Viva Insights Copilot: How to boost productivity with AI

Who hasn’t felt overwhelmed by the endless stream of work tasks, constantly struggling to keep up? It’s an experience that every employee has faced at least once in their career.

The integration of Microsoft 365 Copilot with Microsoft Viva Insights marks a significant step forward in the evolution of digital tools designed to enhance productivity and employee well-being. This combination leverages artificial intelligence to provide personalized suggestions and data-driven insights, helping teams optimize their time and achieve a better balance between work and personal life. It enables organizations to foster a more inclusive and efficient workplace culture.

In this article, we will explore the integration between Microsoft’s AI-powered digital assistant and Viva Insights to understand how it can benefit your business.

Viva Insights Copilot: a brief introduction

Workers are not machines. This may seem like an obvious statement, yet for a long time, enterprise technology has ignored this fact. Of course, fostering productivity is a good thing. The problem, however, is that most corporate IT platforms allow people to keep working as long as they are able to. This is especially true in the era of remote work, where it is easier than ever for employees to stay connected to corporate productivity platforms, running a real risk of burnout.

And it’s not just about taking care of employees because it’s the right thing to do—research shows that companies that prioritize employee well-being are up to 25% more profitable than those that don’t.

Companies must therefore strike a balance between productivity and well-being if they want to remain efficient and competitive in today’s unforgiving market landscape. This is where Viva Insights comes in.

Viva Insights, one of the modules in the Microsoft Viva suite, is designed to provide both individuals and organizations with insights into how they and their teams are working. It includes a variety of features to monitor well-being in different ways and offers recommendations to improve it.

Recently, Microsoft has integrated AI-driven Copilot capabilities into the Viva modules, making the suite for corporate communication and well-being even more comprehensive, useful, and easy to use.

In the following sections, we will explore in more detail how this has specifically impacted Viva Insights and how Microsoft's digital assistant has expanded its capabilities to shape the future of workplace productivity.

What are Microsoft Copilot and Viva Insights?

Before diving into the specifics of their integration, let’s take a moment for those who might not be familiar with Copilot or Viva Insights and go over the key features and functionalities of each.

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered digital assistant designed to simplify daily tasks, boost productivity, and enhance creativity. Its primary focus is code generation, writing assistance, and collaboration. Seamlessly integrated into the most popular Microsoft 365 applications—such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams—Copilot provides contextual suggestions and helps users process information more efficiently.

Powered by the state-of-the-art GPT-4 language model, Microsoft Copilot boasts remarkable capabilities, including code autocompletion, documentation search, and collaborative writing. Microsoft is continuously updating Copilot with new features, reinforcing its commitment to investing in Gen AI for the future of business applications.

The AI assistant's features cater to a broad range of users and professionals, including developers, content creators, and knowledge workers looking for AI-powered assistance in their daily activities. Here's how to use Microsoft Copilot:

• Adopting Copilot: Microsoft provides various Copilot assistants to enhance productivity and creativity. Integrated across multiple Microsoft products and platforms, Copilot transforms the digital workspace into a more interactive and efficient environment.
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• Extending Copilot: Developers can incorporate external data, simplifying user operations and minimizing the need to switch contexts. This not only boosts productivity but also fosters better collaboration. With Copilot, integrating external data into commonly used Microsoft products is seamless.
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• ‍Building your own Copilot: Beyond adoption and extension, organizations can create a custom Copilot for a unique conversational experience using Azure OpenAI, Cognitive Search, Microsoft Copilot Studio, and other Microsoft Cloud technologies. A personalized Copilot can integrate enterprise data, access real-time external data via APIs, and seamlessly fit into business applications.

Microsoft Copilot is available in different formats, with pricing plans tailored to various use cases:

• Copilot (Free): provides access to generative AI features for PC management (on Windows), online search (on Edge), and general chatbot conversations on the web.
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• ‍Copilot Pro: Designed for individual users who want to maximize their use of generative AI. For approximately $20 per user/month, this version offers access to Copilot in multiple tools, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
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• ‍Copilot for Microsoft 365: Aimed at individuals and teams working with Microsoft apps, this version includes Copilot Studio, enterprise-grade security, privacy, and compliance, along with advanced capabilities.

