Use AI to save time—and your sanity—this holiday season

With the holiday season upon us, employees are juggling even more roles than usual. Between now and the end of the year, we’re not only professionals, parents, caretakers, and teachers, but crafters, bakers, hosts, and gift-wrappers as well.

When those roles collide – as they undoubtedly will – I roll with it by tapping into a little help from AI. New research shows how AI is helping people reclaim time—70% of people said they were more productive at work using Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. And this is specifically helping people with a big daily pain point: meetings.

Research also tells us that people are in three-times more Microsoft Teams meetings now than they were in 2020, which is very likely the reason why we consistently hear from customers that meetings are one of the first places they deploy AI and see its benefits.

Mask the mess

Holiday school breaks mean my daughters are home a lot more, and our house is bustling with friends, family and the inevitable noise and messes that come alongside all the holiday fun. And with my home office turned into a guestroom, I’m often hot-desking – even at the house.

When working from home around the holidays, I’m thankful that I can use AI to clean up my real-life background during meetings – literally clearing the visual clutter from my counter or coffee table. At the same time, noise suppression and voice isolation handles the audio clutter, ensuring that my voice remains center stage as AI filters out background sounds like doorbells, barking, kitchen noise, and even other voices in the next – or same – room.

Experience the joy of missing out

While we rush to close out the year, the meetings can pile up as many of us get ready for an extended holiday break. When I’m double booked or can’t make a meeting, I rely on AI meeting recaps to let me know what I missed, what the main points were, what questions are unresolved, and any actions I need to take on coming out of the call.

AI recaps are huge time savers, as I’m no longer spending hours viewing lengthy meeting recordings to capture key takeaways, decisions, and next steps or scheduling a new meeting to learn what I missed in the last one. In fact, our research has shown people using Copilot in Teams can catch up on meetings they missed nearly four-times faster.

Get into the brainstorming spirit

I find brainstorm sessions can be one of the more challenging meeting types to run virtually, which happen more frequently over the holidays. Which is why I’m really excited we'll be able to use AI in a meeting to automatically put our words onto a visual whiteboard .?

Instead of asking someone to capture all the creativity, AI can detect key points and topics from the discussion and automatically organize them onto a digital canvas. AI can help suggest more ideas and the whiteboard lives on after the meeting for continued collaboration.

Wrap your meetings with a bow (and action items)

No one wants to attend a meeting that could have been an email, nor do we want to have a meeting that doesn’t result in clear actions – this is especially true when time is extra precious over the busy holiday season.

?With AI, everyone comes away from the meeting with an identical summary of key discussion points, agreed-upon next steps, and tasks assigned to specific people, keeping everyone moving in the same direction. 84% of our users told us Copilot in Teams makes it easier to take action after the meeting.

As you and your family get ready for the holidays, I hope you’ll look for ways to apply a little AI to not only spend less energy worrying about meetings, but to spend more time enjoying your time with friends and loved ones.