Copilot for Microsoft 365: How does it work?

The year 2024 marks the beginning of a revolutionary era with the arrival of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, an innovative artificial intelligence integrated into your daily tools. This tool promises to transform the way you work, create, and collaborate, improving productivity and stimulating creativity in your company. To realize the full potential of Microsoft Copilot, a strategic and methodical approach is essential. After exploring its features, we will guide you through the preparation, implementation, and optimization of Copilot in your Microsoft 365 environment.

You will discover how this advanced AI can automate tasks, provide intelligent suggestions, and facilitate team collaboration, leading to significant operational improvements in your company. Find out how Copilot for Microsoft 365 works for businesses and how it can become an indispensable ally for your business.

What is Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is an intelligent assistant based on artificial intelligence (AI) developed by Microsoft. Using a language model similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Copilot is integrated into all Microsoft applications and experiences, including Microsoft 365, Windows 11, Edge, and Bing.

This tool is designed to understand and respond to your questions precisely and promptly, whether written or spoken. Its interaction capability significantly extends the standard functionalities of applications, offering advanced support in daily activities and business processes. Additionally, thanks to integration with OpenAI's DALL-E, Copilot can generate custom images according to your company's specific criteria. This functionality not only enriches visual communication creativity but can also significantly improve the quality of produced content.

Fully exploiting Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 means integrating a powerful and versatile assistant into the business workflow, enhancing operational efficiency and driving innovation through the intelligent use of emerging technologies.

Copilot for Microsoft 365: available versions

Microsoft Copilot

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an intelligent assistant designed to help you find answers and sources of inspiration across the web. It promotes creativity and collaboration, providing essential support to focus on the task at hand. By integrating Copilot into your Microsoft 365 environment, you can optimize your productivity and facilitate team cooperation, leveraging its advanced research and decision-making assistance capabilities.

Microsoft Copilot in Bing

When using Bing, Microsoft's search engine, you have access to Copilot directly from the sidebar. This advanced tool allows you to formulate complex questions, obtain detailed answers, synthesize information, and find inspiration. It is designed to enhance your efficiency in research and data analysis, thereby facilitating decision-making and supporting daily activities within your company.

Microsoft Copilot in Edge

Edge is a Microsoft browser, similar to Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, among the most popular. Integrating Copilot with Edge allows you to search and find answers directly related to the page you are viewing or the work context of the active tab. This advanced tool facilitates access to pertinent information and supports your data-driven decisions. To use it, simply access Microsoft Edge and select the Copilot icon in the browser sidebar. It is designed to enhance efficiency in information management and support daily activities within your company.

Microsoft Copilot Pro

Copilot Pro is the premium version of Copilot that offers advanced features. This solution provides a unified AI experience across all your devices, allowing access to Copilot in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on PC, Mac, and iPad for Microsoft 365 Home subscriptions. It is not linked to your company's professional environment but is designed to enhance personal productivity and collaboration through familiar tools like Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Copilot for Sales

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 for Sales is a specialized version of Copilot designed for sales professionals, aiming to optimize efficiency and performance in the sector. You need to have one of the following licenses: Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, Business Premium, Office 365 E3, or E5.

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Microsoft Copilot Studio is a low-code development platform that allows companies to create and customize Copilot to meet their specific needs.

Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is specifically designed for organizations, offering close integration with apps in your M365 environment and additional connections with Teams and Microsoft Graph. Equipped with enterprise-level data protection features, it also offers customization possibilities through Copilot Studio. To use it, you need one of the following licenses:

• Microsoft 365 E5
• Microsoft 365 E3
• Office 365 E3
• Office 365 E5
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium
• Microsoft 365 Business Basic

Copilot in Office 365 applications

Microsoft Copilot in Word

With Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 in Word, you have an advanced assistant for creating and managing business documents. Copilot not only supports writing and editing but can also synthesize information from various business documents to create initial drafts.

