Tag: Microsoft 365 Copilot

Posted on

Two-weeks with Microsoft Copilot | Teams and Outlook.

Title Image for using Microsoft Copilot for two weeks

I have been using Copilot for Microsoft 365 for two full weeks in within our organisation (no test/dev platforms) since Microsoft made this more generally available on the 14th January 2024.

Two weeks on, I wanted to share my experience of using Copilot in Microsoft 365 fairly aggressively. I am breaking this blog into a series, focusing on different aspects of the experience starting today with the apps I spend most time in (as I am sure you do too) – Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook.

The other question I will try to answer is – so far, two weeks in, is it worth the £25 pupm!

Great Expectations

Despite working with organisation readiness since June with a focus on organisational data and security readiness, using a combination of labs and “closed” demo labs, this was the first time I had real hands-on exposure to the hype that is Microsoft Copilot. Like many, I was impressed by the many iterations of Microsoft’s sizzle videos, sneak peaks and on-stage demos from Microsoft and their early access programme (EAP) users and as such I was extremely excited to finally get my hands on the real thing and use it within our organisation (as part of an internal adoption trial).

One thing to note, before diving into this blog is that my personal expectations for Copilot were (and still are) extremely high.

The Copilot Onboarding Experience

This walks through the first couple of days from getting a license to being able to use Copilot in anger.

I closed my Office 365 apps (we are running on latest versions which is a pre-req) and slowly the Copilot experience begin to “light up in my apps”. First to get Copilot treatment was Microsoft Teams, followed by Microsoft Word. A few hours later, Copilot “lit up” in other apps including Loop, PowerPoint and Excel followed the next day (yes next day) in Outlook. The mobile apps also became Copilot active about the same time.

On getting a license assigned, I received an email tell me my organisation had assigned me a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, but nothing happened in my apps.

I closed my Office 365 apps (we are running on latest versions which is a pre-req) and slowly the Copilot experience begin to “light up in my apps” – but not all at once. First to get Copilot treatment was Microsoft Teams, followed by Microsoft Word.

A few hours later, Copilot “lit up” in other apps including Loop, PowerPoint and Excel followed the next day (yes next day) in Outlook. The mobile apps also became Copilot active about the same time.

Other members of our initial internal pilot, had a similar experience but not in the same order.

One thing to note, is that if you are part of the first tranche of users within your organisation, then, Microsoft “kicks off” the Sementic index engine which runs across your tenant. This takes a few days (longer for larger organisations) and works from most recent events and content backwards. This means that things seem to “turn on” or “work” at different times initially. Users added later have a more rapid onboarding experience.

A Word on Data Preparation

Much of the technical preparation and guidance for organisation adopting Microsoft 365 Copilot is around data readiness and the need for “proper” adoption and training for users as Copilot is not like another new feature you simply turn on – well at least if you want to get the best out of it and demonstrate high returns on your £25 pupm investment. Much of this “readiness” is not a new requirement as such, but the way in which Copilot works is, and should, be a wake up call for organisations to spend time implementing a proper data governance and lifecycle policy.

Much of this preparation is just good practice, but in Copilot terms, not having the above will impact not only the user experience but accuracy and usability of the service unless you spoon feed it the data you need.

Why? This is because, what makes Copilot unique is it’s access to the Microsoft Graph and your underlying data which is powered by Microsoft 365 Search and the Semantic Index. This involves three key pillars around data;

  • Understanding where your data is located and who has access
  • Understand the context of your data – this includes key words, titles, versioning etc
  • Understanding the data the organisation needs (and does not need) – archive, search terms, lifecycle management, retention etc.
  • Access and accessibility – data privacy, security (access control), and other policies in place.

This many organisations, getting these things in shape (if not already) is not a simply task – it takes time, structure, training (especially if you are going to label and classify data) and often process change. If you don’t have these things in place, its not a show stopper for Copilot but it might mean you expose existing risks (Copilot operates under the user’s context). As such, Copilot is a good trigger point/reason to look at this – whilst ensuring good business change, adoption and training are undertaken to give users the information they need to work better with your company data

Once concern I have, is that with the entry point to Copilot now just a single license, organisations may not give this area the right level of attention which may lead to user issues, sudden changes in policy (what do users have access to) and un expected results.

That said, if you are working in Teams and Outlook where the data it is referencing is more recent, relevant to the meeting or conversation or “part” of the chat or email – the data stuff is less relevant…

I have covered this more in other articles….

