Seven Ways to Use Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is a generative artificial intelligence add-on that integrates with the Microsoft 365 subscription suite. The prerequisite is that you must be a subscriber to Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Premium (or higher). The integrated AI powered productivity tool costs an additional $30 per user per month. Once installed, Copilot will appear in MS 365 apps such as Teams, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel, as well as being available as a page in the web browser when you are logged in, similar to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other gen AI tools.
Copilot has terms and conditions and a privacy policy conducive to businesses requiring stricter controls on security, using the enterprise data protections for prompts and responses. Firms should read and understand how data is shared with, stored, and accessed by Copilot by reading the information available in the Trust documentation. Since Copilot has access to anything an individual user has access to, firms should make sure that user permissions are set up appropriately. For instance, if a firm has a SharePoint library that has human resources files that are merely not visible to others in the firm, versus specifically shared with only certain individuals, Copilot could unearth those documents for a wider audience than intended.
Another consideration for adopting Copilot is how extensively a firm uses the Microsoft 365 suite. For firms that primarily use the 365 suite to create documents and manage email with Outlook, Copilot may not deliver the desired return on investment. However, if a firm makes use of the entire 365 productivity suite, including OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook with the Exchange server, Teams, and other available tools, the addition of Copilot becomes an effective knowledge management assistant.
The following are seven ways to get started with the Copilot add-on:
Save Your Prompts
In addition to providing a prompt library that can be filtered by app, task, job type, and more, you can also save successful prompts so you can reuse them or share them with other Copilot users in the firm.
If you begin a Copilot chat on the website that you find particularly successful, you can save it to reuse. Type your message into Copilot and run the prompt. If you want to save the prompt, mouse over the prompt and choose “Save Prompt” icon that looks like a bookmark. You can give the prompt a title to make it easier to find again.
To reuse a prompt in the Chat interface, look to the right above the input box and click on the icon that looks like a star over a box to view prompts. You can choose from Microsoft’s suggested prompts or reuse one of your own prompts. Within each of your prompts, you can also share an individual prompt by clicking on the share icon and copying a link or share to team in Microsoft Teams.
You can also save prompts that you create in specific applications. Click on the Copilot icon in the ribbon of Word, Outlook, Excel or PowerPoint to engage Copilot. A panel called the Task Pane will open to the right of the application. Type in and run your prompt. If it is successful, scroll back to the prompt, place your cursor over it, and click on the bookmark icon in the pop-up menu to save it to your prompt gallery. To reuse the prompt later, click on the plus sign to the left of “Message Copilot” and choose the prompt by clicking on “View Prompt.”
Finally, go to the prompt library to manage your prompts. You can click on the bookmark icon to remove a prompt from the Your Prompts or Team Prompts library.
Search Your Documents
Copilot can be used to search through your documents in OneDrive. The prompt can be started within an application like Word or Excel or start in Copilot chat. For instance, you can pull up a blank document in Word, click on the Copilot icon in the Ribbon, and then ask, “Have I written about or given a presentation on delegation?” Copilot will search OneDrive and Outlook for any documents, presentations, and emails that contain your search terms. You can also find clauses and insert them directly into a document. For instance, type “can you find a sample clause for a non-engagement agreement in my OneDrive?” and Copilot will look for a sample clause, show you the clause language that can be added to the document by clicking “Insert” and link to the original document in your OneDrive.
Edit an Email
Do you ever get stumped on a way to phrase an email to get the best result? Copilot shines when helping with this endeavor. For instance, open an email in Outlook, click on “reply” and craft your response. Open the Copilot task pane, and ask Copilot to review your response to make sure you answer any questions, adjust tone, add more details from earlier conversations and much more.
In Outlook, you can also select some text and click on the floating Copilot icon to see suggestions. You can also type / to insert recent documents that you have exchanged with the recipient.
If you want to give Copilot general instructions for drafting email in the new Outlook, you can go into settings and create custom instructions, so you do not have to add them to each prompt. For instance, you can add instructions like, “When responding to an email greet the person by name. Keep the tone light but professional. Keep emails short and include bullet lists instead of dense text. Highlight any important information or requests for action” to help train Copilot on how you want to respond. In the New Outlook, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner, choose Copilot, click on “Draft Instructions,” toggle to “Use custom instructions when drafting email” and add your instructions.
