Tag: Copilot

Posted on

Microsoft 365 Copilot – what makes good AI “prompts”

Microsoft 365 Copilot was released to GA today with a minimum price tag of three hundred licenses at $30 US dollars per user per month [around $108k minimum].

My last blog covered the potential ROI of using Gen AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, but it’s also worth remembering that Copilot also exists (for free) today inside Bing Chat and Windows 11 (if you are running the latest 22H2 or 23H1 release rings).

Organisations looking to move quickly and get onboard with Copilot have work to do to get their data in shape, educate and train users and find and test the use cases within their organisations to determine if and where Copilot will add most value.

Once deployed (and this goes with any Gen AI tool to be honest), the areas your adoption specialists, training and AI success units will be wanting to be focussing on with employees is how to get Copilot to do what you ask in the most efficient way. We call this “prompting”. This blog introduces the concept, shares some tips, and tricks we (Cisilion), have picked up on the way.

The way we interface with Generative AI is very different to the way we use search engines (which are typically based on key word searches). Generative AI has the ability to really understand what you are asking for and how you want the information you ask for presented. It takes a bit of time to get used to and refine and the more you use it, then better the output and the easier and faster you get to your end result.

The Perfect AI Prompt?

Prompts are how you ask your Copilot (whether Microsoft 365, Windows, or Bing) to do something for you. This could be creating, summarising, comparing, editing, or transforming content. Prompts are “conversations”, using plain but clear language and providing the relevant information, background, ask and context of the request – just like you would if you were asking a human assistant.

Writing good prompts is the key to unlocking the power and potential of generative AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft.

In short a prompt has three parts.

  • Telling Copilot what you want – for example creating, editing, summarising etc.
  • Including the right prompt ingredients – for example what you need and why.
  • Keeping the conversation going to fine tune your request and get the content you need.

Telling Copilot what you need

This may sound obvious, but we often find many people do not appreciate or understand just how particular and precise you can be with these tools. When we run workshops, I often ask the audience to use Bing Chat to create an output with the minimum number of prompts. What i typically see is people “talk” to AI like they talk to their smart speaker, typically asking a simple open question about the weather, train times, or a fact [or in my case my kids ask it for a rude joke or a silly song…or worse].

Working with Generative AI should be seen as similar to working with a person. As such, the more ambiguous the request, tone and language is, the more likely it is that the response you get from Copilot won’t be what you need or expected.

For example, a prompt such as “please analyse this spreadsheet of customer spend and provide insights into the most frequently bought products and services our customer buy for a meeting I have with the leadership team about product and service performance“ will give Copilot a lot more content and context about what you need work to do with that please analyze this dataset and summarize the results. A prompt that simply asks “summarise this information for me” – clearly misses the conext and framing of what the information is required for.

Include the right prompt “ingredients”

In order to the get the best response from your prompts, it is also important to focus on some of the key elements that will impact the type of response you get from Copilot. In short this is about setting the right goal and the right context along with which data source of information you want to use and you expectations of the output.

  • The Goal refers to what response you want to get from Copilot
  • The Context refers to why you need it and who or what is involved
  • The Source refers to which information source(s) or examples Copilot should you
  • The Expectations refer to how you want Copilot to respond to your request.

Here’s how that fits together into a “good prompt”…

Keeping the conversation going

Since Copilot uses the concepts of turns with regards the prompts you use, you can tweak, fine tune or ask further questions based on the information generated and information you feed it. Whilst Copilot will not learn from your data, it keeps the conversation active until you finish meaning you can refine your requests. This helps you collaborate with Copilot like you would a person. You ask for more information, to present data in a different way or simple change the language or tone of the response.

Examples based on the above could include:

In short – When creating a prompt, think of it as if you were talking to a helpful colleague – there no need to worry about the order, formatting, or structure – the goal is to keep it conversational.

General Do’s and Don’ts

Finally, there are some wider tips and guidance to help ensure you get the best from these conversational input methods. In short, the do’s a don’ts can, be summarised as.

Do’sDon’ts
Be clear and specific with your ask. tell it how you want the response or output generated. A draft, bullet points, in Word or in PowerPoint for example.Be vague or ambiguous. Use concise and unambiguous language. If you want something in a certain way – tell it what you want.
Give examples to help Copilot do what you want. If there is a previous document or table you want, state it. If you want something in a certain style, ask. Use slang words, jargon, or informal language. The Lange models Copilot uses are well trained but may miss interpret acronyms, slang words and jargon and therefore give random results.
Provide details that help Copilot do what you ask. Give as much background to what you are asking as possible – just like you would to a human assistant. Set the context and ask clearly. Give conflicting information or ask Copilot to compare or contrast unrelated data or something that is a bad example of what you need. Keep the responses clear and concise and use additional prompts to refine if necessary.
Use turns (these are additional prompts) to tweak and refine your response. If you don’t like something or want something expanded or changed – simple, ask. Change topics without starting over. The best way to end a conversation and start over is to either write “new task” or click the new conversation button.
Feedback to IT. Copilot is only as good as the data and information it has access to. If you are not getting the right response, it may be because you don’t have access to the right data or that the data is out of wrong. Check the data source Copilot refers you to with IT or the document owner. Take what Copilot produces as fact without checking first. Copilot is only as good as the data and information it has access to. If you are not getting the right response, it may be because you don’t have access to the right data or that the data is out of wrong. Check the data source Copilot refers you to with IT or the document owner.
Examples of Good and Bad AI Prompts
Posted on

Microsoft 365 Copilot: What is the ROI?

So, who is excited then? Microsoft 365 Copilot will be officially GA from 1st of November 2023 at a cost of $30 per user per month for commercial customers. That is THIS week!!!

How much will Microsoft 365 CoPilot cost?

Microsoft continue to be firm that any organisation that invests in Microsoft 365 Copilot from the 1st of November will pay $30 per user per month. Note that initially, the licensing will not appear on a price list and must be purchased alongside the organisations Microsoft Account team. There is a minimum number of seats of three hundred.

When will Microsoft 365 Copilot be released?

Microsoft 365 Copilot will be generally available from 1st November 2023. There have been several hundred large organisations on a paid (around $100,000) Early Access Preview since the summer who have been helping Microsoft with performance, accuracy and tuning guidance as well as helping Microsoft to capture and prove use-cases and guidance for other future organisations and to help them justify the cost of ownership. I am sure that next year, we will see a Total Economic study from Microsoft and Forrester on this!!

Note: Initially, Microsoft 365 Copilot will not be available to EDU customers or in the government/Gallatin clouds. All apps, except for Copilot in Excel, will be available in the
following languages: English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN), Spanish (Spain, Mexico), Japanese, French (France, Canada), German, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, and Chinese Simplified. Copilot in Excel is currently only available in English. Support for additional languages will be extended through the first few months of calendar year 2024.

Copilot is very new. As such expect it to evolve quickly and get better…

The ROI of Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Even after the 1st of November, most organisations, Microsoft partners and many of Microsoft, will still not have access to Microsoft 365 Copilot. There have been those on the paid early access program, some of the global solution partners have also been involved.

Due to the minimum limit of three hundred licenses, I expect that many organisations may wait a little rather than rush in. Wait until they are ready, they can learn from other organisations successes and blips and (I imagine) for the entry point to be lowered and in fact I have heard rumours that this might drop to fifty.
Note: Smaller organisations and anyone who buys licensing via a CSP provider will also have to wait a bit.

There is plenty of information out there to help organisations start strategizing and preparing for what will be one of the most significant uplifts (both in cost of their Microsoft 365 license, and in capability) in the history of IT and IT budgets.

The questions of course that the CFO and CEO will want to understand are

  1. What will the actual cost be?
  2. How will affect our bottom line?
  3. Are the perceived benefits worth the price?
  4. How can we keep our Microsoft licensing costs under control?
  5. What do we need to do to make sure we can really get the best from Microsoft 365 Copilot.

1. Understanding the cost of Microsoft 365

Microsoft Copilot is an add-on license – meaning it is purchased (at $30 per user per month) and applied to a base-level license. Also, not every Microsoft 365 license will be eligible for a Copilot “bolt-on”. Currently Microsoft 365 Copilot can only be attached to:

  • Microsoft 365 E5,
  • Microsoft 365 E3,
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium,
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard.

