Artificial intelligence. So exciting! So terrifying. Humanity has a long tradition of imagining the apocalyptic scenarios that could occur when machines take over the Earth. As AI technology advances, it can be unsettling to consider how the latest advances will affect us as workers. The last thing anyone wants is to lose their job to a robot.
This fall, Microsoft plans to launch an artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot. In this post, we’ll examine the top ten ways you can expect to use Microsoft Copilot to work more efficiently, produce accurate results, and become a better, more valuable employee.
Copilot Pricing
Before we jump in, let’s address the elephant in the room; the steep price tag.
During Microsoft Inspire 2023, the annual event where Microsoft partners get a sneak peek into upcoming developments, Microsoft finally disclosed the pricing details for Copilot. The cost will be set at $30 per user per month for subscribers at the Business Standard level and above.
While Copilot will be available to the general public later this year, some may find the price relatively high, particularly those outside the Microsoft ecosystem.
But Copilot wasn’t made for them; everything about it is meant to interact and flow with the most used Microsoft applications.
Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate VP and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer says, “We’re learning that the more customers use Copilot, the more their enthusiasm for Copilot grows. Soon, no one will want to work without it.” Microsoft believes their product will change users’ workday, workflow, and productivity. They might believe $30/month undersells it.
Although much of the information about Microsoft 365 Copilot currently originates from Microsoft itself, early test users have reported enjoying the product.
For some companies, the price might pose a significant investment, but if Copilot lives up to Microsoft’s claims of being revolutionary, it could well be worth the cost.
We certainly think it has potential.
Adopt Early
Your most powerful choice in the AI revolution is your adoption stance. Ai isn’t going away; your job might be. With the advent of new tech, workers’ number one fear has always been job loss. Learning and growing with it is the number one way of avoiding this.
The face of work is changing. Even if you lose your job, this new tech offers new opportunities.
This is one of the most significant changes to happen to tech ever, and the way we do work will look vastly different. The way we gain control in the changing tech times is to cultivate grit (skill-based) and agility (time-based). Learn, or you’ll be left in the dust.
By mapping agility and skills into a matrix, we see four groups emerge:
- All-Stars – Learning-centric early adopters
- Early Peakers – Early adopters who coast
- Late Bloomers – Learning-centric late adopters
- Left Behind – Refuse to adapt or adopt
The goal is to be an All-Star, improve job performance, show leadership potential, and display an agile, curious mindset. The best ways to do this are to:
✔ Absorb free information – Viva Summit, anyone?
✔ Pursue job-sponsored training or outside of work.
✔ Set aside one to two hours at a minimum each week to play with ai
✔ Cultivate curiosity
✔ Be an advocate in your professional circle
Use Apps Together Smarter
Microsoft is building Copilot into every M365 application. In your environment, it communicates across the software spectrum.
A joy of AI is the amount of knowledge it has access to. Instead of having to research what application to use, you can simply ask it to recommend the best app for you. Instead of having to open a separate software manually, you can ask within your current program for Copilot to work with another program.
Here are just a fraction of the functions:
- Create a report from this datasheet
- Make a Planner task from this email
- Generate a presentation from this information
- Draft a proposal from this project timeline
Learn How to Speak AI
The most exciting feature of AI is the ability of the machine to understand natural language. That being said, there is a learning curve.
If you’ve ever used a search engine, chances are you’ve experienced the feeling of the information being put out is only as good as the data you put in. Be specific about the output you desire and be willing to refine your Copilot request.
According to the experts, artificial intelligence performs very well at “compare and contrast” style questions. Additionally, “ChatGPT will do better if you ask it sequential questions along an evolving line of inquiry.” Often, a more detailed, complex question can get a better result. Click here for more on how to talk to AI.
Since workplace tasks are often repeatable, as a best practice, you can create a cheat sheet of high-usage Copilot functions to have the AI produce a consistent output.
The beautiful thing about AI is its ability to tweak its output according to your request quickly.
- Be specific and detailed in your request
- Be willing to tweak
- Consider Copilot’s follow-up autosuggestions
Write Better Emails
AI is great at generating content; using it in Outlook is a no-brainer.
Double-check output & optimize keywords
You can task Copilot to draft an email for you. Remember that AI isn’t perfect, and the output should be double-checked. Use the time you gain to make sure that the messaging is correct.
Additionally, it’s more imperative than ever before to utilize keywords. The email subject line is the easiest, most underused way to frontload information.
A vague, passive title such as “Blog” has little potential for classification at a glance. “Review Requested – Copilot Blog, July 2023” shows clear communication and gives people insights immediately.
Check your tone
Sometimes it may not be appropriate to auto-generate an email. That’s fine! As a best practice, after writing it, ask Copilot, “What’s the tone of my email?”
We, as humans, aren’t always aware of how our messaging is coming off to others. A great way to boost rapport is to ask Copilot to “Make my tone more inspirational.” It’s good to recall that email lacks content and is one of the most negatively perceived forms of communication. Make extra effort here!
