Microsoft Ignite 2023: Copilot Updates Part 1

Microsoft is the Copilot company, and on November 1, 2023, Copilot for Microsoft 365 became generally available for enterprises.  In its quest to provide every single person with their own Copilot, Microsoft introduced many new features and apps that will be able to utilize Copilot at this year’s Microsoft Ignite. This is Part 1 of the many new features and announcements this month. Our next article, Microsoft Ignite 2023: Copilot Updates Part 2, will delve into the announcements revolving around Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Copilot, Bing Chat, and Bing Enterprise

Once again, Microsoft is changing the name and face of one of its well-known apps. Going forward, Bing Chat and Bing Enterprise will now be known as Copilot. Copilot will continue to have the foundational abilities to answer questions, reason over data, create content, and continue to have access to the latest information on the web due to its web grounding. Commercial data protection for users who sign in with their Entra ID is free, and better yet for the user, chat data isn’t saved. Microsoft does not have eyes-on access to chat data and this data is not used to train the models.

Copilot for Sales

Licenses for Copilot for Microsoft 365 will be included with Copilot for Sales, which will allow sellers to leverage the power of generative AI across Microsoft 365 apps, CRM systems of record, and other third-party data sources with Power Platform connectors. 

Leveraging the power of both Copilots, sellers will benefit from the power of generative AI across productivity and workflows, including Microsoft Teams and Word. This new integration will:

1. Teams Meeting Recaps: combining insights from Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Microsoft 365, task creation, action items, and conversation KPIs will be surfaced.
   
2. Meeting Brief: Copilot for Sales will be able to gather and pull information including the summary of the account and opportunities, titles and names of participants in the meeting, open tasks related to the opportunities, relevant highlights from recent meetings, relevant email threads, and more. Copilot for Sales will then utilize this information to formulate a meeting preparation brief in Microsoft Word.
   

Copilot for Service

Employing generative AI to boost agent productivity, Microsoft Copilot for Service will integrate with third party CRM and contact centre solutions. Microsoft Copilot for Service will include Copilot for Microsoft 365. AI-powered conversations will be quickly unlocked as enterprises will be able to point to their data such as knowledge base articles, trusted websites, files, files, and data sources from their existing contact center. Straight-out-of-the-box integrations will be available for Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, and with more than 1,000 pre-built and custom connectors, it can be extended to other systems.

During the interaction between a service agent and a customer, agents will be able to ask Copilot for Service questions in their natural language. Copilot for Service will then pull relevant information from customer and product data that is sourced from knowledge repositories. By doing so, cases can be quickly resolved, resulting in better interaction for both customers and agents. As Copilot for Service includes Copilot for Microsoft 365, agents will receive the productive resources in familiar formats including Teams and Outlook, as well as Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, and other third-party applications.

Copilot and Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 Field Service assists businesses in transforming service operations and improving customer experiences by utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT), mixed reality, and AI. New Copilot capabilities and integrations include:

1. Next-Generation AI and Improved Technician Productivity: within Microsoft Teams, frontline workers can ask Copilot in natural language what they need to receive specific information related to work orders. They will be able to access key work order information including status updates, instructions to complete the job, and parts needed.
   
   Frontline workers, in the flow of work in Teams, will be able to edit and view their work orders. For frontline managers, Copilot will assist in scheduling the right worker for the job thereby streamlining and saving time with work order scheduling.
   
   Frontline technicians will no longer have to tab their way through a work order, instead, Copilot will provide a summary of key points in the work order. Frontline technicians will be able to provide progress updates easily and quickly by speaking and providing a description of work done directly to Copilot. Technicians can then focus on providing better customer service with faster data entry as Copilot provides suggestions to efficiently check off service tasks, update product quantities, update status, and add notes.  
   
2. Next-Generation AI and Streamlined Manager Workflows:
   
   Work order creation for managers will become more streamlined, efficient, and faster with Copilot’s Outlook add-in. Relevant details in work orders will be pre-populated from data harnessed from emails while technician scheduling will be optimized by data-driven recommendations that are based on skillset, availability, and travel time. Surfaced within the same app, managers can review relevant work orders to create new work orders while easily rescheduling or updating customer requirements as needed.
   
3. More Integrated Offerings for Greater Efficiency
   
   Real-time price and cost information from work orders will be synced, automatically updating inventory data and financial data as work orders are executed. This seamless inventory and financial data flow between Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management and Dynamics 365 Field Service will ensure that the frontline and the back offices remain in syn, in real time.
   
   Dynamics 365 Field Service clients will also have access to Dynamics 365 Guides and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist at no extra cost. Written by the users, technicians can be provided step-by-step instructions for key tasks and if additional assistance is needed, remote express via HoloLens 2 devices or mobile will ensure real-time collaboration in the field.

With two Copilots in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, sellers using natural language will be able to interact with their data. They will be able to:

1. Obtain contextual insights and recommendations for opportunities and leads with the use of natural language or with pre-built prompts.
   
2. Quickly gain an understanding of customers, meetings, deals, forecasts and more by using natural language or pre-built prompts.
   
3. Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who have the capability to leverage Power Platform Connectors can now integrate in with the Opportunity Summary View in Outlook.
   

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights provides marketers with insights to help them understand their customers while creating personalized experiences, which are possible because of the implementation of next-generation AI and real-time data. By being able to qualify leads based on metrics such as engagement scores, marketers can hand off to their sellers, ensuring the marketing and sales teams maximize the rate of return as well as the opportunity.

An AI-generated summary of customer profiles from their customer data platform application will benefit sellers, providing them the ability to quickly understand their customer. These summaries will include the key components of their customer’s profile such as demographics, behavioral and analytics data, and transactional data.

Copilot and Edge for Business

Copilot for Edge Management Services will be delivered through Copilot for Microsoft 365 in the admin center. By delivering it through the Microsoft 365 admin center, it will provide a shared experience across other Microsoft 365 admin centers including Teams, SharePoint, and more. For IT admins, this will create a cohesive Copilot experience across Microsoft 365 management services.

Copilot and Industry Cloud: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides is bringing the future to field service technicians and operators in the service and manufacturing industries. Combining the powers of generative AI, mixed reality, and Microsoft Cloud, Copilot will provide them with the ability to converse with AI in natural language. In turn, AI will gather information that is garnered from curated documentation and provide the user with relevant information that they have inquired about. The information could include step-by-step guides, service work history, suggestions for troubleshooting, detailed information, current device readings, or completed work order forms.  With mixed reality, holographic overlays will provide technicians and operators with the ability to complete tasks seamlessly with a continuous workflow.

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides will allow organizations to improve operational efficiencies, accelerate onboarding, seamlessly capture, integrate, and democratize institutional knowledge, and enable frontline workers to update and access forms and systems of records.

Microsoft is advancing with its vision of a Copilot for everyone. Weaving and integrating Copilot into Sales, Service, the Dynamics 365 suite, Edge for Business, and Microsoft 365, Copilot will become, if not already, a major AI assistant that will not only improve our abilities to provide customer support and service but will allow us to streamline our processes and workflows.

In our next article, Microsoft Ignite 2023: Copilot Updates Part 2, we will delve into how Microsoft Copilot is being integrated, implemented, and leveraged as the ultimate AI assistant in Microsoft 365. You can also jump to our third article, Microsoft Ignite 2023: Copilot Updates Part 3, for its integration into the Power Platform and Security.