Whilst the above is good news for smaller businesses (in that they dont need to upgrader to an E3 or E5 base license), the cost is (currently) the same regardless of what base-level license you are attaching it to. This means the cost uplift (as a percentage) is much higher for organisations on Microsoft 365 E3 or Microsoft 365 Business. Nothing is of course set-in-stone as we are still in early preview, and we might see pricing changes or tiering as we get nearer to release. I’d also expect customers on large Enterprise Agreement to pay less (and be able to haggle!).

Frontline workers (or anyone with a Microsoft 365 “F” license) are not currently able to use Copilot without being upgraded to an enterprise E3, which means a cost difference (for M365 E3 plus Copilot) of a staggering 8.25x.

If we look at the cost of the current licenses and the effect of adding Copilot to every user, then the costs can look scary (this is based on Online RRP pricing).

Base LicenseBase CostM365 Copilot*License + Copilot% Increase
Microsoft 365 E5£52.40£25£77.4048%
Microsoft 365 E3£33.10£25£58.1076%
Microsoft 365 Business Premium£18.10£25£42.10133%
Microsoft 365 Business Standard£10.30£25£35.30242%
Costs before and after Microsoft 365 Copilot (pupm RRP).

Things to note:

  1. Microsoft 365 Copilot is optional – it’s your choice as to whether you invest in it or not, but it is not and will not be included in any of the base licences – for some AI features in Bing Chat or the use of ChatGPT may be enough.
  2. You don’t (and won’t) need to buy it for every employee – persona mapping and use case studies will be vital to determine who is likely to benefits most.
  3. The pricing for Copilot for Business SKUs may change (as will the rest of the pricing)
  4. Organisations may be able to “fund” their Copilot investment through savings in smart licensing procurement and consolidation of third-party products (especially for M365 E5 organisations). We are seeing a lot of this and makes sense if you have most of your “eggs” in the Microsoft Cloud Basket.

2. How will Copilot affect our bottom line?

One of the recurring questions I get asked when talking to organisations about Microsoft 365 Copilot is “how can we ensure we get a measurable ROI when planning for or investing in Microsoft Copilot?”

Even so, adding $30 (around £25 pupm) to your existing productivity toolset does seems a lot, especially if you are paying for M365 E5 + Teams Premium + Calling Plan already, plus of course things like Microsoft Viva Suite, etc.

At Microsoft’s recent Envision event in London, Microsoft talked a lot about usecases from customers on the Early Access programme, talking about various diffferent use cases that improve work experience, remove creative blocks and speed up decision-making across a number of different sectors including retail and finance.

So – from an ROI perspectives some of the maths you may look at are:

  • Assume a sales exec, data analyst or admin position that earns £50,000 annual salary.
  • With Microsoft 365 Copilot at $30 a month, thats ~$1 a day or ~80p in UK money. If we also assume the normal 250 working days a year then that equates to ~£200/day or ~£25/hr.
  • If these “roles” can each save just two hours a month using Copilot to sumamrise meetings, take notes, automate and send a customer propsosal out, then that is already a productivity saving (in time) of 2:1 or £50 per person per month.

I have already heard other organisations share ROI stories for the use of ChatGPT Premium since its commercial introduction with organisations reporting ROI’s of over 25:1 on a $20 pupm subscription. Given the extensive enterprise data integration and interaction into the Microsoft 365 apps and services that Copilot will bring out of the box, I would not be suprised to see ROIs (once studies are done) of more than 30:1

There is then a moral and emotional play here too. Everyone loves a productivity gain [I think there will be loads], but there may also be instances where entire roles (or aspects of roles) may no longer needed because AI will do that part of the job for us. The same goes to be honest for automation technologies like Power Automate. Then is there the case, where you as an organisation (whether you are involved in B2B or B2C) may win more business because you have “the power of AI” either helping make decisions, responding to a client/customer faster or helping you make sales faster by directly interfacing with the customer or following up on things.

Advice is to ensure you work with Microsoft and your partner(s) to identify which departments or individuals are likely to benefit the most from the features within Microsoft Copilot’s features and make sure they are part of a pilot.

This usually starts with a well thought out and managed pilot programme during which you’ll be looking at identifying, testing, and proving the potential timesaving and productivity gains it can bring to roles like sales, finance, and your data teams.

3. Are the perceived benefits worth the price?

I think so – but again this will all loop back to the point above. Whilst it wont just be about price, these GenAI tools are likely to improve the way most people work. These pilot phases, will require organisations to explore and experiment with Copilot’s features and capabilities to discover new ways to enhance their work experience.

Using these tools also requires that users are on-board, educated and informed. As such, once you have identifyied the most suitable users and scenarios for the “pilot”, you’ll need to ensure you provide adequate training and support and closely monitor and measure the outcomes and champion quick wins whilst soliciting feedback and suggestions from employees.

A report on the early findings on the promise of Generative Al put together by Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group found that Generative Al in the workplace lead to a:

  • 12.2% increase in task completion rates
  • 25.1 % decrease in time spent to complete tasks
  • 12.5% increase in the number of subtasks completed
  • 40% increase in the quality of responses to subtasks

4. How do we keep our costs under control?

A good question…let’s look at cost reduction to free budget (either for cakes, salary rises, bottom line or, yes, Copilot).

Organisations may be able to “fund” their Copilot investment through savings in smart licensing procurement and consolidation of third-party products (especially for M365 E5 organisations). We are seeing a lot of this and makes sense if you have most of your “eggs” in the Microsoft Cloud Basket.

Mch of the above is general good practice but I’m seeing lots of organisations looking at this to “free” budget to drive Copilot “pilots”.

5. What do we need to do to make to get the best from Copilot?

I have covered this before in previous blogs and videos, but in short the key focus organisations need to do outside of runing a pilot, training users and streamlining how you fund it, is data data data.

The key advantage that Microsoft Copilot will have over its rivals is that it seemlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 applications and uses enterprise data to provide personalised and contextual assistance. As such, ensuring your data is accessible (in the cloud or cloud connected at least), managed correctly, classified, labelled and protected. I have covered this a few times here.

Successful adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot is much more than the technology and licensing. Organisations need to see this as a significant technology project and not just a product you buy. As such they key activies critival to success are:

  • Having a defined vision and identification of how Microsoft 365 Copilot will be used
  • Obtain proactive support from key roles in the organisation to accelerate the use of Copilot. including senior leadership, legal, IT and key Business Development Managers.
  • Enable Champions and provide business relevant, snackable and on-demand training for end users this includes leveraging the “power of the prompt”.
  • Raised awareness through launch event & omni-channel communications planning.

Copilot Q&A

Will CoPilot be included in Microsoft E5?

No, Microsoft 365 Copilot is not included in the Microsoft 365 E5 license. Microsoft 365 Copilot is an add-on license at an additional cost [$30] irrespective of the Microsoft 365 licenses you have within your organisation. This means that even if you are on Microsoft 365 E5, you will need to pay for it separately if you decide to implement and use it.

Whats the minimum number of licenses we can buy?

Currently the minimum liceses you will be able to buy from 1st November is three hundred at a cost of $30 pupm.

Will there be free trails?

No – at the moment Microsoft have confirmed that trials will not be available.

Will I be able to get Microsoft 365 Copilot for free?

If you do – let me know!!

No… as of the information available, Microsoft 365 Copilot will not be available for free. At the time of writing, there are six hundred organisations globally that are currently on an Early Access Programme, and they all paid $100,000 for the preview. Microsoft Copilot is positioned as a premium add-on with huge substantial benefits. The initially announced price is $30 per user per month, but it’s this price is not yet finalised, and we don’t know if different sectors or license volumes will affect the price.

We don’t have Microsoft 365 – can we still use Copilot?

No, Microsoft 365 Copilot will only be available for organisations that use Microsoft 365 Business, Business premium, Enterprise E3 or Enterprise E5. I is not availbale for organisation of Office only plans, or Front-line worker SKUs (Microsoft 365 F SKUS).