What questions might readers have?
This is a fantastic hack! Ask Copilot to check if you’ve missed giving a crucial piece of information that may hinder your reader from moving forward.
Create templates from emails
While you can already create templates from emails, now it’s easier than ever before to ask Copilot to do that for you.
Automate Your Task Tracking
It’s easy to ask Copilot to organize work initiatives! You can, from there, input those tasks into your technology of choice. If you’re into lightweight task tracking, Planner cards can be automatically generated.
An example of a work sequence utilizing Copilot may be:
- “Create a project timeline from this proposal.”
- “Break each initiative into task steps.”
- “Generate Planner cards from this list of task steps.”
- “Send reminders seven days before a task is due.”
Remember that a machine doesn’t have the context we do—it’s only as good as the input. Especially when creating project timelines, consider overall workload, vacations, unforeseen circumstances, etc., to create feasible plans.
The machine creates plans based on pure logic—question its output frequently and trust it at your own risk.
Do Meetings Better
While Copilot doesn’t help with in-person meetings, after Covid, the face of business has changed, and many meetings are now held virtually.
“Create an agenda for this meeting.”
As we’ve put forward, Copilot is excellent at generating content. While you can ask it to generate an agenda based on a type of meeting (i.e. project review), you can create a more specific agenda by providing it with reference documents. Those documents may be spreadsheets, email threads, Word docs, etc.
“Prepare me for my upcoming meeting.”
Copilot is always running, with full access to your business content and context. Making this simple request will give you a rundown of the meeting topic, letting you review and attend the meeting in a more tuned-in manner.
Review a meeting summary when joining late.
It’s hard to find meeting times that work for everyone, and we all know life happens. With Copilot, if you need to join a meeting late, instead of derailing flow and needing a recap from someone, AI analyzes the meeting’s transcript and automatically presents you with a summary.
Follow meeting
When receiving a virtual meeting invite, you’ll have another option: Follow. Copilot will summarize the meeting and alert you in Teams when the recap is ready. Review the meeting at your leisure!
Summarize Information
Sometimes we need all the details! Sometimes, we just need the key takeaways.
Long-winded emails or articles can be a time suck depending on the amount of information needing to be gleaned from it. With Copilot, simply asking, “Summarize this email,” can reduce a twenty-minute slog into a five-minute super-informative overview.
If you have questions from the summary, you can ask Copilot to provide you with more information on a specific topic. As we’ve touched on, it does great when you hone in on what you want to know.
Click here for a summary of this blog post
Create Reports & Proposals
Artificial intelligence loves facts! If you’ve created Excel spreadsheets or gathered data in any way, you can simply ask it to create a report or proposal.
Customize an auto-generated report
In a Power BI report, you can ask questions of the data in natural language for a while, and Copilot has taken this to the next level. You can extrapolate more charts or graphs from the information by simply requesting them in Copilot.
This is a LOT faster than needing to learn the software to add visuals manually, and you’ll impress the report recipients with your output.
Create a template from your report
You can use your customized report as a template for other reports and/or update it with the current data as needed. Ask Copilot to create a template from your report. Easy-peasy!
“Create proposal for __________ to provide __________”
Proposals can also be a lot of work to create from scratch; chances are many concepts can be transferred from previously created documents. You can ask Copilot to create a proposal from an attached file, using the other attachments as a reference.
Generate Presentations
This Copilot function is going to be a major boon in the workplace. Not everyone is a graphic designer. AI creates PowerPoints that are tailored to an audience—adding in visuals, transitions, and an appropriate amount of text on each slide to communicate information in the most digestible way possible.
Gone are the days of slides with twenty bullet points!
Take All of the Credit
Just because you’re using AI, it doesn’t discredit your work. AI doesn’t work in a vacuum—it’s intertwining itself into our processes and procedures—enriching our experience and giving us more bandwidth to participate in the human condition.
Proudly take the accolades for all the amazing reports with custom visuals you’ve created! In the words of Kausik Rajgopal, Executive Vice President, People & Sourcing, PayPal “There is no substitute for human judgement.”
In Conclusion
At Advisicon, we understand the importance of embracing technological advancements in today’s ever-evolving landscape. We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of the technology revolution, and Copilot represents the bleeding edge of innovation.
However, we also recognize that while AI is incredibly powerful, it is fallible, and human actions remain irreplaceable. We encourage you to let your work speak for itself and allow Copilot to fulfill its intended role as a virtual assistant that enhances your capabilities and helps you shine.
Our team is here to support you in harnessing the potential of Copilot and ensuring that it seamlessly integrates into your workflow, enabling you to achieve remarkable results. Connect with an expert today to get started.
Key Takeaways:
- Research and adopt early
- Upload specific reference docs into Copilot with your request
- AI output must be checked over. It’s been found to make up facts!
- Maintain a curious, agile mindset!
