In January, Microsoft announced that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is generally available to businesses of all sizes.
Copilot is an AI driven assistant which aims to enhance productivity for your team by assisting with various tasks such as staying on top of work chats, meetings, calls and emails; evaluating and summarising documents; revamping PowerPoint presentations; and enhancing Excel worksheets with easy analysis and visualisation.
When used effectively, Copilot should reduce the amount of tedious work staff face, allowing them to focus on valuable tasks and output.
As with all things Microsoft 365, security is at the centre of the Copilot system. Copilot is able to work with your company data and users directly in your organisations tenant, which means there is no exposure to third party applications, or data sharing with other businesses.
The Copilot tool plugs directly into your business data where it is, meaning it is not only secure, but very personal to you and your team.
This direct interaction with your data also comes with risk. Before deploying Copilot, you should be really confident in your security and access control permissions. Copilot finds data that even you may not be aware you have access to because it indexes your whole Microsoft 365 tenant.
This may not be consequential in all cases, but worst case scenarios include your business-sensitive data (HR, finances, commercially sensitive information, senior management emails) being accessed by team members who should not be able to see it.
These incidents could be accidental, or an insider threat (deliberate security breaches by a member of your team).
Copilot is currently priced at just under £300 per year for a user licence. For tech savvy users who can maximise the use of the tool, this appears to be great value for money.
Microsoft estimates a proficient user can save up to 10 hours per month, with a return on investment being achieved with just one to two hours of time saved.