We also do not yet know the intentions Microsoft have for Copilot with Education and Not for Profit organisations.

Will I be able to negotiate the price for Microsoft 365 Copilot?

It depends. The size of your organisation, the level of your base licensing and demand will all likley affect what you pay for Microsoft 365. I suspect the largest organisations – those with huge Enterprise Agreements will get a better deal than smaller organisations, but I’d expect tie ins to the higher licnese SKUs like Microsoft 365 E5.

My advice is to speak to a product and licensing specialist to work with your Microsoft Account team and who can help you assess your deployment roadmap from various angles.

Summary and Key Points

  • Microsoft 365 Copilot will be available to Enterprise customers at a price of $30 per user per month on top a Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license.
  • Initially there will be a minimum license purchase of three hundred licenses, Though I have heard that this might get reduced to fifty.
  • Initially it’s only available to Enterprise sized organisations though will be coming to CSP customers and small, medium, and commercial organisations by end of the year.
  • ROI should be significant if Copilot is properly implemented, but organisations need to prepare to pay for this and it’s not “cheap”. Expect Copilot to impact everyone person in the organisation.
Posted on

Microsoft Envision 2023 – AI is the fuel for the next generation of digital transformation

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending Microsoft Envision in London.

Hosted by Clare Barclay [Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft UK], this was the first in-person only event Microsoft had run in some 4 years, and it was absolutely packed with a real buzz and energy I haven’t seen at an event in years.

The theme of the entire event, including breakouts and exhibitors was all centred around AI – which is hardly surprising with the upcoming 1st November date for “general availability” of Microsoft 365 Copilot

The Keynote – AI Transformation

The event comprised of a keynote delivered by Judson Althoff [Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial officer].

AI transformation is going to follow many of the same rules of digital transformation…Many of you embarked upon your cloud journeys many years ago, and one rule really applied – that digital transformation was business transformation, empowered by technology, and in that order.

Judson Althoff | Microsoft VP and CCO

His 45-minute session was all about AI about and how “to lead in the era of AI” at the keynote.

During this session. Jedson explained how generative AI technology is opening doors for any, and all business from healthcare, to manufacturing to public sector and finance to “imagine new ways to solve challenges”, while unlocking innovation and delivering greater business value that any technology has ever done before. As well as some demos and in-person interviews from some leading UK brands like Sainsburys and ASOS who talked about how they were leveraging Microsoft AI to build new shopping experiences.

Judson spent most of his time on stage bringing the audience up to speed and on the same page about Microsoft 365 Copilot, Sales Copilot, Security Copilot and then spent some time talking around GitHub Copilot and the huge benefits this is bringing to developers. He showcased the ever expanding “collaboration” between Microsoft and OpenAI, which most recently has also resulted in the creation of Llama 2, a powerful generative AI model that can generate text, images, code, music and more which will soon be available on Azure and Windows platforms as part of the expansion of the Azure AI model catalogue.

Finally, he introduced the new Vector Search, a new feature in Azure Cognitive Search that enables searching across different types of data using natural language queries with a live demo (which mainly worked), in which he showed off how Vector Search can help find relevant information from documents, images, videos and more through semantic indexing (the same powerful index too that will power Microsoft 365 Copilot.) Jedson also re-introduced Microsoft Fabric which has been in preview for six months and goes into General Availability next month.  

AI transformation is going to reshape how companies think about their employees, how they think about engaging with their customers, how they think about their own businesses, and how they think about innovation

Whilst Microsoft covered a lot of ground in this session, much of it was a rinse and repeat of things many of us had seen before. What Microsoft did though through event was kept the fire burning. Delivering this on stage in front of thousands of people had real appeal. You could feel the buzz from the audience and the conversations leaving the main hall were all of excitement and energy – Microsoft really did capture hearts and minds.

The Breakouts

I was less impressed by many of the breakouts though to be fair I only attended a handful of them. Many were met with repeats of what we had already seen earlier on, but with less passion and energy. Most demos were impressive to those that had not seen them before, but for partners and “tightly managed” Microsoft customers, there wasn’t much we hadn’t already seen before – that said, it didn’t stop the buzz and interest through, and the exhibition halls were buzzing.

Networking

For me – these events are all about the networking. We had a team of people there – some there to learn and see what was coming and how it was being presented to customers (this was not a technical event, and it was aimed at business leaders). For me it was great to meet many of our customers, who I’d previous only met over Teams) and was even nicer to get a chance to really interface with people from different industries, from Microsoft product and Client Success teams and to get some deep dive demos on some other aspects of the solutions Microsoft offer that we don’t specialise in. I was extremely impressed by just how powerful Dynamnics 365 is now for example.

Satya’s Closing Points

Unlike previous events, this even stayed busy until the end (and beyond)- this was probably due, in-part to the closing note being delivered by Satya Nadella (in person), followed by Steve Bartlett (CEO and Founder of Diary of a CEO).

Satya brought his usual passion and twist to the day, summarising the key points delivered throughout the day but homing in on GitHub Copilot and the enormous potential this has to help software developers, businesses and citizen developers have in building AI powered apps for the future. He talked about Microsoft’s commitments to ethical AI, AI for good and the new wave of AI transformation that is taking over every facet of our lives and every business big and small.  He talked about this next wave being about “digitising people, places and things with new reasoning engines that can really analyse data in seconds”.

There were a few points which you could feel really resonated with the audience.

  1. This AI wave is bigger than when the Windows PC transformed the office in the nineties
  2. We are on the cusp of interfacing with technology in true natural language where our computers can now actually “understand” us
  3. For the first time, we will be able to interface with technology in true multi-modal and multi-domain and engage in full meaningful discussions.

He finished by re-iterating the work many organisations need to do to get the best from Generative AI. Much of this was around data. He said, which I think is the most relevant bit of advice for every organisation, that “The Cloud is what makes AI possible, but it is your data that makes AI work”.

My Take: What organisations need to do next

For me this resonates as this is what we see every day and on the back of every discussion around AI we have with our clients.


Data is the fuel of AI: Many have lots of work to do to get their data in shape. Whether that is getting it in the cloud, managing stale and duplicate data, controlling security and governance, and protecting it from mis use or leakage. Many are not there yet and fear that many will miss this important step and jump straight it – resulting in poor results, low ROI, and poor adoption.

Adoption is the accelerant: Cloud Adoption is what makes AI possible . The UK has good cloud adoption the main, but it’s very hit and miss. Some are full in and others are still starting the journey. For AI to work we need good Cloud Adoption and it’s not just about migrating to the cloud. We need data and apps structured to get the best from AI -we need data accessible (but secure) to allow these LLMs to surface and make decisions or conclusions based on this data and it needs people to understand the true power of what these tools can do. I still feel many see AI as something of a fad, a promise of something and something others will do. Even looking inside our own organisation we have a lot to do – to really deeply understand and appreciate what AI will do for us.

If you haven’t used it – dive in , start interfacing with your PC via Windows Copilot, leverage Bing Enterprise Chat, get ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot by working with your Microsoft Partner.

AI is the future – it’s here and it’s for everyone and every organisation – but your data is what will make it successful and useable.

Posted on

Windows 11 gets Copilot upgrade as “moments 4” update rolls out.

Microsoft’s AI infused update is now rolling out for the masses. The update started rolling out last Tuesday and is the lastest next major feature update for Windows 11. It is bundled as part of the October’s security release for all Windows 11 users.

This update (known as Moment 4 update) is far more than security updates and includes lots of improvements and big new features to take advantage of that include a new File Explorer design, Copilot for Windows (a new AI assistant). There are also lots of improvements to the Taskbar, and notable in-box app updates as well including notepad and paint.

Here’s a quick rundown of the key new things and changes.

