enterprise license, Microsoft Copilot licensing will cost an extra $30 USD, or around $39.50 CAD, per user per month. You’ll also need an Entra ID account, previously known as Azure Active Directory, in order to access your Microsoft 365 apps and a OneDrive account to access certain features like file restore.
In order to access Microsoft 365 features on the web, like Word and PowerPoint, you will need to enable third-party cookies. You will also want to ensure that WebSockets is unblocked from user endpoints to allow the device on which you are running Microsoft 365 to connect to a Microsoft service. Further plugins will need to be enabled to allow for cross-app experiences in Teams and Loop. For Outlook, you will need to be using the newest version – Copilot compatibility for classic Outlook will be supported in future updates – and sync your Microsoft 365 settings.
Additionally, Microsoft advises aligning your network with the Microsoft 365 network connectivity principles as a general best practice to provide the most optimal Copilot experience in Microsoft 365.
Explore Your AI Options for Microsoft 365 with a Certified Microsoft Partner
AI got you feeling overwhelmed and out of your depth? Put your trust in the experts at Kwixand Solutions to find the right fit for your industry, experiences, and budget. Get in touch today to discuss your options for integrating AI into your business with a free consultation. Face the future with the tools you need to succeed by partnering with the experts at Kwixand Solutions.