Copilot for Microsoft 365 – First Impressions

#BeyondExpections and far better than using ChatGPT

Ok this is a bold statement but you need to remember that Microsoft 365 Copilot uses GPT-4 (and GPT-4 Turbo) under the hood.

Copilot in Microsoft 365 instantly adds value to my day. What makes this so so so much better that a standalone tool (and even Copilot in Edge) is the fact that it is embedded natively into your Microsoft 365 apps and services. There is then the fact that not only does it work in the context of your apps, it also operates within your organisations Microsoft 365 data and compliance boundary and the way in which it leverages the Microsoft Graph to “perform its voodoo”. Copilot in Microsoft 365 uses a sophisticated data access methodology which uses Retrieval Augmented Generation against content and context, retrieved from the Microsoft Graph (with the Semantic Index). This means that Copilot not only understands what data to use, but is also aware and understands the relationships with the data, it’s context, your meetings, emails, recent files, team members, people relations and interactions and more.

Image (c) Microsoft – The Microsoft Graph

The combination of Copilot and the Graph API enables Copilot’s powerful features, and this is just the start. Microsoft also supports the increasing use of connectors and plug-ins, which allow data ingestion or connection to the Microsoft Graph. This means you can “plug-in” or “connect” third-party data sources to Copilot and extend its reach beyond the Microsoft 365 environment, while still being protected by the “trust boundary”.

In my two weeks, I have found the performance of Copilot across all the apps fast and interactive and much better than I experienced with Chat GPT and the “free” version of Copilot in Edge (Bing Chat)] The main reason for this is that Copilot using the most recent and premium versions of the Open AI Large Language Models (LLM), which use the newest GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo models which mean they are not only faster but can work on, and create bigger documents, process more input and leverage multiple data sources in which to form its’ response.

Hands on with Copilot in Teams

We spend a lot of time in meetings. According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index report most of spend between forty (40) and sixty (60) percent of our week in meetings so if there is anywhere that Copilot can make a welcome impact its Teams.

Copilot in Microsoft Teams is your personal assistant before, during and after meetings. The during bit is really impactful.

Using Copilot During a Meeting

In order to use Copilot to it’s fullest, you need to make sure that meetings are transcribed (ideally recorded too). Transcribing and recording a meeting retains the transcript and recording for you to “recap” later (see Teams Intelligent Recap). As the meeting organiser, you can also choose to allow Copilot in the background without transcribing (if enabled by IT), but be aware if you do not transcribe the meeting, you will not be able to use Copilot once the meeting has finished. For best results, make sure you transcribe the meeting at least (but ensure you tell or ask people first!).

When the meeting is running, you’ll see the Copilot button in the meeting ribbon and activating it, brings up an integrated interface to the right to the meeting (just like the chat window does).

Copilot “button” in Teams Meeting

Note: Copilot prompts are only visible to you. Other participants cannot see or access your prompts or see Copilot’s analysis or results from what you ask.

Using Copilot After a Meeting

When a meeting has finished (whether you didn’t attend it, missed it, or had to leave early), you can access the meeting recap from the “recap” tab in the meeting. The recap contains the notes taken in the meeting by attendees, the recording (if recorded) and the transcript (if transcribed). If you have Teams Premium or a Copilot License, you also see see the “AI Generated” notes, which contain notes and suggested actions generated by Teams AI [this is both a Teams Premium and Copilot thing].

Just like the in-meeting experience, Copilot opens in the right hand pane, where you can interact and use your prompt (as questions) to extract the information you need.

While Copilot generates the answers, it always displays the reference time in the meeting and who said it, so you can jump to the transcript or meeting recording (assuming the recorded or transcribed). This is useful in case of course the transcription is not 100% leading to Copilot making an assumption based on the transcript. Always good to check right!!

What can Copilot do in Teams Meetings?

Using Copilot in Teams is such a game changer in meetings.

You can ask Copilot literally anything around what was said in the meeting, what something means, what questions were asked, actions, sentiment and more.

The table below, shows some examples prompts against the use-case or ask that you may typically have depending on your role in the meeting (or if you attended it or not).

The example on the left is an example of how Copilot outputs the response based on the last use-case example in the table.

Use-casePrompt
Summarise the meeting so farSummarise the meeting so far. Put the information in a table clearly stating the topic discussed, key points and opinions of each people.
Discuss Pros and Cons of the topics discussedCreate a table of pros and cons for [insert topic] discussed in the meeting.
Assess the mood of the meeting.What was the sentiment of the meeting? Which people expressed their views the most and did the participants generally agree with each other?
Assess the effectiveness of the meetingWere there any unanswered questions in the meeting that need to be followed up.
Plan the follow up.What was agreed in the meeting, what suggestions were made and what would the suggested next steps be? Put the results in a table and identify the most suitable owner for each action.
Use cases and action examples for Copilot in Teams

Using Copilot in Chat (and Channels)

Copilot is also really helpful in chats or when working in conversations within Team chat. Here I see two main use cases.

