Unlock a New Work Experience: Microsoft Co-pilot’s impact on your workflow

In today’s fast-paced business environment, productivity involves juggling multiple tasks and chasing deadlines. Microsoft CSP business involves many never-ending and repetitive tasks leaving no time for experimenting with innovative ideas and approaches. This can lead to your employees not being able to realize their full potential, which can impede business growth. As the pace and volume of work increases, to remain competitive and effective, you must embrace new tools and approaches. According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, “Nearly 2 in 3 people (64%) say they struggle with having the time and energy to do their job—and those people are 3.5x more likely to also struggle with innovation and strategic thinking. Nearly 2 in 3 leaders (60%) are already feeling the effects, saying that a lack of innovation or breakthrough ideas on their teams is a concern.”

To streamline business processes and improve productivity Microsoft has announced the launch of Microsoft Copilot, your everyday AI companion.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming an indispensable partner in our daily lives. AI has found its use in automating tasks, analyzing data, making predictions, creating content, personalizing customer experiences, and identifying new business opportunities amongst other things. According to the annual McKinsey Global Survey on the current state of AI, “Seventy-nine percent of all respondents say they’ve had at least some exposure to gen AI, either for work or outside of work, and 22 percent say they are regularly using it in their own work.”

Keeping up with the AI revolution, Microsoft has been integrating AI-powered Copilots into their most popular products including Windows 11, GitHub, Microsoft 365, Bing, and Edge.  The efficiency of these products has seen an improvement with the introduction of AI Copilots. It has also resulted in a user experience that is both intuitive and personalized. The smooth integration of AI technologies has led to automation of routine tasks, intelligent analysis of data, generation of predictive insights, etc.

In September 2023, Microsoft made a significant announcement of unifying the different Copilots into a single experience called Microsoft Copilot. It indicates that users will get a consistent experience across all their Microsoft products. This will make Copilot easier to use and learn. Also, it will help Microsoft Copilot gain a deeper understanding of the user’s context and needs, leading to the delivery of assistance that is more helpful and relevant. Microsoft Copilot will be available as an app or can be accessed through a right-click when needed. Microsoft plans to incorporate Copilot into other widely used applications with time. This will enable users to receive AI assistance in every dimension of their workflow across different Microsoft applications. Read on to know the answers to some of the questions you might be having related to Microsoft Copilot.

How Microsoft Copilot will transform your work experience across different Microsoft applications

From increased productivity to improved creativity, Microsoft Copilot is here to transform your work experience. Let us have a look at how Copilot will make each application more efficient and productive.

Windows 11

Microsoft has introduced Copilot in preview mode in the latest Windows 11 update. This makes it the first PC platform to announce centralized AI assistance. Acting as an AI assistant, Copilot provides users support in various tasks, such as searching for information, managing system settings, and utilizing productivity tools. Windows Copilot can be accessed from the taskbar or with the Win+C keyboard shortcut. With the AI assistant, you will be able to complete challenging tasks quickly and effortlessly.  Copilot can also provide answers to queries and guide users in taking actions, such as modifying settings, summarizing queries, or launching relevant applications.

Several apps in Windows 11 have been enhanced with AI to make your work faster and simpler. For example, the paint app now has the power of generative AI  with the preview of Cocreator. Paint Cocreator by collaborating with DALL-E  can help generate images from text descriptions.

The power of AI makes editing pictures with the Photos app quick and simple. AI photo editing features like background blur, automatic enhance tool, etc can make your photos stunning with just a click of a button. Clipchamp, the AI-powered video editor and creation app, with features such as auto compose, scene suggestions., etc makes creating business videos easy. Clipchamp can also help you add voiceovers to your videos using AI.

You can learn more about Copilot in Windows here.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot revolutionizes how people work with Microsoft 365 applications including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Loop workspaces. The integration of AI in Microsoft 365 applications can make your business productive, creative, and efficient. Copilot in Word can help summarize documents, rewrite paragraphs, and provide suggestions for edits to make your writing more efficient.  With Copilot, you can transform your sales pitch to resonate with your customers. Leverage Copilot within Excel to analyze, format, and edit your data. Access advanced analytics, produce impactful and professional visualizations, and generate insights and forecasts. As a Microsoft CSP, generating insights into your customer data can help identify new opportunities, make better decisions, and improve your business performance. In Outlook, Copilot can draft emails, summarize threads, and assist in catching up on significant conversations. The “Sound like me” feature allows Copilot to write e-mails in your distinct writing style. Any Teams meeting that you are unable to attend live can be recorded and accessed later through Outlook. When the meeting begins, Teams prompts participants to start recording. Once the recording is prepared, Copilot notifies you in Outlook. Copilot integrated into OneDrive allows you to get information from or the summary of a file without the need to open it. You can just ask Copilot open-ended questions about any file and get the information you require. More information on how AI is powering Microsoft 365 applications is available here.