Major AI related stuff

  • Windows Copilot (incorporating Bing Chat)
  • AI-powered file recommendations in both File Explorer and Start
  • A new AI Hub for “AI-powered apps” in the Microsoft Store

Changes to desktop and taskbar

  • A new File Explorer design with more modern interfaces plus a new “Gallery feature”
  • System wide ability to Ink directly into text boxes
  • Taskbar app labels and other improvements
  • HDR desktop wallpaper support
  • New Windows Spotlight wallpaper UI
  • Native support for more archive file formats such as .RAR
  • New sound output menu
  • Native RGB peripheral controls

New features and UI changes

  • New account recommendations in Start and Settings
  • A new revamped Settings homepage

Inbox app updates

  • A new cloud-based backup and restore feature built in to Windows
  • Snipping Tool improvements including OCR text and ability redact / mask sensitive information
  • Improvements to Notepad including new auto save feature

When is Windows 10 end of life?

As a reminder to those still on Windows 10, this will go end of support on October 14, 2025 meaning now more feature or security updates…

Microsoft says that “Every Windows product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it’s no longer supported. Knowing key dates in this lifecycle helps you make informed decisions about when to update, upgrade or make other changes to your software.”

Windows 11 is now on over half a billion devices as of October 2023 according to Microsoft.

Posted on

Microsoft September 2023 News: The new and exciting stuff

Microsoft hosted a live Surface and AI event on Thursday 21st September where they announced a lot of new and exciting features and products across its various platforms and services. In this blog post, I have tried to summarise the most notable ones and explain how they might benefit you and your organisation. 

Disclaimer (and product plug) - Since this was an AI event in whole, I also want to state that other than some slight tweaks, this blog post was written by Bing Enterprise Chat - Microsoft Designer created the image. The whole thing took less that 10 minutes.

Copilot: Your AI Assistant at Work and Beyond

Copilot is a new feature that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help you with various tasks, such as drafting emails, summarizing texts, creating images, and more. You can access Copilot from Windows 11, Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing, and chat with it in natural language. Copilot will understand your intent and provide relevant assistance based on the context and your data.

For example, you can ask Copilot to draft an email for you with a specific tone, or to generate a graphic art based on your description. You can also use Copilot to answer questions, troubleshoot your PC, control your settings, and access recommendations. Copilot is designed to save you time, reduce your cognitive load, and ignite your creativity.

Copilot will be generally available for enterprise customers on November 1st, and for a select group of consumers and small business customers as part of the Early Access Program (EAP). It will initially be limited to three hundred licenses and will cost $30 per user per month.

Windows 11: The Most Powerful and Personal Windows Ever

Windows 11 is the latest (and IMO best) version of the Microsoft’s desktop operating system that powers millions of devices around the world. Windows 11 offers a fresh and modern design, improved performance, and security, and a more personalised and connected experience. They announced the latest update coming next week (Sept 26th). Some of the new features in Windows 11 will include:

  • An updated Start menu that gives you quick access to your apps, documents, and settings.
  • An updated Taskbar that lets you easily switch between multiple instances of each app, hide the time and date, and end tasks with a right-click.
  • A new Dev Home that helps you set up your development environment by downloading apps, packages, or repositories, connecting to your developer accounts and tools, and accessing experimental features in WSL.
  • A new Dev Drive that provides a fast and secure storage volume for developers, with a file system that delivers both performance and security.
  • A new WinGet Configuration that simplifies the setup process for developers by reducing it to a single command.
  • New Gallery in File Explorer that makes it easy to access your photo collection across all your devices.
  • A new Snipping Tool that lets you record your screen with audio and mic support, copy and redact text from a screenshot, and edit your images with Paint.
  • A new Photos app that has new editing capabilities to achieve stylish background blur effects and makes it easier to find specific images backed up in OneDrive.
  • Updated Narrator that uses natural human voices in new languages, and lets you use voice access to log in to your PC and access other areas on the lock screen.
  • Refreshed Notepad app that automatically saves your session state, allowing you to close Notepad without any interrupting dialogs and then pick up where you left off when you return.
  • A new Instant Games feature that lets you play your favorite casual games directly from the Microsoft Store without the need to download and install them on your device.
  • Windows Copilot – Your Copilot for Windows.

Windows 11 also announced general availability of Windows 365 Boot and Windows 365 Switch, which allow you to log into your Windows 365 Cloud PC as the primary Windows experience on the device or easily switch between the Cloud PC and the local desktop. Windows 365 is a cloud PC service that lets you stream a full Windows experience from anywhere on any device and is fully managed from Intune.

This update will start rolling out as a free update on September 26th.

Surface: The Ultimate Devices for Work and Play

Surface is Microsoft’s line of devices that combine innovative design, powerful performance, and versatile functionality. Surface devices are built to work seamlessly with Windows 11 and Microsoft 365, offering the best productivity and creativity tools for work and play. I am a massive fan of Surface

The new / refreshed Surface devices include:

  • Surface Laptop Studio 2: The most powerful Surface ever built, with the latest Intel Core processors, NVIDIA Studio tools for creators, touchscreen display, and flexible design with three unique postures.
  • Surface Laptop Go 3: The lightest and most portable Surface Laptop, with touchscreen display, premium features like an incredible typing experience and a Fingerprint Power Button, and four stylish colours.
  • Surface Go 4: The baby Surface Pro is this time, available only for corporate and not consumer market (why??), the device is the same dimensions as before but is more repairable (the most repairable and sustainable device int he Surface Fleet). It ditches the 4GB RAM option (good) and brings a higher spec entry level processor. Pricing increases too which is a shame as is ditching consumer market. These are great for school kids.
  • Surface Hub 3: The ultimate collaboration device for teams, with a large interactive display that runs the Microsoft Teams Rooms experience. Surface Hub 3 pairs seamlessly with Teams-certified devices and supports Hub on day one. There was also an upgrade announced for Surface Hub 2S customers to upgrade to Surface Hub 3,

The new Surface devices are available for pre-ordering now.

Microsoft 365: The World’s Productivity Cloud

Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based subscription service that offers the best productivity apps for work and life. Microsoft 365 includes apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Teams, Stream, Loop, Clipchamp, and more.

Microsoft 365 Copilot (which will be available from 1st November) is an add-on service at $30 per user per month and provides in-built AI-powered features and services that help you get more done across all your Office 365 apps and services – with support also coming to Microsoft Designer, Loop and Clipchamp and more.

Some of the new features and services in Microsoft 365 include:

  • Copilot in Outlook, Excel, Word, Loop, OneNote, Stream, and OneDrive: Copilot is integrated into various Microsoft 365 apps to provide AI assistance for different tasks. For example, you can use Copilot in Outlook to draft emails, in Excel to create charts, in Word to summarize documents, in Loop to generate content blocks, in OneNote to take notes, in Stream to transcribe videos, and in OneDrive to find files.
  • Generative Expand, Fill, and Erase in Microsoft Designer: These features let you manipulate images in creative ways, such as expanding the canvas, filling in missing areas, or erasing unwanted objects. Generative Erase is generally available now, and Generative Fill and Expand are coming soon.
  • Copilot Lab: Copilot Lab is a feature that lets you learn how to use Copilot effectively, share your favorite prompts with coworkers, and get inspired by other users. Copilot Lab will be accessible to all Microsoft 365 Copilot users once it’s generally available in November.
  • Mobile Application Management (MAM) for Windows: This feature allows employees to access organisational resources through Microsoft Edge from an unmanaged device, while giving IT the ability to control the conditions under which the resources can be accessed.

Bing and Edge: The Smartest Way to Search and Browse

Bing and Edge are Microsoft’s search engine and web browser that offer a fast, secure, and personalized way to search and browse the web. Bing and Edge use AI to provide relevant information and assistance based on your needs and preferences.