You can ask Copilot to add content to existing documents, summarize complex texts, and rewrite sections to improve conciseness. Additionally, Copilot can suggest the most suitable tone for the context, whether professional, informal, or appreciative, to ensure your message is appropriate.

Here are some practical examples of commands you can give:

• Create a two-page project proposal draft using data from a document and a spreadsheet.
• Rewrite this paragraph to make it more concise and clear.

Microsoft Copilot in Excel

With Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, you can explore data in Excel more advancedly through natural language questions, not limited to formulas. Copilot analyzes the document to identify correlations, suggest "what-if" scenarios, and propose new formulas based on your requests, creating models that allow you to explore data in depth without modifying it.

Thanks to Copilot, you can identify significant trends, create powerful graphical visualizations, and receive recommendations to influence various business outcomes. Here are some practical examples of commands you can use:

• Provide a detailed breakdown of sales by type and channel.
• Project the impact of a specific variation in a variable and generate a chart to visualize the results.

Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint

With Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, you can optimize the creation and management of your PowerPoint presentations more efficiently. Using natural language commands, Copilot allows you to summarize long presentations with a single click. You can also adjust layouts, reformat text, and add animations with perfect timing, all intuitively and quickly.

Imagine being able to transform a Word document into a five-slide presentation with relevant images or convert a complete presentation into a three-slide summary. Copilot makes all this possible, enhancing your ability to create visually appealing and informative content effortlessly.

Microsoft Copilot in Outlook

Managing your email inbox and emails becomes significantly more efficient with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 in Outlook. This advanced tool helps you summarize long email conversations, respond quickly to existing messages, and turn quick notes into professional and concise emails.

You can ask Copilot to summarize emails you missed while you were away, ensuring you quickly catch up on the context of communications. Additionally, Copilot can compose professional and brief responses and even turn informal invitations into official meetings, ensuring your correspondence is always aligned with company standards.

Copilot for Microsoft 365: features for your company

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is designed to integrate with every app, such as Microsoft Teams, allowing you to send AI-generated messages based on your emails and written documents throughout the day. This functionality, known as “Business Chat,” operates across all Microsoft 365 apps, including email, chat, calendar, documents, contacts, and meetings.

Think of Copilot as your virtual assistant. For example, you might ask it to update your team on the marketing strategy decided during the morning meeting, and Copilot will generate an update based on the morning's communications. Copilot is an ever-learning artificial intelligence, which means it will improve over time, even though it may not always provide optimal answers.

You always have the option to correct, suggest changes, or modify any content before sending it, ensuring complete control over business messages. Copilot also offers support for account configuration and license management. It can help you create new accounts for employees and ensure that each employee has access to the data and tools needed for their role.

Thanks to Copilot, license management becomes more efficient, allowing you to verify and optimize license usage and quickly resolve any issues. Additionally, Copilot supports security configuration, essential for protecting company data, including implementing multi-factor authentication and access control. With continuous evolution, Microsoft will implement additional features in Copilot, further enhancing its usefulness and implementation within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

The benefits of Microsoft Copilot for your company

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 offers several significant benefits for your company. Let's examine some of these in detail.

• Improvement of security: Copilot helps maintain a secure IT system, reducing the risk of cyber threats. For example, in Outlook, it can assist each employee in configuring email filters to prevent security breaches from malicious emails.
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• Experts at your fingertips: For companies less experienced in IT or using Microsoft, Copilot provides expert support on demand. Using Copilot with Power Platform, you can automate repetitive tasks or quickly create functional apps, thus improving operational efficiency.
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• Improvement of productivity: Thanks to personalized assistance in managing Microsoft 365 accounts, Copilot frees employees from routine tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks. For example, in Microsoft Word, it can generate drafts on various topics, saving precious research and writing time.
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• Reduction of IT costs: By using Copilot as a virtual IT assistant, companies can reduce operational costs by avoiding costly errors and unexpected downtimes.

