Microsoft Copilot: Enter The 2024 Productivity Revolution

Microsoft 365 Copilot, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), represents the newest generation of intelligent productivity tools to enter our workplaces. Immersed within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and designed to deliver what the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, describes as “the evolution of how we interact with computing”. Copilot is slated to become an indispensable productivity aid in the coming months. In fact, Forrester predicts that it will be used by 6.9 million knowledge workers in the United States as of this year.  

While still a fresh-faced entrant into the workplace technology space, Copilot is already proving its value. According to a Work Trend Index Special Report undertaken by Microsoft in 2023, Copilot’s early adopters have found that it has helped them to become: 

– 70% more productive,  

– 29% faster when searching, writing, and summarising tasks, and  

– up to 4 times faster when catching up to missed meetings. 

But how does Copilot deliver realistic results with measurable return on investment? 

 The use cases for Copilot range from the mundane to the almost magical, and here are three of the most relevant for organisations wanting to optimise user productivity and engagement. 

1. Generate tasks out of meetings and conversations

Copilot provides a comprehensive recap of a meeting including notes, tasks, and content shared throughout. Users can ask Copilot for more information about each item and the platform will provide a summary or transcript that they can use to catch up or remind themselves of essential points within a meeting. 

The same functionality can be applied to business chats across email, Teams, or Microsoft 365. Copilot will provide summaries, milestones, tasks, and lists that users can refer to quickly and easily.  

Using Copilot within this context can dramatically reduce the amount of time spent looking for essential information when a user misses a meeting, or when looking for information within a meeting to complete an urgent report or task. 

2. Optimise communications and content creation

Copilot dramatically simplifies document creation and content development, saving huge amounts of time spent on crafting emails, tweaking formatting, or editing content. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are in formatting or document creation—it is still nice to have a tool that cuts your work time in half!  

Furthermore, Copilot users can ask the platform to generate text, add extra spacing, combine information from multiple spreadsheets, and summarise information quickly and easily.  

While there will always be a need for some editing and refining of any content created by Copilot, the tool helps users cut down on time spent hunting for images, combining spreadsheets, and fine-tuning formatting. And that is invaluable when managing timelines and deadlines. 

3. Customise Copilot to suit unique business requirements

 Copilot isn’t moulded into one specific shape. It can be adapted and changed to suit what your users need. For example, you can whip up a customised support chatbot using Copilot Studio. This chatbot can be targeted at responding to precise customer enquiries, or even to provide employees with answers to frequently asked questions.  

 Alternatively, it can be used to customise data analytics or even implement document automation. Copilot Studio allows you to create standalone Copilots, customise your Microsoft 365 Copilots, and develop custom GPTs.  

 By using this toolkit, you can refine how Copilot optimises your productivity by taking your operating environment and user preferences into account.  

 You can now explore the full depth of Microsoft Copilot’s capabilities within your business. With a little help from Mint, you can get hold of the tools, expertise, and support you need to maximise the value of this AI-powered solution.