Some of the new features and improvements in Bing and Edge include:

  • DALL-E 3 in Bing Image Creator and Microsoft Designer integration: Bing Image Creator is a feature that lets you create images from text descriptions using AI. Bing Image Creator is now powered by DALL-E 3, which produces more realistic and detailed images. You can also access Bing Image Creator directly from Microsoft Designer for further editing.
  • Content Credentials: Content Credentials is a feature that uses cryptographic methods to add an invisible digital watermark to all AI-generated images in Bing. This helps you verify the origin and authenticity of the images. Content Credentials will be supported in Bing Image Creator, Microsoft Designer, and Paint soon.
  • Bing Chat Enterprise: Bing Chat Enterprise is a feature that lets you chat with Copilot from the Edge mobile app. You can also use multimodal visual search and Image Creator from Bing Chat Enterprise.
  • Copilot in Microsoft Shopping: Copilot in Microsoft Shopping is a feature that helps you find what you’re looking for more quickly. You can ask for information on an item, and Bing will ask additional questions to learn more. Then, Bing will use that information to provide more tailored recommendations. This feature will be available soon on both PC and mobile.
  • Personalised Answers: Personalised Answers is a feature that uses your chat history to inform your results. For example, if you’ve used Bing to track your favorite soccer team, next time you’re planning a trip it can proactively tell you if the team is playing in your destination city. Personalized Answers will begin to roll out soon.

Microsoft Advertising: The Best Way to Reach Your Customers

Microsoft Advertising is a platform that helps businesses connect with their customers across the web. Microsoft Advertising offers various solutions and tools to create effective and engaging ads that reach the right audience at the right time.

Some of the new features and improvements in Microsoft Advertising include:

  • Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform: Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform is a feature that simplifies and enhances every aspect of your experience with the platform. You can use Copilot to create campaigns, get content recommendations, optimize your performance, and more. This feature will be coming soon.
  • Compare & Decide Ads: Compare & Decide Ads are a new type of ads that pull relevant data of various products or services into a succinct table. This helps users easily evaluate different options based on their criteria. Compare & Decide Ads will be available for cars initially and will be brought to closed beta in early 2024.

Conclusion

These are just some of the highlights from the Microsoft September 2023 News. There are many more features and products that we didn’t cover here, but you can find them on the current web page context. I hope you are excited about these new developments, and I would love to hear what you are most excited about.

Posted on

Legal Damages Covered by Microsoft for their AI Customers

Microsoft said yesterday in a blog post that they will “pay legal damages on behalf of customers using its artificial intelligence (AI) products if they are sued for copyright infringement for the output generated by such systems“.

In the post, Microsoft said that they will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks arising out of any claims raised by third parties for copyright infringement so long as their company’s customers use “the guardrails and content filters” built into their AI powered products which include Bing Enterprise Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft said that this offers functionality that is designed to reduce the likelihood that their AI-powered services will return content that infringes copyrighted content.

Microsoft is announcing our new Copilot Copyright Commitment. As customers ask whether they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims, we are providing a straightforward answer: yes, you can, and if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s say that their Copilot Copyright Commitment will protect customers so long as they have “used the guardrails and content filters we have built into our products” said Hossein Nowbar, [CVP and Chief Legal Officer at Microsoft] in their blog post yesterday. Microsoft also pledged to pay related fines or settlements and said it has taken steps to ensure its Copilots respect copyright.

Microsoft’s pledge comes are part of their ethical use of AI commitments and say that “We believe in standing behind our customers when they use our products – we are charging our commercial customers for our Copilots, and if their use creates legal issues, we should make this our problem rather than our customers’ problem“.

Generative AI is now everywhere

Generative AI applications leverage existing content such including news, images and artwork, and evening programming code and use it to generate new “AI generated” content which may use combinations of different data sources. Microsoft is embedding much of this technology, powered by their partnership with OpenAI Inc, into their core technology products like Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 which as a potential to put their customers in “legal jeopardy”.

With the proliferation and growing use of generative AI – people are using these tools to generate text, images, sounds, other data, and people have raised concerns over the technology’s ability to generate content without referencing it to its original authors. To address this Microsoft, said that “We are sensitive to the concerns of authors, and we believe that Microsoft rather than our customers should assume the responsibility to address them. Even where existing copyright law is clear, generative AI is raising new public policy issues and shining a light on multiple public goals. We believe the world needs AI to advance the spread of knowledge and help solve major societal challenges. Yet it is critical for authors to retain control of their rights under copyright law and earn a healthy return on their creations“.

Protecting and upholding Copyright Laws

Artists, writers, and software developers are already filing lawsuits or raising objections about their creations being used without their consent which has accelerated since the available of Generative AI tools exploded with the release of ChatGPT back in November 2022. This includes programmers, artists, and authors.

I cannot show you that, as it would be unethical and illegal to do so. AI breaching copyright is a genuine issue that affects many artists and creators who have their original works used without their permission or compensation.

There are already several lawsuits against AI firms, which are testing issues of copyright. For example, three artists have filed a case against Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DeviantArt, an online art community with its own generator called DreamUp. They allege that the company unlawfully copied and processed their artworks without permission or license.

Microsoft say that their Copilot Copyright Commitment extends their existing intellectual property indemnification coverage to copyright claims relating to the use of its AI-powered assistants called Copilots and through to their AI powered Bing Chat Enterprise.

Microsoft state in their blog that “we have built important guardrails into our Copilots to help respect authors’ copyrights. We have incorporated filters and other technologies that are designed to reduce the likelihood that Copilots return infringing content. These build on and complement our work to protect digital safety, security, and privacy, based on a broad range of guardrails such as classifiers, meta prompts, content filtering, and operational monitoring and abuse detection, including that which potentially infringes third-party content”.

You can already see evidence of this safety net in tools such as Bing Enterprise Chat where the tools will do what it can to avoid purposely breaching copyright.

Further Reading

Microsoft on-the-issues blog (source): https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/06/08/announcing-microsofts-ai-customer-commitments/

Microsoft AI Commitments:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/06/08/announcing-microsofts-ai-customer-commitments/

Five things you need to know about Microsoft 365 Copilot: https://robquickenden.blog/2023/08/microsoft365copilot-5keythings/

Posted on

Five things to know about Microsoft 365 Copilot

I have run well over a dozen Business Briefing sessions with customers over the past month and whilst still not available to (most of) us yet, one thing is for certain – Microsoft 365 Copilot will be an absolute game-changer for any business that uses Microsoft 365 as their primary productivity and collaboration toolset.

If you are already leveraging Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Office, and even apps like Forms, Loop and Viva, the way you work with these apps, with your teams and customers is about to be turbo charged – bringing huge benefits to every employee who has a Copilot license.

This blog covers the 5 key things I’ve been talking to business’ about in the run up to release of Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Recap – what is Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot will be as deep rooted into Office 365 as Windows is on moder desktop and will be as revolutionary and disruptive as the hype. Whilst we may have “heard this before”, my early experience of Microsoft 365 Copilot tells me that this goes beyond any form of productivity gains we’ve been promised or seen before.

Microsoft 365 Copilot will be an absolute game-changer for any business that uses Microsoft 365 as their primary productivity and collaboration toolset.

Copilot won’t just be for IT and the techies either – in fact, IT may benefit the least!

Copilot will help increase the speed to get work done, improve the quality and help people get more from your tools and data. It should help increase profit by automating tasks, enhancing productivity, and improving skills.

Copilot will be accessible to users through natural language and starts with a prompt from you in the associated Office 365 App through an approach called “grounding”. Microsoft 365 Copilot will help with anything and everything. It can help you with tasks such as analysing data in Excel, summarising documents, creating presentations from scratch or content elsewhere in PowerPoint, automatically minuting meeting and assigning follow-up tasks and providing detailed responses to any clarifying questions.

There is so much excitement for Microsoft 365 Copilot but also many things’ organisations need to do to prepare to ensure they get the best return on their investment – yes, it’s an investment, at circa $30 per user per month.

Here’s my five key things to be excited about and to make sure you prepare for….

Whether you are a business leader, manager, or a member of team, you need to understand how Copilot works and how it can benefit your role and your organisation. Otherwise, you will find your competition are using it to their advantage.

#1 It’s still a waiting game….

Whilst Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 Copilot back in March 2023 and made it available to an extremely limited (twenty-six) US organisations, the sizzle videos Microsoft released, which dominated social media has sparked huge interest, questions, and speculation about what is coming.

Then, in June 2023, Microsoft expanded the availability of the product to an “invited” list of around six hundred customers. Microsoft said they also expect to release Microsoft 365 Copilot in the “coming months” but realistically I think that this is still nine to twelve months away, though I expect the private preview will be available to more organisations around the time of Microsoft Ignite at the back end of 2023.