In summary, Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 represents an innovative virtual IT support tool that optimizes business efficiency, ensures greater data security, and improves the overall productivity of the organization. Integrated into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, Copilot is designed to support the specific needs of companies, enabling more effective IT management oriented toward business goals.

Copilot for Microsoft 365: benefits for SMEs

Microsoft Copilot has made many changes for small and medium-sized enterprises, allowing them to access the benefits of Copilot. Starting with the removal of the requirement to have at least 300 seats to purchase Copilot in Microsoft 365 commercial plans. Now you can access the advanced AI capabilities regardless of your company's size.

Additionally, a Microsoft 365 license is no longer required to use Copilot. If you have Office E3 or E5, you can seamlessly integrate Copilot features, including the Semantic Index, which creates a detailed mapping of your business data. This advanced integration with Copilot System and Microsoft Graph allows you to receive personalized responses and actions based on precise data.

Now to the focal point. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is also available for small and medium-sized businesses like yours, including growing startups up to 300 people. Imagine the immediate benefit to your productivity and operational efficiency. With Copilot, you can automate repetitive tasks and focus on strategic growth initiatives. It's more than just technology: it's a step forward toward smarter and more competitive business operations.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) continually seek tools to improve their productivity and competitive position. Microsoft 365 is the industry standard for providing such tools. Adding Microsoft 365 Copilot's generative AI to the mix represents a significant change for SMEs. SMEs are rapidly adopting AI to meet fundamental needs. Microsoft Copilot is designed to understand the nuances of your work, offering intelligent suggestions and automating repetitive tasks.

Additionally, Microsoft Copilot presents significant financial benefits and improvements in operational efficiency for SMEs. It simplifies complex processes, minimizes manual efforts, and provides actionable insights, allowing SMEs not only to sustain but excel.

These are some of the main trends in the integration of Microsoft Copilot in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

• Strategic planning: Thanks to AI's ability to analyze huge amounts of data, you can discover hidden patterns and correlations essential for strategic planning. This allows you to better understand market dynamics, customer behavior, and competitor strategies, facilitating informed and strategic decisions.
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• Customer centrality: Using Microsoft Copilot, you can automate sales and marketing processes, personalize communications, and predict customer needs. This improves lead management, customer satisfaction, and interaction tracking, helping establish deeper and lasting relationships with customers.
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• Advanced financial management: Copilot for Microsoft 365 assists in financial management by integrating and analyzing company financial data. This provides strategic insights for financial planning, budget management, and forecasts, supporting more effective and results-oriented financial management.
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• Enhanced cybersecurity: With increasing cybersecurity threats, Microsoft Copilot uses AI to actively detect and prevent security breaches. It analyzes network traffic, identifies anomalous behavior, and predicts potential attacks, strengthening the company's cybersecurity.
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• Increased productivity: By automating repetitive tasks through Copilot, employees can focus on higher-value tasks, such as data analysis, document management, and business strategy. This optimizes resource use and improves the organization's overall operational efficiency.
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• Advanced analytics and business intelligence: Microsoft Copilot enables advanced AI-based analytics and business intelligence tools. These tools provide detailed insights into market trends, customer behavior, and business performance, supporting informed and timely decisions.

What is Microsoft Copilot Business Chat?

Business Chat is the new Microsoft Copilot feature based on LLM, designed to improve your business productivity. Through this new experience, you can request detailed information or data using natural language expressions. This means you can write emails, identify crucial dates, or even create plans based on existing project files with extreme ease. For example, you might ask Copilot, "What are the recent developments in product strategy?" or "Can you provide a detailed overview of what happened to a specific customer?". Copilot processes your request using Microsoft Graph, integrating the answers directly into the message and enriching the content with relevant and updated data.

This approach not only simplifies the management of business information but also optimizes your daily workflow, allowing you to focus on more strategic and decision-making activities. If you are looking for an efficient way to use AI to improve business operations, Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is the solution for you.