Ask Your Spreadsheet
Whether you are a novice or an advanced user of Excel, the Copilot assistant can help make sense of data in a spreadsheet. You can create formulas, summarize using PivotTables or charts, apply color and formatting to cells, and more. One thing to be aware of is that Copilot is only as good as the underlying data. If your spreadsheet doesn’t contain headers or is formatted in a way that makes it difficult to use even regular formulas or PivotTables, then Copilot will also struggle. However, if your spreadsheet is formatted well then Copilot can save a lot of time. For instance, do you need to dedupe a spreadsheet? Just ask Copilot to help deduplicate a spreadsheet. Create a pivot table? Get a count without having to select text? It really depends on the spreadsheet and what you need to accomplish, but Copilot in Excel can help anyone create a table, a formula, massage data and ask questions of the data.
Add an Agent
Microsoft is rolling out Copilot Agents. Agents in Copilot are “specialized AI tools built to handle specific processes or solve business challenges.” They will eventually be able to assist with task automation. Agentic AI is the next frontier of artificial intelligence, so getting to know about it in a trusted space may be worth the time experimenting. Right now, in the Copilot chat there are two Microsoft-designed agents – Writing Coach and Visual Creator. A writing coach can critique writing and give feedback, translate text, teach writing skills and more. Visual Creator can create images and videos.
You can also create an agent in Copilot Studio. To get to Copilot Studio, open Copilot in the browser and on the right side panel, click on “Create an Agent.” The Copilot Studio will provide guide instructions to create an agent, first by describing what you want the agent to do then configuring it. Start with something simple, like “move attachments from x in Outlook to this folder in OneDrive.” Microsoft has some templates too if you prefer to start with something a little easier. For instance, create a Meeting Coach to help meeting organizers create and run effective meetings by creating objectives and agendas, assign roles, prepare emails, and assign action items. You can customize this template or just use the pre-designed template. The Agent has a series of steps that it follows to fully automate a process.
Creating a Slide Deck
If you are giving a presentation, you know that creating a slide deck can be very time-consuming. Microsoft Copilot makes it easy to turn a document or outline into an engaging slide deck. Simply create a new blank presentation in PowerPoint, and Copilot will prompt to “create a presentation with a file.” You can use a template if your firm or organization has one or pick a new design. Then, click the arrow to put Copilot into action. First Copilot will show you a preview of the slide deck, and you can reorder or delete sections. Then click “Generate Slides.” Copilot will generate a slide deck complete with Sections, Title and Section Header slides and add images and graphics. You will still need to edit and adjust your slide deck, but Copilot can really help get some of the drudgery out of the way.
What if you have a slide deck and want to turn it into an outline or the start of a white paper? No problem. Go into Word, open the Copilot task pane, and prompt to get help creating an article or publication based on a slide deck. Then, click the plus sign to attach your slides to the prompt. This too will need review, editing, and further prompting, but it can be a significant help in moving forward!
Generating an Agenda
You check your Outlook calendar and realize you have a client meeting to prepare for tomorrow. You can use Copilot in Outlook to get you started. Open Outlook and then click on the Copilot icon in the Ribbon. Ask Copilot to review emails to and from the participants in the meeting and suggest any agenda items based on discussions. You can also prompt Copilot to consider content from specific documents in OneDrive or SharePoint. ALWAYS review and double-check the Copilot output, as it can and will hallucinate. However, again, this is a great start to getting an agenda put together or preparing for an upcoming meeting.
Want an even faster way to help with meeting preparation? In New Outlook, open an event in your calendar and click on the Prepare with Copilot button that appears. Copilot will comb through Outlook emails, Teams chats, and associated documents to suggest an overview, tasks to prepare and show reference documents.
Conclusion
In summary, Microsoft Copilot is a generative AI tool that integrates with the Microsoft 365 suite, offering various functionalities to enhance productivity. It can help with tasks such as saving prompts, searching documents, editing emails, analyzing spreadsheets, creating agents, generating slide decks, and preparing meeting agendas. Firms should consider how extensively they use the Microsoft 365 suite to decide the value Copilot can bring to their workflow. By using Copilot’s capabilities, users can streamline their operations and improve efficiency across different applications.
Catherine Sanders Reach serves as director of the NCBA Center for Practice Management.