Whilst we hate to wait – there is a lot of preparation that most organisations will need to do to plan, prepare (and pay) for Microsoft 365 Copilot to get the best value from it.

We also now know that Microsoft 365 Copilot will set you back around $30 pupm based on the pricing Microsoft announced back in June 2023.

#2 – Quality of your data will be critical to success of Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot is powered by a large language model (LLM) that can access and analyse information from the Internet (it’s built on ChatGPT-4) but most importantly (and the main differentiation of this and ChatGPT), your organisational data.

Microsoft 365 Copilot will be deep rooting into your Office 365 environment, giving it the ability to leverage your Outlook messages, Teams chat, calls and meetings, OneDrive and SharePoint documents, Loop components, CRM data (Dynamics 365), Azure Files, and other internal and external data (via plug-ins) that it is permitted to access – and act on this data (at your command) to provide you create new content (from multiple sources), analyse data, compare content or re-write work directly from within your Office applications and services.

The other thing that stands Microsoft 365 Copilot aside from other AI tools like ChatGPT is a new indexing tool coming to Microsoft 365 called Semantic Index for Copilot, which is a sophisticated map of all your user and company data. For example, when you ask Copilot about the “March Sales Report,” it doesn’t simply look for documents with those words in the file name or body, it instead understands that “sales reports are produced by Kelly on the finance team and created in Excel.” And it uses that conceptual understanding to determine your intent and help you find what you need.

Sounds incredible right? Yes, but Microsoft 365 Copilot’s performance will depend primarily on what you ask it to do (more on that later), and the quality and completeness of your data. If your data is inaccurate, has multiple conflicting versions, or the permissions/access control are not correct, it may not give you the best results or even be able access the information. There is also the danger that it will have access to things you think it shouldn’t if your data governance and protection need work!

Therefore, if you do nothing else while you wait patiently for it, you need to ensure that your data is clean, updated, and consistent. The quality and security of your data has never been so important.

This is something that will need addressing and it is something that Microsoft strongly recommend doing now (while you are waiting for Copilot to be available).

Teh success of Microsoft 365 Copilot within your organisation will not be Copilot itself - it will be your organisational data that Copilot relies upon to do its job.


#3 The impact of Copilot will be huge for everyone.

We’ve all (most likely) used ChatGPT or Bing Chat Enterprise to help us write or summarise text, but with Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees will be able to get a jump start into whatever task they are starting or finishing.

This is because, with Copilot, Microsoft have not just added a tool that can access Generative Chat services (think Bing Chat Enterprise – which is powered by ChatGPT4).

Once you have your hands on Microsoft 365 Copilot, employees will be able to focus on the part of work that needs real human and skilled input, using the power of AI to get started quicker, improve quality of our work, and spend less time on mundane tasks. Microsoft 365 Copilot should be able to assist people in creating high-quality content in a a much shorter amount of time.

Using AI to improve how we work – Image (c) Microsoft.

You will have seen from the demos that every Office app will have a Copilot button, which once clicked will call your Copilot assistant’s chat box right from within your application.

For example….

  • In Excel – Copilot can help analyse data and generate charts, creating formulas from free text input, visualise information better or look for trends across different cells, sheets, or workbooks. It will also be able to help with data management by suggesting content and formatting options for your spreadsheets
  • In Word it will help you write documents, curate executive summaries, create proposals or summarise from emails, presentations, or meeting notes. It will be able to write, edit, summarise, and creates right alongside you with only a brief prompt. Copilot will help you create a first draft of document, bringing in information from across your organisation and the internet as needed. Copilot can add content to existing documents, summarize text, and rewrite sections or the entire document to make it more concise.
  • In PowerPoint – Copilot can help you turn your ideas into stunning presentations. Copilot will be able to transform existing written documents into decks complete with speaker notes and sources or start a new presentation from a simple prompt. It will be able to condense lengthy presentations at the click of a button and let you use natural language commands to adjust layouts, reformat text, and perfectly time animations. Microsoft call it your “storytelling partner”
  • In Outlook – According to a report by McKinsey, the average employees spend 28% of their time reading and responding to emails. Copilot will help you triage your inbox, summarise long email threads, and generate replies for you. Copilot will also help you with tasks such as scheduling meetings, creating tasks, and setting reminders and can also help with email management by suggesting content and formatting options for your messages.
  • In Teams – Copilot will help you summarise and prepare for meetings by combing through all your documents, emails, meetings, files, and resources to get you information you need that is highly relevant. It can streamline tasks such as scheduling meetings, creating agendas, and taking notes during meetings. It can also help you with tasks such as creating tasks, setting reminders, and managing your to-do list. Copilot can also help you with team collaboration by suggesting content and formatting options for your messages.
Copilot won't be limited to Microsoft 365 either. Copilot is coming to Dynamics 365, Teams, Viva and of course Power Platform. Copilot is also coming to Windows 11, Bing and of course their developer tools GitHub. There's even a Security Copilot for your Microsoft 365 Admins and SOC.

#4 Copilot “should” pay for itself.

Watch the sizzle video again – Microsoft 365 Copilot will be able to do all the things shown here just by chatting to the Copilot chat bot. it and will also suggest things proactively.

At $30 per user per month, this can add a lot of cost to your cloud subscriptions, but rest assured, Copilot will save vast amounts of wasted time, which will increase productivity (letting people work on other things). Copilot is there to aid every person do almost any task in any app.

For example

While you may not be able to test this until you have your hand on a pilot yourselves, most of the organisations I have spoken to know that eventually investment in AI has the potential to more than pay for itself. With Microsoft 365 Copilot, this $30 (£25) pupm, should improve output and productivity, save time (which saves money) and enabled people to get more done quickly (which saves money) depending on how you look at it to more than £25 pupm in investment.

So, £25 a month is around 75p per day. If you have someone earning £50,000 a year, and they work ~250 working days then this is about £200 a day or £25 an hour.

Now, say they host/run TWO meetings a month and spend 30 mins writing up minutes and action plans after the meeting – then that’s about one hour @ £25 cost.

If, instead of doing this themselves, Microsoft 365 Copilot could write up the minutes and take actions just for that one meeting then we have technically saved that £25 for an investment of £25 (per month) – so we have already broken even after one Copilot run meeting!

Once you’ve run a pilot and tested this out, I am pretty certain almost every person or role would benefit from Copilot and even if not everyone, you’ll want to look at a time and motion study (or mini assessment anyway) and look at the ways Copilot can squeeze an additional 30 mins a day in time back or revenue generating tasks.

#5 – It won’t be perfect so make sure you “check it’s work”

Like all transformative technologies, there are tasks that AI is not well suited for, so it’s important to be aware of the potential drawbacks.

AI-produced content and outputs may contain inaccuracies, biases, or sensitive materials because they were trained on information from the internet, as well as other sources. AI may not know about recent events yet, and struggles to understand and interpret sarcasm, irony, or humor. Please remember that it’s not a person.

Microsoft advise that “It’s important that you review any content the AI generates for you to make sure it has accurately produced what you wanted.” – this means you are responsible for the content and checking its sources!!

Remember again, that Copilot’s ability to do the best job will be reliant on what you ask and where the data comes from that it uses, so remember – rubbish in, rubbish out. Your pilot and testing of Copilot are critical in making sure users get the best experience.

Posted on

What is Semantic Index for Copilot?

Semantic Index for Copilot promises to help organisations get ready for AI within their workplace. What is it? How does it work? and Why will we need it?

Last week as part of Microsoft’ annoucement about the next stage of the early previews of Copilot, they also annouced Semantic Index for Copilot, which will allow organisations to better prepare their data and users for Copilot by creating a “sophisticated map” of user and corporate data.

Image (c) Microsoft

This map is formed by encoding and indexing the keyword searches by uses into a vector that combines the phrsses, meanings, relationships and context of the data. This map is used to help Microsoft 365 Copilot to essentially learn more about your organisation (privacy and data protection being preserved of course), allowing it to better respond to user queries or “prompts.”