Additionally, Microsoft has introduced specialized versions of Copilot designed for specific Microsoft tools. For instance, there are Copilot solutions embedded in Microsoft Dynamics for sales and customer service teams, as well as security-focused Copilot solutions integrated with Microsoft Purview.

Recently, Microsoft has also begun launching and updating a series of industry-specific "Agents", tailored for sectors like finance, customer service, and marketing, with dedicated training and specialized functionalities for these fields.

Although some Windows 11 users were initially skeptical when Microsoft first introduced Copilot, the service has grown significantly since its early preview. Today, it is widely regarded as one of the most powerful productivity tools in the era of artificial intelligence.

Viva Insights

Microsoft Viva has been designed to help organizations strengthen their corporate culture in the era of remote work. In this new modern work experience, applications like SharePoint and Teams have become essential elements for many businesses. Microsoft aimed to further develop this idea by introducing Viva as a solution to address the challenges of remote work while preserving its benefits.

As an employee experience platform, Microsoft Viva is designed to help companies adapt to remote work and overcome these obstacles. It is primarily aimed at HR departments and internal communications, but it offers numerous benefits for different management styles. Viva mainly integrates with Microsoft Teams and Outlook, enabling organizations to leverage applications already in use with minimal or no training required.

According to Microsoft's own definition, Viva Insights is a platform that allows you to: “Improve business outcomes with interactive analytics.”

Thanks to advanced data analysis, Viva Insights can provide:

• Predefined reports: Detailed, actionable insights generated from a library of ready-to-use reports, which are highly customizable with continuous support from Copilot.
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• Custom analytics: Advanced tools allow users to generate personalized insights based on highly specific queries, such as the time spent reading emails each day or the time taken to respond to them.
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• Predefined accelerators: Prebuilt libraries help visualize and make insights interactive, for example, by showing how many hours are spent in meetings versus actual work across all business processes.

To better understand how Viva Insights works, it is useful to know that it is primarily a combination of two software solutions: Microsoft MyAnalytics and Workplace Analytics, which respectively provide personal insights and insights for managers.

A key feature of Viva Insights is its integration with Microsoft Teams, which enables real-time data collection based on the user’s interaction with the collaboration and communication platform. This connection is essential for personal insights, as it allows each employee to have a complete view of their activities, including the time spent on each task—whether within a single day or across an entire workweek.

Specific functions also provide full visibility into interactions with colleagues, helping to facilitate meeting organization and email exchanges. For example, automatic alerts can be triggered when a response is overdue.

Viva Insights helps increase productivity and protect employee well-being by suggesting ways to organize both individual and collective activities, optimizing productive time. For instance, it can recommend scheduling meeting-free days while concentrating meetings on other occasions.

Additionally, the Viva module enables the generation of detailed reports to analyze how work is conducted within the organization, with a particular focus on employee performance. A key advantage lies in the aggregation of data, which is presented and visualized within a unified dashboard, allowing for an overview of team performance at any given time.

Managers and business leaders can track progress in real-time using a range of custom metrics, correlating them with specific activities such as one-on-one meetings and time spent on leadership tasks.

Viva Insights Copilot: integration features

This section brings us to the core of the article. The integration between Viva Insights and Microsoft 365 Copilot is designed to enhance employee well-being and productivity by leveraging AI-powered capabilities within Viva’s dedicated module for workplace optimization. Copilot provides insights, recommendations, and tailored support based on the specific conditions of the organization and its employees.

Data analysis and AI-driven recommendations

Copilot utilizes aggregated and anonymized data from Viva Insights to offer targeted suggestions for employees and managers. It helps identify behavioral patterns, providing guidance on optimizing time, minimizing distractions, and improving work-life balance. Additionally, it can generate automatic summaries of weekly activities or achieved goals.

Employee well-being

By processing information from Viva Insights, Copilot sends personalized notifications and recommendations, such as reminders to take breaks or motivational messages. It can also help monitor burnout levels across the organization through automated reports based on work patterns.