  1. To catch up or summarise chat threads, missed messages or other information
  2. To help you communicate better and more to the point.

You can ask Copilot to suggest next actions from the chat context, summarise the thread or create replies for you.

Using Copilot in Chat Threads from Microsoft Teams

This available now in Chat and coming “soon” to Channels Chat in Team sites too!

Things you may choose to ask in a chat window could be.

  • Show me highlights from the past x days.
  • What decisions were made?
  • What questions have been asked since xxxday?

Hands on with Copilot in Outlook

The second place (well mine) we all spend far to much time is Outlook. Its where many conversations (that could be an IM in Teams) happen, but also where many business to business communications and more formal communication takes place.

I have been using ChatGPT and Copilot In Edge since they first came out to help me re-write “some” emails or to help me adjust the tone of what I am writing, but Copilot in Outlook takes this to a whole other level.

Its worth noting that Copilot in Outlook is still “evolving” and is not yet (disappointingly) on par with the promotional “sizzle” videos Microsoft have been showing off (but it is coming). Today Copilot works in three ways.

  1. Drafting with Copilot – where you can tell Copilot what you want to see and it will draft the email for you or you can pick from standard “templated” responses.
  2. Coaching with Copilot – where Copilot works “with” you while you are writing to help you perfect/tune your email or response
  3. Summary by Copilot which provides as it says an overview of a thread of emails which is really useful if you are catching up on a long email conversation.

Drafting with Copilot

This is what most will be familiar with (and expecting) if they have used Copilot in Edge, or Chat GPT to write text based stuff. The main difference with Copilot in Outlook is also that it can reference and access recent files inline. Here is an example of an email I asked Copilot to draft.

Copilot in Outlook – Drafting Example.

Coaching with Outlook

This is similar to drafting, but works more like Grammarly or Microsoft Editor. Instead of drafting the entire email, you start it off and then Copilot works with you on the fly to provide guidance about how to better shape and perfect your email. In this mode, Copilot doesn’t re-write the mail, it helps you to perfect it.

Copilot in Outlook – Coaching Example

Summary By Copilot

This is used to bring together an email chain (the longer the better) into key points and actions. It is not replacement for manually combing through the email thread but is really useful for playing catch up.

Summary By Copilot in Outlook.

More AI things are coming

many of the other really cool feature are yet to go live in Outlook. One of the ones I am waiting patiently for is the ability to “Follow a Meeting”. Follow will be a new meeting response (RSVP) option that goes beyond the traditional Accept, Tentative and Decline choices geared towards individuals with high meeting loads and conflicting meetings each day. Follow is the ideal RSVP option for meetings you can’t attend but still want to stay engaged and receive info about.

When you follow a meeting, you will get all the updates and insights about the meeting without having to attend it. It is expected later this year.

Two weeks in – Is Copilot worth the cost?

It’s still early days, but here’s my initial view. Hell yeah!

We are of course talking about just two weeks of use, in which I have “got my head around it”, educated my self (mainly out of hours) on how to write good prompts to get what I need it to do and then of course put it to practice in real life. Over that time, I:

  • Have used Copilot in Teams to take notes, write up actions and also share a summary a notes to my OneNote. Across 10 meetings, I estimate it saved me ~15 mins per meeting.
  • Used Copilot in Teams to record and take notes in 5 meetings I could not attend and then used Intelligent Recap (both a Teams Premium and Copilot feature) to capture meetings notes and actions. All five meetings were 50 mins in length and given the time I used (around 15 mins) to review the minutes and notes,this saved me 35 mins per meeting that I did not attend without me missing the “beat” of the meeting.
  • Used Copilot in Outlook a fair amount to reply to emails quickly, redraft a few team update meetings and project progressions as well as to recap email threads. I would guess this has probably saved me about an hour or so in all over the past two weeks.

