Let AI Copilot Your Business – Going “All-In” with Microsoft’s New AI Tool

In May we hosted a free technology webinar all about how to use Microsoft’s exciting new AI tool, Copilot.? You can watch the replay of that webinar here, but we’d also love to take this time to walk you through why?it may be beneficial to incorporate Copilot into your business.??

With the prevalence of AI these days, you may be wondering what the fuss is with one more AI tool in the mix. We’re going to break that down for you here. We’re so excited that this powerful tool will be so widely available because we’ve seen first-hand the impact it can make on productivity and organization.??

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A Little More About Copilot?

Copilot is Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that boosts productivity, unlocks creativity, and helps you understand your business better.??

Copilot integrates with the Microsoft 365 tools you’re already using in your business (like Excel, Outlook, Teams, and more). You can use it to write prompts that help you create documents, summarize long documents or emails, get thorough meeting recaps, pull critical meeting takeaways (like upcoming deadlines), and so much more–all in the blink of an eye.?

Simply put, Copilot helps users do everyday business tasks faster and easier.?

A recent Microsoft article, noted how companies spend their time and the impact that Copilot can have:?

“Small and medium-sized business owners report that communicating with customers takes up most of their time (66%), with managing budgets (50%) and administrative tasks (48%) not far behind.3 Copilot for Microsoft 365 can help reduce this daily grind, giving business owners valuable time back to focus on what matters most: growing their business.”?

If you can’t tell, we’re jazzed about the potential that this new tool can unleash for your company! Copilot can save you time, help you maximize your tech, and will create space for your talent to do what they do best – build your business.?

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How to Do More With Less Using Copilot?

When leaders express their desire to “do more with less” within their businesses, what we hear is that they're aiming to maximize their organization's output with existing resources. And believe us, we get it and we support it!??

At CTC, we specialize in helping businesses find avenues for enhancing their productivity with their current Microsoft 365 environment. For 365 users, Copilot is just another tool for the toolbelt. And it’s a powerful one at that.??

Copilot can help your team bridge gaps in training, cut back on time wasted with busy work and admin tasks, boost organization, minimize time spent learning tasks that can (and should) be automated, and more.?

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For example:?

Imagine that a member of your team is lacking training in Excel's pivot table feature.??

With Copilot, they can effortlessly direct the AI assistant to compile the past three years of financial data into a customized pivot table, showcasing the remarkable accessibility and efficiency of AI-driven tasks, even for less experienced users.?

The person writing the prompt in Copilot does not need to know how to create a pivot table. Instead, AI will do it for them. This allows less-skilled people to do the work and can help keep the wheel turning while said individuals learn the necessary skills. More importantly, Copilot will scrub the data from the company's internal files to gather and produce the information. (This is not something that ChatGPT can do.)??

The reality is that when companies are able to do more with less, they open the door for their skilled workers to focus on tasks that can’t be automated. The pivot table is a great example of the power of using AI to automate a manual task while allowing knowledge workers to focus on more important things that AI can’t do (yet!)?

You may be thinking, “This all sounds great, but what else can Copilot do that ChatGPT can’t?”? Let’s break it down.?

How is Copilot Different from ChatGPT??

Microsoft 365 integration?

Since Copilot is a Microsoft-based tool, it will seamlessly integrate your data into your Microsoft 365 environment. Additionally, it works alongside popular Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams to bring the power of AI to your daily tasks. For efficiency's sake, there’s nothing better than the seamless connectivity and interoperability between various Microsoft products, services, and platforms.??

ChatGPT does not integrate with Microsoft 365 or other operating platforms.?

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Internal Data Use??

Because Copilot is a Microsoft product, it allows companies to access and manipulate their own internal data within their Microsoft 365 environment. Hello, simplified reporting! And goodbye painstaking spreadsheets! Copilot can access your business information (like financial data, schedules, meeting notes, etc.) to complete tasks that unnecessarily eat up time throughout your day.??

On the other hand, ChatGPT was built to interact with external internet text sources. This can be useful for certain tasks, but has its limitations for businesses, especially those wanting a more personalized AI assistant.??

Here is what one Copilot Early Access Program customer shared that touches on this aspect:?

“I love that it’s in our environment. It’s able to cross-pollinate and gather information from all of the data we’ve got in Microsoft 365. As a business owner, that’s really important to me because it keeps our people working inside our systems.”?

—James Hawley, CEO and Founder at NextPath Career Partners?

Both models can be fine-tuned on specific datasets to adapt them to particular tasks or domains. However, the fine-tuning process and capabilities vary between the two models. The difference: Copilot uses your company’s data and adapts them to tasks that are vital to the operation of your business, while ChatGPT uses external data from across the internet.?

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Business Use and User Groups?

While both Copilot and ChatGPT are language models, they are tailored for different purposes and target different user groups.??

As we mentioned before, Copilot aims to improve the productivity and effectiveness of business activities. On the contrary, ChatGPT is useful for generating more casual written copy content (for example, essays/articles, lists, brainstorming, etc.)??

ChatGPT, while useful in its own right, was not built with businesses in mind, therefore you’ll find that Copilot does much more heavy lifting from that standpoint.?

Our Next Step Recommendations for Using Copilot?

Here’s what you should consider doing when evaluating whether Copilot is the right fit for your company:?

Consult With Us?

While we don’t sell Microsoft products, we can help your company make informed decisions about which Microsoft 365 licenses you should get to meet your operational needs. We can also help you fully leverage the power of the software to solve your most pressing business and productivity challenges.??

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Test Drive Copilot?

We advise that you have one person in every department get the Copilot license to uncover what the tool can do for their specific department. Kick the tires a bit. Play around and tinker with the tool to discover Copilot's power.??

We’ve found that some of our clients have used Copilot for meeting minutes, meeting agendas, and writing emails.?

“Copilot accurately summarizes the call and meeting notes in minutes. That’s not just faster, it means callers can add more value to the discussion rather than just take notes.”?

—Philip Burridge, Director, Operations and Strategy at Morula Health?

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Start Getting Rid of Third-Party Software?

When you work with CTC Productivity, we’ll help you fully leverage the Microsoft 365 suite of tools you are already paying for. This includes helping you get rid of unnecessary resources so you can eliminate redundancies, tidy up clunkiness, and save time from switching between programs.??

When you have a tailored approach to Microsoft 365 and all of its tools, you won’t need Google. And yes, we can help with that migration too!?

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Why Work with CTC When Considering Adopting Copilot?

We can help your company fully leverage the power of Microsoft Copilot and your existing Microsoft 365 tools to drive productivity.??

Our goal is to assist companies in optimizing their time, talent, and technology. One of the ways we accomplish this is by helping you leverage the power of Microsoft 365 technology and new tools like Copilot to increase productivity within your organization in a way that works for you.?

We believe that businesses can benefit from and should be all-in with Microsoft Copilot. So no matter whether you are a small or large business, book a call so we can show you how you can get the most out of your technology and integrate Microsoft’s latest AI tool to streamline your business.?

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