Smart scheduling

Copilot can suggest focus time blocks based on calendar analysis, enabling employees to set aside time for deep and strategic work. It also supports more effective meeting planning by analyzing factors such as optimal duration and the necessary number of participants.

Custom reports and insights

Copilot automates the creation of reports based on Viva Insights data, making it easier to analyze trends and communicate results to leadership. It can also generate recommendations for business or team objectives, aligning with productivity and well-being metrics.

Enhanced collaboration

Copilot within Insights provides guidance on team collaboration patterns, highlighting potential areas for improvement, such as excessive meetings or insufficient individual work time. It suggests actions to improve team alignment, such as organizing regular check-ins or shared summaries.

Privacy and security

A crucial aspect of the Microsoft Viva Insights and Copilot integration is its strict adherence to privacy and data security standards. Viva Insights is designed to process information in an aggregated and anonymized manner, ensuring that no personally identifiable data is shared without explicit user consent.

This protection is especially important when insights are provided to managers and leaders, who only have access to group trends and statistics rather than individual details.

Copilot complies with global privacy regulations, such as the GDPR, ensuring that data processing and storage meet the highest security standards. Additionally, advanced encryption technologies and continuous vulnerability monitoring safeguard information at all times. For employees, this means a work environment where they can feel confident that their personal data is secure and used solely to improve their work experience.

Viva Insights Copilot Dashboard: How to enhance AI adoption

But Insights is not only useful for measuring employee well-being and optimizing the organization of workdays. It can also be a valuable ally in accelerating and optimizing the implementation of Copilot itself, thanks to the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard.

This tool can significantly help organizations maximize the benefits of Copilot for Microsoft 365 and provide actionable insights to prepare the organization for AI implementation. It promotes adoption, highlights AI’s role in the evolution of work practices, and assesses Copilot’s overall impact on employee and team productivity.

The dashboard within Viva Insights is now accessible to any customer with a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 business or enterprise subscription, and a paid Viva Insights license is no longer required.

For customers using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) to manage user profile data, such as organizational details or manager information, the Copilot Dashboard is automatically available to a limited number of users. Access is based on Microsoft Entra ID data, particularly the manager hierarchy attribute.

Users who hold senior leadership roles in large teams, as determined by the manager attribute in Entra ID data, can automatically view the report. Tenants must meet both of the following criteria to qualify:

• Most users in the tenant belong to a single reporting line (e.g., they report to the same CEO).
• The tenant must have at least 2,500 users with a Microsoft Entra ID account.

For qualified tenants, only users who meet all of the following criteria are enabled by default:

• The user is within the top three levels of the organization.
• The user oversees a significant portion of the organization within their reporting line.

Additionally, users assigned the Global Administrator role have access to the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard.

Dashboard metrics

The dashboard displays the following tenant-wide aggregated metrics: Readiness, Adoption, Impact, and Sentiment. Let's explore them in detail.

• Readiness: provides an overview of the organization’s preparedness for using Copilot, with details on active Microsoft 365 users, features in use, and system update levels. It includes an "adoption funnel" to monitor Copilot license deployment and activation rates, identifying any gaps in tool distribution.
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• Adoption: summarizes the number of assigned licenses and actual Copilot usage across different apps. It allows comparisons between active and inactive users, offering insights into how Copilot is used to improve internal adoption at the department or business function level.
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• Impact: analyzes time savings and changes in work behavior among Copilot users compared to non-users. It includes metrics such as total hours assisted by Copilot and pre/post-implementation analysis to identify high-impact areas, such as meeting summaries or automation of repetitive tasks.
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• Sentiment: collects qualitative feedback from users to measure Copilot’s perception and can integrate custom or pre-configured surveys using tools like Viva Glint, comparing results with global benchmarks. The data can be segmented by business area or role.

Viva Insights Copilot: benefits for users and businesses

In previous sections, we have already touched on how integrating Viva Insights with Copilot brings significant organizational advantages, helping companies achieve strategic goals—both operational and cultural.

One of the most tangible benefits is productivity optimization. Thanks to the insights generated by Viva Insights, Copilot helps identify inefficiencies in workflows and provides actionable suggestions to address them. For example, reducing time spent in unnecessary meetings or improving daily task prioritization can free up time for high-value activities.

