Blog Post

Small and Medium Business Blog
4 MIN READ

Microsoft 365 Copilot eases the weight of work for small and medium businesses

brennarobinson's avatar
Sep 21, 2023

At Microsoft we are dedicated to enabling our customers to grow and manage their businesses by unlocking their productivity and creativity—and nowhere is there more opportunity to do this than with Microsoft 365 Copilot.

 

Small and medium businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and inherent innovators—nearly three–quarters report they are familiar with AI and half use it daily1. They are ready to leverage this new technology to help them grow faster, be more efficient and compete more effectively. By spending less effort on the time-consuming, day-to-day work we all experience, they can focus more energy on what they love—their business. This is why we recently put Microsoft 365 Copilot into the hands of entrepreneurs and small and medium businesses with a private, invitation-only Microsoft 365 Copilot SMB Early Access Program. This program allows us to gather real-life feedback to fine-tune the product experience. We’ll be expanding the program’s access over time.   

 

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a generative AI companion that is always at hand and ready to help while you’re working with the same Microsoft 365 apps you use every day. With Copilot at your side, you can experience new levels of creativity and productivity. And you’ll get this help from a partner you trust, not just to provide the best security for your data, but to deliver responsible AI as this revolutionary technology evolves.

 

“I expect Copilot to become a real benefit for all of us, especially around data management, but also just to make work easier for everyone in the company.”Lewis Jones IT Manager, EPIC iO

 

Moving forward faster

To better understand how generative AI can help, let’s consider a day in the life of Alex, the CEO of a successful graphic design firm. Alex’s business landscape has become much more competitive and is moving faster than ever. She knows she must continue to grow her business and keep her team both aligned and innovative.

 

Fast track to an empty inbox

Every day Alex deals with non-stop meetings and a constant flurry of emails from inside and outside her organization, which consume hours of her time each day.

 

With Copilot in Outlook, Alex can quickly summarize lengthy email threads and get footnotes of related emails, so she can get up to speed in discussions quickly. By using the “Sound like me” feature, she can ask Copilot to draft responses for her using her own writing style. Then she can just edit and send. Or, if she writes the first draft herself, Microsoft 365 Copilot will offer her coaching tips and suggestions on clarity and tone, so she can put her best foot forward without spending time rewriting.

 

"I’m really impressed with how Copilot works in Outlook. I had it generate several emails for me, and it did a really great job. All I had to do was add my own details and they were ready to send.” Paul Birkin, COO, 90POE

 

Managing time and collaboration with intelligence

With email behind her Alex can move on to her schedule, usually a tangled web of managing time and priorities—but not with Microsoft 365 Copilot. When Alex is faced with two important meetings occurring at the same time, she can use the “Meeting follow” feature to monitor them. When a meeting ends, Copilot notifies Alex in Microsoft Teams and builds her a summary of the meeting, including attendees, topics discussed, important notes, and any action items. Alex can ask Copilot to drill down on individual points made in the meeting for additional clarity. Now Alex has a whole new level of control over her meeting schedule.

 

Our company is big on Teams. Copilot is extremely easy there. I was shocked at how it instantly generated a summary of a technical meeting in just a few bullet points. It was exactly what the meeting was about, so this should make our work life easier in the future.” Lewis Jones IT Manager, EPIC iO

 

Amplify creativity

Freed from her email responsibilities and equipped with all the recent meeting updates, Alex gets to work responding to an opportunity in her inbox—a customer wants to update the marketing plan Alex designed for them last year and needs new collateral quickly.

 

To build a pitch deck with design concepts, Alex’s team gets busy with Copilot in PowerPoint. They start by choosing an embedded template and then Copilot steps in to help by pulling in relevant content from other campaigns. The team polishes this first draft and delivers it to Alex in hours rather than days. Using Copilot in Word, the team asks Copilot to rewrite their initial concept brief with a more professional tone and create custom graphics right in the document with Microsoft Designer.

 

Microsoft 365 Chat

To finalize the presentation, Alex and her team use Microsoft 365 Chat, a powerful new capability in Microsoft 365 Copilot that goes far beyond simple questions and answers to tame the complexity, eliminate the drudgery, and reclaim time at work. Microsoft 365 Chat combs across your entire universe of data at work —all your emails, meetings, chats, documents, and more, plus the web—to tackle your to-do list in a fraction of the time.

 

Get ready for Copilot

Now that you have an idea of how much Microsoft 365 Copilot can impact your everyday work life, it’s time to get ready with Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium. This includes Bing Chat Enterprise, a new tool that will help get you familiar with using AI prompts and workflows. Find out more about Bing Chat Enterprise here.

 

We’ve only scratched the surface of how Microsoft 365 Copilot will transform how you work. Generative AI is a game-changing technology, and we’re excited to get it into your hands. Stay tuned for more announcements on Microsoft 365 Copilot.

 

 

  1. 2023 Small Business Growth in the Age of AI

 

Updated Nov 02, 2023
Version 2.0
  • Jim Fallon's avatar
    Jim Fallon
    Brass Contributor

    Now that Co-Pilot is on my desktop, I no longer reach for BingAI. I reach for Co-Pilot, like all day long, it's amazing tech.

     

    As a Consumer I can now use it to ask it many back and forth questions about my workflow, although it can and does not identify with the app I currently have on the screen is, its kind of a good enough for now scenario.

     

    I suspect that the business version will have the ability to tie into the actual apps that are on the screen, and I can see how this would make some folks nervous about who has "access" to these conversations and how that information is being "used".

     

    If you guys were Facebook we know how that info would be used/abused, the question now is what the future of this tech holds for that level of customer interaction. A bit scary for sure. But boy is this useful. Game changing stuff really.
    JF

  • apeedee's avatar
    apeedee
    Copper Contributor

    But is copilot being offered to small businesses. What I can see there is a minimum of 300 licenses, we are far from that size, how can we get copilot?

  • Jim Fallon's avatar
    Jim Fallon
    Brass Contributor

    I use BingAI multiple times per/hour. I am just a regular user, no enterprise here. One man entrepreneur. I deal with folks that only have regular Microsoft Accounts, and Consumer versions of MS365.

     

    THESE FOLKS NEED CO-PILOT. But they need to ask questions specific to the app they use and not receive web searched results. They deserve direct answers from the folks that make the software they are using that's YOU Microsoft. Co-Pilot is and should be the answer to the question I hear so often from Consumer users. "Why didn't this thing come with a user Manual?"

     

    Co-pilot should be able to recognize the app that is next to it and on the screen, and give direct answers based on the version of the app they are using, not web sourced stuff that is often off the mark.

     

    I was excited to ask Co-Pilot about some things in the version of Outlook that I was currently using (The NEW Outlook) only to get prompts to launch the Desktop version, the one that I no longer use.

     

    I hope you guys are working to incorporate the "user manual" into Co-Pilot that is aware enough to know the version of the software that user is using. For the folks that purchase your apps, they need it, they deserve it, and they have not been able pick up the phone to ask those questions for years now really.

     

    Time for you guys to double down on Consumers and Mainstreet U.S.A. office users. Don't miss this opportunity please. You're off to a good start, I'll give it time to mature. And I hope in the not-too-distant future, it will recognize the correct version of the software I am using and other nuances.

     

    JF

  • gproz's avatar
    gproz
    Copper Contributor

    When will copilot be available for non-enterprise users?

  • Excellent post - love the format as it gets more real and personal than the usual marketing posts/videos! Great job!