Artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into seemingly everything, and the Microsoft ecosystem is no exception. It’s only a matter of time before your clients start asking about how they can put this tool to work if they haven’t already. That said, you may or may not have heard about recent developments involving Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Microsoft 365 Copilot overview
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new multifaceted tool that uses the latest AI machine learning technology to boost productivity and streamline efficiency across personal and company platforms.
Currently, Microsoft 365 Copilot is still only available for beta testing ↗. The software combines large language models (LLMs) with Microsoft Graph data and Microsoft 365 apps to help businesses work more efficiently, serving different functions in different applications such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams and Outlook.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the impressive capabilities that this new technology will bring, improving the user experience of each of these classic platforms.
Microsoft Word
Using language learning models and predictive analyses, Microsoft 365 Copilot will be able to write, edit, summarize and create right alongside you as you work in Microsoft Word.
PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint users will be able to use natural language commands that prompt Microsoft 365 Copilot to transform ideas into well-designed, logical presentations.
Excel
Copilot will work with datasets in your Excel spreadsheets to quickly reveal deeper insights, analyze and point out trends, and craft data visualizations that professionally display your data almost instantaneously.
Teams
This new tool will add productive elements to streamline meetings and make them more efficient. By adding and updating meeting summaries in real-time and inserting action items directly into the conversation framework, meetings will become proactive spaces for creating and building projects more effectively.
Outlook
We’re all familiar with the never-ending pile up of a cluttered email inbox. Copilot will assist users to manage their inboxes and synthesize communications. With this extra layer of organizational support, users can actually spend the time reading and responding to emails, instead of fending off an unending communication build up.
Innovative functions of Microsoft 365 Copilot
In addition to Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams and Outlook, Microsoft 365 Copilot can be paired with other applications and areas within the broader Microsoft ecosystem as well. Let’s take a look at some of the expanded capabilities relevant for managed service providers (MSPs) and their clients.
Dynamics 365
Within Dynamics 365, Microsoft combines practical, business-oriented applications with new AI technology to create highly sophisticated, streamlined systems.
Using Microsoft 365 Copilot, customer service agents can provide top-notch service using an AI-powered virtual assistant that can compose responses to email and chat inquiries, provide knowledgeable answers to real-time chat conversations, and draw upon case histories to provide relevant solutions to customer complaints. Marketers can use Copilot to help them analyze and identify target audiences and trends, create original and enticing content and streamline data workflows. As marketers draft promotional content, Copilot will generate automatic suggestions based on key topics and buzzwords to help edit the content in live time, making it more relevant to specific target audiences.
Copilot can also suggest new target audience demographics and match with potential customers that fit a specific profile that marketers may have overlooked. With its capability to handle complicated calculations and diverse data sets, Copilot can make customer insight analysis faster and more accurate.
Making good use of the human-sounding language capabilities of Copilot, sales teams using Dynamics 365 can significantly decrease the amount of time they spend drafting email and other communications. Copilot can draw from meeting notes, previous emails and customer service templates to compose responses to customer queries, send summaries of meetings to the team, and draft messages with specific details about products and prices.
Security
As more businesses turn to digital platforms and remote cloud-based data storage, the potential for cybersecurity risk increases. Until now, cybersecurity professionals have struggled to keep up with the rising demand for secure defense systems. Now, Microsoft’s Security Copilot ↗ presents the first product of its kind: an AI-enabled security system that responds to problems in real-time.
Security Copilot uses a security-specific model from Microsoft that encompasses Microsoft’s threat intelligence community ↗ and an ever-expanding set of developing cybersecurity skills. Combined with sophisticated LLMs, Microsoft Security Copilot is able to simplify deeply complex problems and data sets. It can also catch what even the most trained cybersecurity professionals might miss, preventing cybercriminals from exploiting any possible zero-day vulnerabilities that slip past experts’ awareness.
Security Copilot can learn from user inputs and actions, becoming more intelligent when it comes to cyber defense. As the tool develops, it will be able to guide cybersecurity teams by providing data analysis, defense predictions and step-by-step recommendations for strengthening security posture. In this way, even small-scale IT operations can have access to intelligence resources equivalent to a huge, highly-trained cybersecurity team.
Business Chat
Business Chat is a brand new Microsoft experience that will sync across all Microsoft 365 apps, as well as a customers’ email accounts, chat windows, distinct documents, video conferencing, meetings, contacts and calendars. Synchronizing all of these disparate threads, Business Chat will make use of the natural language capabilities to respond to prompts and generate communications.
For example, employees can craft a prompt such as “tell the team what to expect for the 2:30 meeting on Monday.” Business Chat will create a shareable memo in response, drawing information from meetings, emails and previous chat threads, keeping all team members up to date while providing more efficiency for team leaders who would normally spend time creating such a summary.
Stay on top of Microsoft Copilot developments with an experienced partner
Keeping apprised of all the latest information available out there about new technology releases and trends is easier said than done, especially when it comes to Microsoft! Having a strong partner to lean on to help keep you updated can be a serious asset.
Sherweb is committed to helping MSPs not only make the most of their Microsoft relationship, but capitalize on opportunities that will drive growth for their business as well. As Microsoft 365 Copilot rolls out and evolves, we’ll continue to provide updates and assist partners and their clients in leveraging this AI technology for their benefit.