Another advantage—unfortunately still underestimated by many companies—is reducing burnout and enhancing employee well-being. By promoting healthier work habits and a better work-life balance, this integration contributes to greater job satisfaction and employee retention. A workplace that prioritizes well-being leads to lower turnover rates and higher motivation, ultimately improving overall business performance.

The combined use of Viva Insights and Copilot also enables companies to make data-driven decisions. Access to detailed reports and Copilot's recommendations allows leaders to better understand team behaviors, identify trends, and quickly take action to improve productivity and workplace dynamics. For instance, analyzing work patterns can help identify training needs or organizational changes, such as redistributing workloads.

Finally, this integration fosters an improved corporate culture, promoting transparency, collaboration, and greater attention to individual needs. Companies that invest in tools like Viva Insights and Copilot demonstrate a forward-thinking approach, adopting technologies that not only optimize financial results but also create a more human and sustainable work environment.

Conclusion

Employee well-being should be a top priority for any organization striving for success. With the latest advancements in Generative AI, it is now possible not only to increase employee productivity and allow them to focus on truly important tasks but also to help them find a balance between efficiency and well-being—leading to a more motivated and fulfilled workforce.

The integration between Copilot and Viva Insights is a step in this direction—one that many still underestimate. It offers managers and business leaders the opportunity to leverage tools even more powerful than the original Viva Insights, helping them monitor workforce health and satisfaction while enhancing efficiency and productivity.

FAQ on Microsoft Copilot in Viva Insights

What is Microsoft Copilot for Viva Insights?

Microsoft Copilot for Viva Insights is an AI-powered assistant that analyzes company data to provide personalized recommendations on productivity, well-being, and time management. It leverages artificial intelligence to generate insights based on employee work patterns and behaviors, helping organizations balance efficiency and employee well-being.

What are the main benefits of Copilot in Viva Insights?

Copilot improves time management by suggesting focused work periods without distractions. It helps prevent burnout by monitoring workloads and sending reminders to take breaks. It optimizes meetings by analyzing their duration and number of participants to make them more efficient. It automatically generates customized reports on productivity and collaboration, simplifying managers' tasks. Data privacy is ensured through the use of aggregated and anonymized data, in compliance with GDPR and security regulations.

How does the integration between Copilot and Viva Insights work?

Copilot uses data from Viva Insights to generate reports and recommendations on how to improve productivity and employee well-being. The integration works within Microsoft Teams and Outlook, where Copilot provides insights directly in the tools employees use daily.

Can Copilot in Viva Insights reduce the number of meetings?

Yes, it analyzes work patterns to identify unnecessary meetings and suggests more efficient alternatives. It may recommend using automated summaries or consolidating meetings into specific time slots, improving overall task organization.

How does Copilot help improve employee well-being?

Copilot sends personalized notifications reminding employees to take breaks and disconnect at the end of the workday. It monitors stress levels based on work patterns and can suggest no-meeting days to encourage deep work and reduce workload overload.

Is Copilot in Viva Insights useful for managers?

Yes, managers can use Copilot to gain an overview of their team's work habits, identify signs of stress or workload overload, and optimize time management. The data is aggregated and anonymized, so managers cannot monitor individual employees but can analyze general trends to enhance organizational efficiency.

Is a Viva Insights license required to use Copilot?

No, the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights is available to all customers with a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 business or enterprise plan. However, some advanced features may require a Viva Insights Premium license.

What data does Copilot in Viva Insights use?

Copilot analyzes aggregated and anonymized data from Microsoft 365 tools such as Outlook, Teams, and the corporate calendar. The information is used exclusively to generate reports on productivity and well-being, ensuring compliance with security and privacy standards.

Can the reports generated by Copilot be customized?

Yes, Copilot provides advanced analytics tools that allow users to generate customized reports, filter specific data, and obtain targeted insights into company work habits. This flexibility helps businesses make informed decisions based on real data.

How can I access the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights?

The Copilot Dashboard is available to users with managerial or administrative roles in organizations that use Microsoft Entra ID to manage organizational data. Only users with the appropriate permissions can view and analyze data, ensuring controlled and secure access.