Copilot for Microsoft 365: financial considerations for adoption

Increasing value generated by employees

In the business context, adopting new technologies is traditionally driven by cost-benefit analysis, aiming to understand how an investment can impact the company's ROI. However, it is essential to shift this perception towards an employee-centered vision. Identifying and quantifying the impact of tools like Microsoft Copilot on employee experiences can become a crucial catalyst for effective adoption and achieving a positive ROI.

The value of software like Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 becomes evident when considering its impact on employee productivity. An increase in productivity not only improves operational efficiency but has a direct impact on the company's overall profitability. Improving employee experience through tools that simplify daily operations, automate repetitive tasks, and offer quick and accurate solutions is crucial to ensuring that technology investment leads to a significant return.

Maximizing ROI

Focusing on productivity and employee experience not only improves work quality but, in the long run, generates a positive ROI. Investing in tools like Microsoft Copilot is not only a strategic choice to improve business operations but also a way to ensure that every investment is optimized to maximize the added value for employees and, consequently, for the entire company.

Reducing operational costs over time

In the business context, adopting Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 can have a significant long-term financial impact on companies. By optimizing operations and increasing productivity, Copilot reduces the time and resources spent on daily activities. By automating complex processes such as data analysis, report generation, and planning, this tool helps reduce operational costs over time.

Transforming a better employee experience into economic return

A marketing company can use Copilot to quickly generate detailed reports on campaigns, freeing the team from repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus on strategy and customer engagement. Alternatively, a financial consultancy could leverage Copilot's predictive analysis to offer clients detailed insights, improving decision accuracy and overall customer satisfaction.

These use cases demonstrate how Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 can bring tangible benefits to companies, improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, and potentially increasing revenue through more effective resource management.

How much does Microsoft Copilot cost?

As we have seen, the potential of Copilot for companies is very high, but accessing its benefits comes with a specific cost. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 for businesses and large enterprises costs 28.10 euros per user/month with an annual subscription. The total per user/year is 337.20 euros. The annual subscription has automatic renewal but can be canceled at any time through the Microsoft 365 administration interface.

For customers with Microsoft 365 for business and enterprise:

• Use the AI-based chat feature with secure access to organizational charts.
• Use the preview of Microsoft Copilot Studio to customize Copilot functions.
• Access Copilot through Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.
• Experience enterprise-level security, privacy, and compliance features.

As mentioned earlier, to have a subscription to Microsoft Copilot, a separate license for a Microsoft 365 plan is required. Let's look at the prices:

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic: 5.60 euros per user/month
• Microsoft 365 Business Standard: 11.70 euros per user/month
• Microsoft 365 Business Premium: 20.60 euros per user/month
• Microsoft 365 Apps for business: 9.80 euros per user/month

Conclusion

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an advanced artificial intelligence tool designed to optimize business efficiency through seamless integration into key Microsoft applications. With advanced customization features and secure access to organizational data, Copilot not only simplifies daily operations but also enhances productivity and decision-making capabilities for businesses. This cutting-edge tool not only promises to improve workflow but also to radically transform how companies manage their resources and compete in the global market.

FAQ on Copilot for Microsoft 365

What is Copilot for Microsoft 365?

‍Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an AI-powered assistant that integrates with Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook, helping users enhance productivity through automation and intelligent suggestions.

How does Copilot for Microsoft 365 improve productivity?

‍Copilot for Microsoft 365 automates routine tasks, provides real-time insights, and streamlines workflows, allowing users to focus on higher-value work.

What is the pricing for Copilot for Microsoft 365?

‍Copilot for Microsoft 365 is priced at €28.10 per user/month with an annual commitment, in addition to the cost of a Microsoft 365 license.

Can Copilot for Microsoft 365 be customized?

‍Yes, Copilot for Microsoft 365 can be tailored to specific business needs using tools like Copilot Studio.