Bing and Edge

Copilot integrated into Bing and Edge is developed to enhance users’ browsing experience and make it more productive by facilitating various browser actions, tab auto-grouping, inline compose, and PDF view. Your chat history can be used to provide more personalized answers to your search queries. Utilizing AI tools not specifically designed for enterprise use can unintentionally expose sensitive business data to potential risks. To combat this Microsoft has also introduced Bing Chat Enterprise, an AI-driven web chat with measures for safeguarding commercial data. Bing Chat Enterprise relies on web data and offers comprehensive and verifiable answers supported by citations. Microsoft Designer is also being seamlessly incorporated into Bing, which will make editing even simpler.

The features of Microsoft Copilot highlighted above can help both you and your customers. As a Microsoft CSP, Microsoft Copilot can help you in the following ways.

• Automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows enabling your employees to dedicate their efforts to more strategic and creative tasks. This results in accelerated development cycles, improved time management, and lower operational expenses.
• Rapid development and launch of new cloud services and features facilitated by Microsoft Copilot can speed up the pace of cloud adoption and innovation. By simplifying the development process and offering creative solutions and suggestions, Microsoft Copilot can help you maintain a competitive edge and respond to evolving customer expectations.
• Microsoft Copilot can enable your support teams to deliver more efficient and effective assistance to customers. It suggests relevant documentation, identifies potential issues, and provides troubleshooting steps. These lead to quicker issue resolution and increased customer satisfaction.
• Improves team productivity by enhanced collaboration and knowledge sharing. Copilot in Loop can help teams co-create and improve their work together.
• Microsoft Copilot can strengthen security by examining code patterns, identifying well-known security risks, and recommending relevant mitigation strategies. This can help you reduce security risks and ensure that your customers’ data is protected.
• As a Microsoft CSP, you can also develop and sell Copilot-related solutions and services to your customers. This will bring in more revenue for your business as well as help you differentiate yourself from other CSPs.

Has Microsoft Copilot been released?

Microsoft Copilot will be integrated into different Microsoft products at separate times.

• Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft 365 Copilot in March this year. In May, Microsoft introduced the Early Access Program for Microsoft 365 Copilot. This was an invite-only program where existing Microsoft 365 subscribers were selected to participate. Customers such as Visa, General Motors, KPMG, and Lumen Technologies were a part of the Early Access Program. The general availability for Microsoft 365 Copilot began for enterprise users on November 1, with plans to extend availability to non-enterprise users in the future. The languages currently supported by Microsoft 365 Copilot include English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN), Spanish (ES, MX), Japanese, French (FR, CA), German, Portuguese (BR), Italian, and Chinese Simplified.
• For Windows 11, Microsoft Copilot began its rollout on September 26 as part of a Windows 11 update.
• Microsoft Copilot will be introduced to Bing and Edge in the fall of this year.

How much will Microsoft Copilot cost?

Depending on the specific application it is being integrated into, the cost of Microsoft Copilot will differ.

Starting from November 1, 2023, Microsoft 365 Copilot is available as an add-on for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium customers at $30 per user per month. Bing Chat was also rolled out as a preview availability for Microsoft 365 enterprise users in July 2023. Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium subscribers could enjoy Bing Chat Enterprise without additional fees. As a standalone service, it is set to be offered at $5 per month in the future.

Streamline Billing Operations and Enhance Efficiency with C3

While you enhance your business productivity and boost creativity with Microsoft Copilot, also improve your billing performance with C3. Automate every step of the billing cycle, from invoice creation to payment processing, with the help of C3. Doing so will eliminate the potential for human errors, ensuring accurate and timely billing for your customers. Through self-service, customers can conveniently review their billing information and payment history. They can independently handle their subscriptions without requiring assistance from customer support. With C3 you do not have to worry about data transfer between different business tools. C3 offers seamless integration with key business tools like ConnectWise Manage, Datta Autotask, QuickBooks, and Xero.

C3 offers a convenient and secure payment experience for your customers through integrations with Stripe, Authorize.Net, Bill&Pay, MCB, and EziDebit. Customers have the flexibility to make payments through various methods, including credit cards and ACH. Additionally, you have the flexibility to modify and reconcile payments received externally, to keep customer accounts current.

Reach out to us to know more about how C3 can help you boost billing productivity.