If I add these up (excluding gains in using Copilot in other apps) this has given me back:

  • [15×10]+[35×5]+[1×60] = 385 mins / 6hrs 25mins over ten days
  • Around 12 hrs 50 mins (over 4 work weeks)

If we assumed an average IT role of £51k p/a – then this equates to a cost of £26.15 p/h (using £51,000/52weeks/37.5hrs). A Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is £25 pupm so based the example above (using my experience over the past two weeks) then we see :

  • Productivity saving of 12.83x£26.15 = £335.50 per month per person
  • Return on Investment of 12.62

Coming next – Word, Loop and PowerPoint

In the next blog, I’ll be covering my experiences with Copilot in Microsoft Word, Loop and PowerPoint which are the next set of apps I used most (after Teams and Outlook).

I also really would love to hear your views on Copilot for Microsoft 365

Posted on

What is Copilot Pro?

Microsoft have announced a new version of Copilot, called Copilot Pro which brings the core features of Microsoft 365 Copilot to individuals and families using Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscriptions.

The free version of Copilot is still available (see below) for those happy with the extensive features and services (which include access to Copilot with OpenAIs GPT4 and Dalle-3 image creator but don’t need to Microsoft Office integrations offered by Copilot Pro. Here’s how they differ.

Copilot Free Edition

This is still ideal for anyone who wants to use Microsoft’s extensive Generative AI and image technology to find information, create new content, summarise and rewrite and have access to DALL-E 3 image creation technology (outside the Office 365 apps) and enables users to:

  • Access to Copilot via Windows 11, The Edge Side bar, the web (Copilot.Microsoft.com) and also as a dedicated app on Windows, Android, macOS and iPadOS
  • Use CHAT GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo for free (with some speed limitations during peak times).
  • Access Copilot via text, voice and images in conversational based search with up to 30 iterations (turns) per conversion and no limits on the number of chats.
  • Access to Microsoft’s Designer image creator (powered by Open AI DALL-E 3) with 15 speed boosts per day.
  • Access to consumer aligned plug-ins available from third party providers such as OpenTable, Skyscanner and Spotify.

Copilot Pro

This premium service costs £19 per user per month ($20) on top of your Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription is aimed at individuals and families (or people that work from themselves) who want to Turbo charge their productivity and use Copilot directly from within their Microsoft 365 apps like Word and Outlook as well getting Premium, faster access to GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo, along with additional premium features within Microsoft’s Bing image creator and Designer

With Copilot Pro, you get:

  • Priority access to GPT-4 and the newest GPT-4 Turbo features with no performance caps during peak times.
  • The ability to access Microsoft Copilot directly from within Microsoft 365 apps like Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. This can be used to create and re write content directly from the Office apps for content creation, drafting documents and emails, create presentations and summarise data in excel.
  • Premium features and newest features first with DALL-E 3 including ability to create content in landscape format. Subscribers also get more image creation boosts with this rising from 15 to 100 per day with Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator).

How to get Copilot Pro now

You can subscribe to Copilot Pro for $20 \ £19 a month. What is good is the commitment is only one month so can be cancelled at anytime.

Copilot Pro for Individuals.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/b/copilotpro?rtc=1

Word of caution of pricing on Family Subscriptions…

One thing you need to be aware of is how Copilot Pro is licenses for Microsoft 365 Family subscribers. You usually pay your £79 per year for the family subscription which covers up to 6 people with full Office 365, OneDrive etc.

You need to buy a Copilot Pro license for every member of your family you wish to use Copilot Pro. So this is an extra £19 per month for every family member on top of the Family Microsoft 365 subscription.

So my family of 4 that takes a Copilot Pro version of Microsoft 365 Family to over £1,000 a year! We just use a single license!

As a consumer or individual will you be investing in Copilot Pro or is the free version enough for you.

Posted on

Microsoft 365 Copilot now available for everyone including CSP customers.

Today, 15th Jan 2024, Microsoft has announced that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available for organisations of all sizes and individuals with no seat minimum. Microsoft Copilot Pro was also announced for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family users.

Originally annouced in March 2023 and then hitting general availability for enterprises in November 2023 with a 300 seat minimum commitment.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is Microsoft’s AI-powered productivity tool that uses/is based on the OpenAI ChatGPT 4 large language models (LLMs) and integrates your business data with the Microsoft Graph and Microsoft 365 Apps, working alongside employees core business apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and of course Microsoft Teams.

Copilot Pro and Copilot for Microsoft 365

Copilot for Microsoft 365 Business

Microsoft has today announced that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now also generally available for small businesses with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard licenses. What’s more, they can purchase between just one and three hundred (well 299) seats for $30 per person per month.

Copilot for Enterprise and Commercial with no minimum purchase

Microsoft has also removed the 300-seat purchase minimum for commercial plans and made Copilot available for Office 365 E3 and E5 customers.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 teaser video. (c) Microsoft

Commercial customers can now purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365 through Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners such as Cisilion.