Available soon (for no additional cost) for Microsoft 365 Enterprise [E3 and E5] customers as well as Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium, it will work with the Copilot subsystem and the Microsoft Graph to create a sophisticated map of all the users, data and content in your organisation. It’s purpose will be to identify relationships between people and data, helping it to create important connections between them. Organisations will be able to use this to test the responses, answers and deductions formed by Copilot to help clean up, secure and better govern data eliminating the “garbage in, garbage out”, ensuring it will be able to deliver relevant, actionable responses to prompts based on data held within the company. This little video from Microsoft helps bring the process to life:

Microsoft video on Semantic Index for Copilot

Copilot’s new Semantic Index feature should help the chatbot locate and fetch the correct data requested by a user rather than spitting out every result based on a keyword search.

As the technology community eagerly anticipates the wider release of Copilot, Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to enhance its functionality and expand its accessibility represent a significant step forward in harnessing the power of AI to empower users and streamline work processes. Last week the early preview was extended to 600 (invite only) organisations across the US.

Microsoft also shared new upcoming improvements to their existing products which will become AI infused. These annoucements include the integration of Copilot into Whiteboard, Outlook, OneNote, Loop, and Viva Learning. They also said that new image generation features powered by DALL-E are coming to PowerPoint.

Finally, a reminder from Microsoft that they are committed to ensure tbeir AI solutions adhere to their strict Responsible AI Standard while providing meaningful benefits to their customers.

Microsoft’s Work Trend Index reenfoced our ‘need’ for AI

In order to further remind us, why we lift like Copilot is needed in today’s work environments, Microsoft also revealed the results of their 2023 Annual Work Trend Index.

This report is based on surveys of 31,000 individuals spread across 31 countries. Microsoft’s findings this year indicated that there has been a drastic increae in the volume of assigned work and the pace required from employees. The report claims that leaders, managers and workers are more looking towards AI solutions to reduce their respective workloads, rather than being scared about jobs it may replace.

The work trend index also highlights the following key points..

  • 62% of employees spend unnecessary time searching for information, as well as communicating and coordinating across teams, leaving little focus time
  • Nearly two-thirds of the respondents noted that they did not find enough time to do their actual job
  • 70% of respondents would prefer delegating some of their workload to AI copilots
  • With the rise in AI-powered solutions, 49% are concerned about job security
  • Managers are 2x more likely to empower their employees with AI rather than replace them with it
  • 82% of enterprise leaders believe that their employees will require new skills in this age of AI, including prompt engineering and enhancing their workflows by integrating AI
  • There has been a 79% year-over-year increase in LinkedIn job postings which have used words like “GPT” and “GAI” (generative artificial intelligence)

More reading..

Posted on

Preparing for Microsoft Copilot

Everyone got very excited when Microsoft introduced the world to Microsoft Copilot back in March this year and just yesterday they reached a new milestone, after annoucing a private preview with just 600 global customers.

But… One of the questions I get asked a lot (between colleagues, partners and customers) is “…are there things we need to do to be ready for Copilot when it becomes available”.

The simple answer is yes – if you want it to work as expected

The longer answer is “it depends” on if you plan to use it, how well your current data is structured, organised and governed, and what processes you have in place around user education, training and change management.

Based on the work I have been doing with Microsoft, this list is aimed to provide the key things, suggestions and considerations for IT, managers and leadership on things you’ll want to get ship-shape while we wait for Copilot to be more generally available, which my sources tell me will be late 2023 to Q1 2024.

1. Get your data in shape.

The reason Microsoft 365 is the productivity suite of choice for so many (arguably most) organisations is because it brings together applications, data, groups, users and services into a common and integrated suite, as well as providing thousands of connectors to allow organisations to connect third-party apps and data into mix.

Powered by the Microsoft Graph, Microsoft 365 already has the power to connect people, teams, and organisations across all their apps and services in an intelligent and context aware, with AI powered services scattered across the Microsoft 365 apps and services you use every day….

With Microsoft Copilot….this will move to a whole new level.

Copilot will put conversational AI at the front and centre of every app and service you know and use. Leveraging personal context, re-generative learning and of course the Microsoft Graph, Copilot will make its’ own deductions on what you ask, what you mean, and how you work. Whilst it will learn and evolve, it will of course, still be dependent on your organisational data, and how its structured, governed and secured.

This means if you have say 50 different documents spread out in 15 different locations that talk about your company strategy or business objectives, and only one of them is the up-to-date version. How will Copilot know which version is correct when it needs to surface information based on a request? In the same way, if the management and reporting structure, job titles and other information is incorrect in Azure AD, Copilots’ decisions and advice around people will also likely be incorrect.

To help, organisations get AI-ready, Microsoft have announced that they will soon start to roll out a service known as Semantic Index for Copilot. This is a new service coming to Microsoft 365 which will create a sophisticated map of your data to help you test how Copilot will ingest and act on your data. Image for example a sales manager asking for “FY23 Sales Report,”. Copilot will be data and context aware, meaning that it will not simply look for documents that contain keywords in the filename or text body. Instead, Copilot will try to “understand” and “learn” about who within the organisation produces such reports, when they are shared, and where they are shared to.

Microsoft say that Semantic Index for Copilot will be a vital tool to help organisations ensure that employees will get predicable, relevant, accurate, and actionable responses to their asks of Copilot and will help your organisation to “tweak” their data lifecycle and governance to ensure that the data Copilot acts on is correct and accessible (or not) by the right people. 

What should you do?
1. Check and refine your SharePoint and Teams lifecycle, governance and compliance policies
2. Speak to your Microsoft partner about a funded data governance workshop 
3. Review and update Active Directory (or connect to HR to ensure these are up-to-date)
4. Look out for the release of Semantic Index for Copilot to "test your data"

2. Get your security in order

In a similar fashion to making sure our data is correct from a version and validty perspective, if we dont get our security and access control polcies in shape, we risk Copilot duiscovering data that a employee or team may not “meant to have access to”.

In the much the same way that the Office 365 apps “discover” the data around you – presenting files that your collegaues and teams are working on together, Copilot will do the same but on a whole new level, as what is searches for, indexes and uses, will be instructed by the user rather than simply surfaced.

Just like the rest of Microsoft 365, Copilot will adhere to the security, privacy, data governance and data sensitivity policies that has been set-up within your organisation, and will not provide information that the user doesn’t have access to. It may suggest for, example, “you dont have access to that, you may need to request this from Pam in accounts”.

The potential problem of course is that many (ok most) organisations have a sprawl of Teams sites, poor or inconsistent data governance, and inadequate user training, meaning that put simply, you may not realise the sheer amount of information and documents that is being shared within your organisation, and more importantly who actually has access to what data and how many copies may exist and where!

We all worry about Security – do we have MFA? Do we have conditional access configured? Are account protected? Is sensitive information protected? etc. We know the slogan “hackers dont hack in, they login” – just imagine if you have Copilot, and a users’ identity gets compromised. They log in, and with Copilot at their fingertips, they don’t need to worry about where stuff is stored as Copilot will do all the discovery for them!

So what can you do?
1. Review and refine your document management, security and privacy policies - perhaps introduce or enforce DLP and Data Classifcation  - aka Microsoft Purview
2. Review your security posture, MFA enforcement, risk based conditional access etc 
3. Create straightforward instructions and train people where to store documents and how to protect and secure them
4. Run a pilot and look at adoption data loss prevention and information classification to protect sensitive data.
5. Speak to your Microsoft partner about a funded workshop for 1, 2 and 3.

3. Explore, Plan, Experiment – but treat it as organisational change!

The release of Microsoft Copilot is still a little way away (it is a closed Private Preview today with around 600 global organisations) and there are currently no dates on the roadmap for a public preview mainstream release. There is also no pricing yet about pricing.

What we do know is – it is coming and it will fundamentally impact and change how your people and teams will work. Yes, there is still an element of hype, lots of desire to test it out, loads and loads of questions and lots of unknowns.

