Small Business Tips for Using Microsoft 365 Copilot

Copilot is one of the latest offerings from Microsoft, with the generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot being launched in 2023 to replace the virtual assistant Cortana. As with any technology, Copilot, and AI more broadly, has been met with a mixture of excitement and scepticism regarding how exactly it can help organisations, particularly small businesses who have fewer staff and resources to dedicate to technology adoption. This blog looks at how small businesses can best utilise Microsoft 365 Copilot.

What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Copilot is Microsoft’s generative AI chatbot development, which is built upon OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model, which itself is the basis of ChatGPT. The two AIs therefore have similar roots, with Copilot additionally being combined with technology and data that Microsoft has access to. There are both free and premium options with Copilot. The free option is based only on web-accessible data, while the premium option learns through both the web and your data via the integration of other Microsoft apps.

The premium option is therefore able to produce results that are much more personalised to its user, as it has learned directly from them. It can learn your style of writing, for example, to create communications and content that fits your voice. If you're a Microsoft 365 Business customer, Copilot is available as an add-on to your existing licenses, meaning you can choose whether to adopt it throughout the organisation or first trial it with a few employees before extending it to others.

What Can Microsoft 365 Copilot Do?

The first step to on the path to choosing Copilot is to understand what it can potentially do if used correctly. Most people know that generative AI can answer questions that we ask, but it can do so much more. Below are some examples of ways that Copilot can be of benefit in the workplace:

Streamline Tasks

It can be easy on paper to say that you will tackle tasks in order of importance, but very often time constraints take over. Strategising and planning for the future is of course incredibly important, but we can often find ourselves lost underneath repetitive tasks that need to be done in the short-term. With Copilot, repetitive tasks can be automated or shortened, freeing up time for more strategic work.

For example, texts in lengthy documents can be summarised, our own notes can be reorganised, and answers to specific questions can be found in the transcripts to meeting and calls. All of this frees up time to allow people to better use their skills and knowledge for the benefit of the organisation and themselves.

Enhance Communication

With so many more communication mediums at our disposal and our attention divided due to 24/7 connectivity, communication needs to be consistent, impactful, and easily understood. Copilot can help with this through drafting emails, reports, and social media posts, allowing everyone in an organisation to have access to the same tone and style.

Copilot can also have a positive impact on more “real world” communication. It can help create presentations, prepare for meetings, and generate immediate follow-up emails. One of the most popular and practical uses for Copilot is its ability to transcribe meetings in real time and then provide a summary, ensuring that all points of a meeting agenda can be recorded and followed-up on.

Content Creation

Closely linked to communication, but important enough today to warrant its own category, content creation can be aided by Copilot in many ways. Whether it’s blogs, newsletters, or marketing materials, Copilot can assist in brainstorming and drafting content ideas. Entire first drafts can be created by referencing multiple documents, and existing documents can be rewritten to change the tone, length, or format.

Even if people want to create the end product independently, Copilot can still help. Writer’s block can become a thing of the past, as Copilot can jumpstart the creative process and generate ideas. The writer can also utilise it to receive suggestions to strengthen arguments and smooth inconsistencies. All of this can help companies keep up with the rapid content creation demands for almost every company with an internet presence.

Data Analysis

Data has become a contender for the most important resource that businesses have access to. The ability of computers to sort through huge amounts of data in an instant means that practically every business decision can be based on evidence. Copilot can help you with the process of data analysis, such as through validating and refining data by cutting out unnecessary or invalid figures. New formula columns and charts can be made simply, along with other visualisations, which can help you understand your data and more easily present it to others.

Copilot can also analyse data itself. It can help identify trends and insights quickly, aiding decision-making, and it can be asked for recommendations in how to deal with the data. Through Copilot even the most complex databases can become manageable, with their insights being revealed for your benefit.

Customer Support

Businesses naturally want to provide good customer support. However, it is true that for many companies a lot of their customers require only a common selection of queries to be answered. Requiring customers to speak to a human simply stretches resources and can lead to customer dissatisfaction. Copilot can mitigate this by being used to generate responses for common customer queries, draft FAQs, or create a customer chatbot. This will enhance staff efficiency by providing accessible answers to common questions and freeing time and resources to customers with less common queries.

Training and Onboarding

Anybody starting a new job needs to be given the tools to succeed. One way this can be done is to utilise Copilot to create maintaining materials and guides. It is very common for all the necessary information for new employees to be scattered across multiple files, apps, and websites, meaning that Copilot can help make this information far more accessible. This can lead to the onboarding of new employees being faster and more effective.

How do I Get the Most Out of Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Discovering the vast number of ways that Copilot help your business is one thing, but like all tools it needs to be used correctly for it to be a success. This way, you can ensure that you will maximise the potential for the licences you obtain.

Research and Activate

First things first – look up your current Microsoft license to see how you can get Copilot. It is currently available for businesses with Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Business Standard. At FluidOne we are a trusted Microsoft Office 365 cloud partner and provider, meaning that we can provide you with Copilot guidance alongside other M365 needs, such as the issuance of licences.

Feedback and Improvement

Whether you have done the advisable approach of initially obtaining Copilot for only a select few employees, or have already fully committed to your Copilot journey, it is important that your team plays an active role. Encourage your team to provide feedback on Copilot's suggestions to refine its use over time and improve relevance. The AI is always learning, and it does so more effectively when actively engaged with and corrected.

Invest in Training

Copilot is user-friendly, but you should still consider providing brief training sessions for employees. These can range from simple webinars and guides to full multi-week courses, depending on your needs. This helps ensure they understand the tool’s full potential, as well as assisting them with leveraging its capabilities effectively. An important step is learning how to prompt well, rather than keeping prompts vague, such as through requesting a specific tone of voice or asking Copilot to output content for a certain audience. A particularly helpful way to learn this skill is by participating in prompt-a-thons: events consisting of workshops and tutorials centring around effective prompting techniques and ways to maximise Copilot usage more broadly.

Stay Updated

Keep an eye on new features and updates for Copilot, as tools evolve rapidly, offering more capabilities. If you use Copilot and feel like something you need is missing or should be improved, then there is a definite possibility that a future update could solve the problem.

Experiment and Adapt

Don’t hesitate to try different use cases, as experimenting will help you find the best ways to integrate Copilot into your specific business processes. Copilot offers intuitive features, all within your familiar Microsoft 365 applications. If you start experimenting with its capabilities, you can discover how it can enhance your workflow and productivity in ways that you originally never thought were possible.

Stay Secure

Microsoft is compliant with various data and cyber security regulations and laws such as the EU’s GDPR. This means that Microsoft encrypts information sent between Copilot and your applications, and they do not use your data to train their language models.

However, Copilot can access all your company’s data if the proper controls are not in place. This can lead to employees inadvertently gaining access to sensitive information by asking certain questions. The surest way of defending against this is to control the access rights of employees to documents, because Copilot can only read files that are accessible to the person who is using the tool.

Conclusion

AI looks set to completely transform many aspects of the world – particularly in the workplace. There are many generative AI options emerging on the market and it is important to research the right one for you. Copilot, however, does have the unique distinction in being directly integrated into one of the world’s most popular software suites, enabling it to directly enhance applications that many of us use on a regular basis.

At FluidOne we understand that adopting new technology can be daunting. That is why we believe it is only right that you discover more about how Copilot can supercharge your business with a free demo and readiness assessment when you get in touch with us. Additionally, you can sign-up to access our Copilot webinars, with our experts covering how to 10x your output with Microsoft 365 Copilot, and technical preparation for Microsoft 365 Copilot implementation.