Plus Copilot ‘Pro’ for individuals

Finally, Microsoft has also annouced Microsoft Copilot Pro which is aimed at comsumers/individuals.

Available “soon”, this is a subscription bolt on for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers bringing the power of Copilot to everyone.

Unlike the free Copilot experience (available in Edge and Windows 11), Microsoft’s Pro version will serve as a “single AI experience” that runs across your devices and also works (like the version for Business) from within the Microsoft Office apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Microsoft 365.

Users will also get “priority access” to OpenAI’s latest AI model GPT-4 Turbo even during peak usage times and can also choose between different GPT models in a later update. Users also get enhanced AI image creation with Image Creator from Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator), with 100 boosts per day while bringing more detailed image quality as well as landscape image format.

Copilot Pro for Individuals. Video (c) Microsoft

Copilot Pro will also (soon) allow users to build their own Copilot GPT, a customised Copilot tailored for a specific topic, in the new Copilot GPT Builder with just a simple set of prompts.

People/families will be able to subscribe to Copilot Pro for $20 per month/per user.

You should still prepare though…

Whilst this makes it more attractive to organisations of all sizes and also helps organisations “test it out”, my worry is this will just be treated alike a product and as such organisations risk dabbling and not putting the effort in to making this a success.

My advice is to still follow the adoption and readiness guidelines around data protection, life cycle management and governance and security to ensure that Copilot gives the best results, provides real ROI and drives real outcomes. For now though the huge barrier to a pilot of Copilot is removed which in turn should help adoption, testing and business case development.

Adoption, training and change management is also super important..

The cover lots of this in my previous sets of blogs amd articles here.

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 announces Microsoft 365 Copilot availabilty

Today (Thursday 21st September) at a live event in New York, Microsoft announced their “revised” vision, release date and confirmation of pricing for Copilot – a “digital companion for your whole life”. Microsoft have said this this Copilot will create a single Copilot user experience across Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365, and Windows (plus more services that will come later). There’s also a new logo!

The Copilot experience promises to be consistent across all platforms and products – Microsoft 365, Bing, and Windows 11.

You can read the full blog from Microsoft here, but in summary here’s all the goodness that was announced.

Image (c) Microsoft

Microsoft Copilot in Windows

This has been in preview with Windows Insiders for a while and is essentially the new and revamped “cortana” [ok its far more than that].  Microsoft describe this as “a digital companion for your whole life” and will be nested into Windows 11 from September 26, 2023. 

  • Windows Copilot will be embedded into Windows 11 and will bring generative AI, search, and the ability to control apps and services within your desktop environment.
  • Currently in preview – will start rolling out starting from September 26 as part of 23H2.
  • Windows Copilot will also support third part app support like Spotify and Adobe.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Described by Microsoft as “your AI assistant at work”, this was initially announced back in March as been in closed invite only Early Access Preview since June.

Microsoft 365 builds includes enterprise-grade security, privacy, compliance, and responsible AI to ensure all data processing happens inside your Microsoft 365 tenant—using which will be natively built into the Microsoft 365 apps and services everyone already uses like Teams, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

  • This will be available for enterprise customers for $30 per user per month
  • It requires a base license of Microsoft 365 E3, E5 or Business Standard or Premium
  • It will be available from November 1st to purchase
  • Includes the new Microsoft 365 Chat (formally Business Chat).
  • Rollout will be staggered – with release first to EA customers who were on the Early Access Programme and then will be available in phases there-after. Customers are advised to speak to their Microsoft Team for more information.

Note: Whilst this is great – IMO it is a little too soon (about 4 months sooner than most expected). Organisations do need to ensure their data lifecycle, governance, compliance, and security is in top shape to get the most from Copilot in Microsoft and there are strong recommendations about getting Copilot Ready – I have covered this here previously. This is an area I’m working a lot with organisation with at the moment – helping with use cases, data preparation, training, awareness, security, and governance.

Bing Chat Enterprise

This has been in public preview for a couple of months for Commercial and Education customers and is the same as Bing Chat for consumer (which is also free) but brings commercial data protection for AI

  • This is available free for Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers or at a cost of $5 as a standalone
  • Bing Chat Enterprise adds commercial data protection to Bing Chat, ensuring that sensitive business data is never seen by anyone, never stored, and never used to train the foundation models.
  • Support multimodal visual search and Image Creator and will also be available on Microsoft Edge and Bing mobile app
Proudly powered by WordPress