Communication and training is going to be a key part of sucess. How do you interface with AI? Yes its’ intelligent, but it’s not a human, therefore people need to be taught how to best work with Copilot. Bear in mind most people use around ten percent of the functionality of say Teams (with most just using basic functions like chat and calling), but to get the most from it, users need to know what to expect, how to use it and how the organisation wants (or not) employees to use it…

Create a pilot group and mini success team. Use this team to keep up-to-date with the news and blogs and above all make sure leadership, management and IT are “in the know”.

Start communicating your plans for Copilot and AI in general. Employees will and should have questions. Are there roles that might change or not be needed? Will you stop hiring? Will you wait and see? It will be important to talk to, and listen to employees, and ideally form a “success with AI” unit, bringing people together from different parts of the business, to discover the challenges they face in their everyday work and how they think and hope AI will help them.

Above all – think of this like a project (one of continual change). Depending on your business, AI will have an impact, and the whole organisation will need to understand and embrace this change (once we have it all working of course). Consider an AI abmassador and follow your usual approach to change management with a roadmap, PoCs, pilots and feedback groups so you hit it head on, with ideas, and a solid vision but with room for hiccups, course changes and surprises on the way.

That sounds like a lot - what can we do?
1. Build a success unit (could be a Team site of Viva Community)
2. Get onto early adoptor programmes when availble, go to the AI conferences and start to leverage demos etc when available. 
3. Talk to your peers, partners, and Microsoft Team and look out for funded workshops which will likely be available from summer.
4. Read Microsoft's Worklab report on working with next generation AI (it's a good read).

4. Keep Calm – it is coming but there is time to prepare

Microsoft has just announced the launch of their Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program. It’s an invitation-only, paid preview program that’s set to roll out to only 600 clients across the globe at first in the coming weeks.

They say that they have received overwhelming feedback from their initial early preview clients, they have been “testing the concepts” with. They say those clients have indicated huge benefits to business and the ways in which it can transform and reshape work. In recent months, Microsoft have also released further information around how Copilot will will impact other applications such as Viva, Dynamics 365, Teams and more with new capabilities being announced almost weekly.

This new generation of AI will remove the drudgery of work and unleash creativity…There’s an enormous opportunity for AI-powered tools to help alleviate digital debt, build AI aptitude, and empower employees

Satya Nadella |Chairman and CEO |Microsoft

We will know more as we move forward – there are lots of moving parts – previews, public previews, (potentially) governments getting in the way, data soverignty issues (today data is only processed in the US and not local in local geo), licensing prices and of course availabilty….

In fact – this is probably already out of date as its a rapid moving landscape, and this is just the tip of the iceberg and just Microsoft. 

What should you do?
1. Keep checking with your Microsoft team,. your partner and the Microsoft 365 Roadmap
2. Start thinking roles that will be positively affected by AI in the workplace. Speak to users, buid your success team. 
3. Think about new skills your teams will need to work along side AI. 
4. Read Microsoft's Worklab report on working with next generational AI (it's a good read).

What is next in CoPilot?

A good question….

When Microsoft annouced Copilot in March, where they showed the value concepts in apps like teams, Powerpoint and Excel, they said that this was “just the beginning”. Over the last couple of months, Microsoft have continued to tease new Copilot capabilities to bring AI to every part of Microsoft apps and services. The key annoucements (since the actual annoucement include):

  • Copilot in Whiteboard – which will make Microsoft Teams meetings and brainstorms more creative and effective. Using natural language, you will be able to ask Copilot to generate ideas, organize ideas into themes, create designs that bring ideas to life and summarise whiteboard content.
  • Copilot in Outlook will offer coaching tips and suggestions on clarity, sentiment and tone to help users write more effective emails and communicate more confidently.
  • Copilot in OneNote will use prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists and organize information to help customers find what they need easily.
  • Copilot in Loop will helps your team stay in sync by quickly summarising all the content on your Loop page to keep everyone aligned and able to collaborate effectively.
  • Copilot in Viva Learning will use a natural language chat interface to help users create a personalized learning journey including designing upskilling paths, discovering relevant learning resources and scheduling time for assigned trainings.

Q&A – This will evolve

QuestionWhat we knowSource
Where will the data be processed by Copilot?Microsoft have said that currently all processing will take place is the US. It will eventually be regionalised based on customer tennant. No time scales yetMay 2023: Microsoft 365 Conference
Will Copilot respect data seciuroty and soverienty?Yes -Microsoft have made it clear that Copilots’ sphere of access will be limited to the user context in which it runs, goverened by your organisation’s policies. May 2023: Microsoft 365 Conference.
When will Copilot enter public preview?No dates annouced yet. Be sure to keep an eye on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap.
Will there be charge for Copilot.No offical news but the expectation is yes.
Q&A Table.

What do you think?

Like you, I am still working out what this means for our business, my teams and my people. I welcome your feedback, thoughts and ideas.

Posted on

What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Microsoft has just announced Microsoft 365 Copilot, which will combine the power of large language models (LLMs) along with user data and signals from the Microsoft Graph – calendar, emails, Teams chats, documents, meetings etc.

In the sizzle style launch, Microsoft showed how Microsoft 365 Copilot will transform the power of Microsoft 365 apps and be able to turn an individual’s words into the “most powerful productivity tool on the planet“, while leveraging Microsoft’s existing commitments to data security and privacy.

Microsoft described existing AI systems as autopilot systems. Microsoft hopes to differentiate is by offering tools that use AI in a way to support human workers with humans at the center with that they called Copilot.

“We’re moving from autopilot to Copilot. As we build this next generation of AI, we made a conscious design choice to put the human at the centre of the product. Today is the start of the next step in this journey, with powerful foundation models and capable copilots accessible via the most universal interface – natural language – which will radically transform how computers help us think, plan and act.”

Satya Nadella | CEO | Microsoft.

Microsoft 365 Copilot isn’t just a better way of doing the same things – it represents an entirely new way of working. Copilot will be integrated into Microsoft 365 in two ways.

“Today, we are at the start of a new era of computing. Over the past few months, powerful new foundation models have been introduced, together with accessible natural language interfaces. This next generation of AI is fundamentally different from the AI we’ve grown accustomed”.

Sayta Nadella | CEO | Microsoft.
  • Copilot will soon be embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps people use every day – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, PowerBI etc – to unleash creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel skills.
  • Business Chat, an entirely new experience that works across the LLM, Microsoft 365 apps, and user data to do things that have never been possible before. This will use natural language to allow users to able to spend less time searching for the right document or piece of information and more time creating, collaborating, and innovating.

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft has set the stage for the beginning of a new AI revolution that will further reinvent how people work and interact with the tools they use everyday. Microsoft will start this journey with a limited private preview and will provide additional details partners and customers over time…

Microsoft 365 Copilot | Images (c) Microsoft

I’d also expect similar to come into other apps like Visio too. Microsofts’ new Designer App and of course the new Bing are also leveraging Copilot.

Teams Copilot sneak peak

Microsoft shows some of the new AI smarts coming to #MicrosoftTeams too. Some this is expected very soon such as meeting recap in Teams Premium. Here’s the sizzle for the new AI powered Teams Copilot.

Copilot in Microsoft Teams

Will Copilot by free?

From a cost perspective, we simply don’t know yet. Some of the features (such as meeting recap) are available soon in Teams Premium (a premium sku) but we don’t know yet what will be included across the core Microsoft 365 apps).

I suspect (this is just my opinion), Copilot will be incuded free in the core office apps (for personal and business subscribers) but corporate apps like Teams, PowerBI, Power Automate etc will be chargeable, as leveraging the wider OpenAI and ChatGPT APIs that are now available within Azure.

When will Copilot be available?

Microsoft have said the roll out will be controlled and very phased starting with small. Private previews to ensure they perfect the model and make sure the experience is the best it can be.

Update: In May 2023, Microsoft extended the pilot to another 600 US organisations.

More resources

  • Watch the recording of the March 16 event to hear Satya Nadella and Jared Spataro discuss how AI will power the next generationof modern work
  • Get full details about this exciting news by reading posts on the Official Microsoft Blog and the Microsoft 365 Blog.
  • Check out WorkLab to get expert insights and Microsoft’s research about how AI will create a brighter future of work for everyone.
Proudly powered by WordPress