Accelerate your AI journey with Microsoft Viva

For those of you who have been following me for a while, you know that Microsoft Viva is one of my most important topics, alongside Copilot Your Day. It makes me even happier to see that Viva is becoming more and more important.

A few months/years ago, Microsoft Viva was one of the top priorities.

Viva La Viva

But nowadays, everyone is talking about Copilot. Is Viva dead? Or is it more important than ever? In this post, I'll explain why, even though the spotlight isn't on Viva, you should still invest in it and how it can help drive your AI/Copilot initiatives.

Why is no one talking about Viva anymore?

Well, this is a question that many people have had in mind in recent weeks and months. Two years ago, everyone was talking about how important the employee experience is and why you should invest in Microsoft Viva. And today?

Quite nobody, because every single topic is about Copilot. The other important topics have fallen down the priority list. Is that true, or is it maybe just all eyes on Copilot because it’s new and has AI in it? I think it is quite a mix. However, I would like to highlight that Viva is explicitly your tool to drive your AI initiative within your organization.

It doesn’t matter – Viva is your accelerator.

Although Copilot is getting all the attention, there is still a huge challenge to drive the new era of AI with Copilot on a daily basis for every employee. As you probably already experienced, Copilot is technically “plug & play”, but not from an organizational/change management perspective. And even more importantly, with Copilot or AI, there is a new mindset needed within an organization. You have to make sure that the way of problem-solving is connected to the usage of AI. To do so, it starts with your AI strategy, but a strategy is useless when nobody knows and understands it.

After you have defined your vision and strategy, you have to make sure that your employees acquire the new skills and adapt them to their daily work.

Guess what?

Microsoft Viva is exactly the tool that delivers those capabilities into the flow of work. (yay!) All the different modules help you drive your initiative towards your vision. When we talk about improving the Employee Experience, learning experiences and transparent communication are some of the most important aspects. Especially when you are ahead of a new era in an organization.

Combine Copilot and Viva to unleash their full power

In addition to the mentioned use cases of learning in the flow of work with Viva Learning and Viva Connections for transparent communication, there are many other helpful drivers in the Viva Suite.

One important aspect of heading towards a vision is the constant measurement of its direction. And of course, the OKR-Framework is a proven methodology to do so. However, with Viva Goals, we get the OKR Power in Teams and help our employees understand their daily impact on the overall vision.

Furthermore, Viva Insights helps you identify the data behind daily usage, and with the Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights, it supports you in data-driven decision-making for your AI approaches.

And therefore, to be even more concrete for adaptation measurements. If you combine the data-driven approach with regular user feedback with Viva Glint or Viva Pulse, you can compare real data with collected user feedback and identify correlations and misinterpretations.

Copilot + Viva = Better Together!

Microsoft Viva and Copilot are two separate but complementary tools. Viva is an employee experience platform that brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights. On the other hand, Copilot is an AI-powered tool that helps you write, edit, summarize, and create content right alongside you.

While Copilot can help you with tasks such as drafting a project proposal or creating a presentation, Viva can help you discover and share knowledge, connect with colleagues, and access resources to improve your work. By investing in both tools, you can harness the power of AI to boost your productivity and creativity while also improving your employee experience.

Viva is alive and more important than ever!

In conclusion, Viva is not dead, and it is more important than ever. By investing in both Viva and Copilot, you can unlock the full potential of Microsoft's tools and thrive in your AI initiatives.

I am speaking at Microsoft Ignite Switerzland

Next week March 8th 2024, at the Microsoft Ignite Switzerland, Sophia Ernst and I will be hosting a session titled "Accelerate your Copilot Initiative with Microsoft Viva."

Come join our session and discover the potential of a great employee experience in the context of Copilot live.

Get more out of Copilot

Another great way to leverage the usage of Copilot is using Copilot extensions. That's what we are going to cover in the next episode. Stay tuned!